By Peter Burrows elburropete@gmail.com 4/2/22

The ACLU has a proud history. It was formed in 1920 from groups that had opposed Woodrow Wilson's extensive violations of the constitution during WW I. Anybody who thinks an Adolf Hitler couldn't happen here doesn't know how close we came with Woodrow Wilson. (1)

In the Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925, the new ACLU established its First Amendment, free speech bona fides by supporting Clarence Darrow in his defense of the school teacher who taught evolution, a hot issue back then. The ACLU backed the NAACP in another hot issue in 1954 when the Supreme Court found school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v Board of Education. Perhaps the ACLU's most famous case was in 1977 when a Nazi organization requested their help to get a permit to parade in the heavily Jewish city of Skokie, IL. A Jewish lawyer at the ACLU took the case and prevailed!

Those cases, and many others, are a legacy ALL of us can be proud of. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, that was then. Today, the ACLU has essentially become "another Dem super Pac," as Allen Dershowitz put it. He added, "Everything the ACLU does today seems to be a function of its fundraising. To be sure, it must occasionally defend a Nazi, a white supremacist, or even a mainstream conservative. But that is not its priority these days, either financially or emotionally. Its heart and soul are in its wallet and checkbook. It is getting rich while civil liberties are suffering." (2)

Dershowitz was a member of the ACLU National Board back when it was relatively poor:  "The ACLU used to be cash poor but principle-rich. Now, ironically, after Trump taking office, the ACLU has never become so cash-rich, yet principle-poor. --- Today it is flush with cash, with net assets of over $450 million dollars. (In) 2017, it received "unprecedented donations" after President Trump's election. Unprecedented it truly has been: the ACLU received $120 million dollars from online donations alone (up from $3-5 million during the Obama years)."

(By 3/31/21, revenues had grown to $422 million and net assets to $748 million. I'm betting they would LOVE it if Trump ran again in 2024!)

Ironically, some of those donations were and are in support of the ACLU's defense of Muslims, a group that couldn't be more opposed to our civil liberties. It started when Trump criticized Muslims and put restrictions on travel from six Muslim nations. This was immediately branded a "Muslim ban," which it wasn't, and "racist," as if Islam is a race, which it isn't.

No matter. The ACLU is big on "racial justice." From their web site, excerpted for brevity: "The ACLU Racial Justice Program actively supports affirmative action - Affirmative action is one of the most effective tools for redressing the injustices caused by our nation's historic discrimination against people of color and women - A centuries-long legacy of racism and sexism has not been eradicated - We need affirmative action now more than ever." (3)

Now more than ever? Affirmative action was never needed and certainly not now. Obviously, the ACLU has run out of things to do to justify their fat income statement and huge balance sheet.

MUSLIMS TO THE RESCUE!!

Sadly, if recent history is any guide, the ACLU will protect Muslims at the expense of others. Just like affirmative action has harmed those forced to make room for "people of color and women," putting Muslims first will do harm to others, and the ACLU won't see it.

Dershowitz nails it: "The question being asked today by ACLU board members is: is it good or bad for the left, is it good or bad for Democrats, is it good or bad for women, is it good or bad for people of color, is it good or bad for gays? These are reasonable questions to be asked by groups dedicated to the welfare of these groups but not by a group purportedly dedicated to civil liberties for all." (My emphasis.)

For example, Muslims could have – and probably did – write this entry on the ACLU website:

"PROTECTING THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM OF MUSLIMS - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech --- First Amendment, US Constitution. --- From religiously motivated discrimination and attacks on existing and proposed Islamic centers to vicious rhetoric from presidential candidates, Muslims in America are being unfairly targeted simply for exercising their basic constitutional right to religious liberty. We must always — especially in times of controversy — vigilantly uphold our core values."

The problem is that the ACLU doesn't realize is that Islam doesn't share our core values, something all too apparent in Islamic nations. Ironically, the only religion Islam allows is Islam, which means the ACLU shouldn't cite the First Amendment to protect Islam, but should cite the First Amendment to BAN Islam. Here's Islam's mission statement, from Allah Himself Verse 9:33 in the Koran, my clarifications in parentheses:

He (Allah) it is Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad) with the guidance and the True Religion (Islam) that He (Allah) may make it prevail over all religions, howsoever (followers of those religions) might detest it.

A Twentieth Century Islamic authority had this explanation of that verse: "--- a Prophet is the representative of the Lord of the universe, he seeks to make the Right Way (Islam) prevail. If any other way of life continues to exist, it should be satisfied with the concessions made to it by Islam." (4)

In short, Allah decrees that Islam must rule. To that end, Muhammad declared, "I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah --- If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me." (My emphasis.) (5)

Commanded to fight people? Saved their blood? This is Islam, the religion the ACLU defends and if you think those threats were only a problem when Muhammad was around, you are wrong. Numerous verses in the Koran make it clear that Muslims must wage war until Islam rules the world. Here is a footnote to Verse 2:190 from a contemporary translation published in Saudi Arabia:

"Al-Jihad (holy fighting) In Allah's Cause (with full force of numbers and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars on which it stands. By Jihad Islam is established, Allah's Word is made superior and (Islam) is propagated. --- Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim - -." (6)

Jihad can take many forms, both violent and non-violent. Non-violent is the early stage that uses persuasion to advance Islam. It is "in its later stages when the struggle assumes a combative dimension." (7) America is still for the most part in the non-violent stage, characterized by political activism that supports Muslim organizations, such as the Muslims Student Association, and encourages Muslims to run for political office, e.g., there are three Muslims in Congress.

Less benignly, Muslims also push for censorship of any criticism of Islam, such as this article, and brand critics as "Islamophobes" and "racists." Muslims would love to have laws passed criminalizing such criticism as "hate speech." Islamic law, sharia, defines slander as anything that offends a Muslim, whether true or not. That would effectively shut down factual discussion of what Islam really is, as opposed to what so many Muslims want us to believe it is.

(I wonder how today's ACLU would come down on that? They are already defending Islam's "right" to violate the First Amendment's religion clause, so maybe they would defend their "right" to violate the free speech clause, too.)

America is also no stranger to Islamic violence, the most destructive being the Twin Towers attack, which killed 2,977. The next most lethal was the 2016 Pulse Night Club attack, a gay bar where a Muslim killed 49. (I wrote about this in "The FBI and me," 7/17/16.) There have been numerous other deadly attacks, but none of them, including 9/11, has ever been blamed on devout Muslims simply doing what Islam demands.

It's always extremists and radicals, never plain vanilla Muslims. We should listen to what the honest Muslims tell us. Recep Erdogan, the president of Turkey, once said, "'These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that's it."

To get the ACLU to wake up to that fact, I think victims of violent jihad should sue their socks off. On their web site, the ACLU cites cases where they have legally challenged the "Infiltration and surveillance of Mosques and Muslim communities." In 2013, for example, they sued the New York Police Department for "discriminatory surveillance" of Muslims:

"The NYPD's program, dedicated to the total surveillance of Muslims in the greater New York City area, operated under the unconstitutional premise that Muslim beliefs and practices are a basis for law enforcement scrutiny."

(I'm not sure if that's an "unconstitutional premise" given that it is a factual reality.)

"The final settlement approved by the court in March 2017 established a number of reforms designed to protect New York Muslims and others from discriminatory and unjustified surveillance. --- The reforms include the following: Prohibiting investigations in which race, religion, or ethnicity is a substantial or motivating factor;"

Thus, the ACLU won a court order preventing any surveillance if religion was a "motivating factor," yet Islam preaches violence in its literature and its mosques. The assumption that surveillance of Muslims and mosques is "unjustified" is completely wrong. I don't think there should be any mosques, but that isn't going to happen until the "clear and present danger" of Islam is finally recognized.

To expedite that long overdue realization, victims of Muslim violence should sue the ACLU for aiding and abetting, or something like that. For example, the Muslim immigrant who drove a rented truck down a bike path in New York in 2017, killing 8 and injuring 12, had this to say when arraigned: "The judgments that are made here are not important for me," he said through an interpreter. "They are not Allah's judgments." (9)

This is Islam straight, no chaser. I wonder what a good lawyer would do with that. If it were me, I'd try to hire a lawyer working for the ACLU or who was once affiliated with the ACLU. Hmmmm. Two names come to mind: Allen and Dershowitz.

(Hat tip to Morgan Freeman. When cast to play Nelson Mandela in the movie, Invictus, he was asked if he had any ideas for a director. He said, "I have two names: Clint and Eastwood.")

Footnotes/Guide to Sources:
(!) See Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, 2007, Chapter 3, "Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of Liberal Fascism," pgs. 78 – 121.
(2) Dershowitz, all quotes: www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13087/aclu-opposition-to-kavanaugh-sounds-its-death
(3) ACLU web site, all quotes: https://www.aclu.org/
(4) Sayyid Mawdudi, Towards Understanding the Qur'an, English version of "Tafhim al-Qur'an, 1993, Vol III, pg. 205.
(5) The Reliance of the Traveller (sic), "A Classic Manual of Islamic Scared law," pg. 599
(6) Interpretation of the Meanings of The Noble Qur'an, Khan, Al-Hilali translation,
Darussalam, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1999 pg. 50,
(7) Mawdudi, ibid pg. 225
(8) https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/erdogan
(9) //sports.yahoo.com/accused-n-y-attacker-says-u-courts-judgment-214633436.html