April 29, 2014 • 43 mins
Being a card-carrying member of the ACLU is tantamount to being a super liberal to some, but the ACLU ultimately displays no allegiance to any political philosophy, only to whomever's Constitutional rights are being infringed upon, from Nazis to the NAACP.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you should know from House Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles to be, Chuck Bryant, Jerry's there.
She just yawned. Yeah, this is stuff you should know. Yeah,
if you like this, you can hang out with us
(00:21):
on social media to chuck, they can. Yeah, we're on
Instagram now, which is exciting. Yes, and we're on Pinterest now,
which is exciting. We have our Twitter account of course,
our venerable Facebook page, yeah, and our home on the web.
Stuff you should do dot com where we have all
sorts of cool context and you can find all that
stuff by typing in s Y s K or Josh
(00:42):
and Chuck or stuff you should know, and it'll bring
up all that stuff. Fun, fun stuff. You know what
else is fun? What? Freedom of expression? That's right, buddy? Yeah?
You know why? Why? Because freedom can't protect itself? Is
that right? I think that was the slogan at one point.
It may still be. Oh yeah, American Civil Liberties Union.
(01:05):
I thought it was get bent. It's funny. It is
a controversial organization. So yeah, my heart goes out to
them like I love them in the same way that
I love the inflammation from my laceration, like I'm healing.
I know it's good for me that, but it burns
(01:27):
and hurts and it's bright red and raised. Right, I
know what you mean, Like, sure, defend the Ku Klux
Klan because there are Americans too. Yeah, yeah, what age
did you realize it wasn't klu Klux Klan? I think
I was thirty seven? Really, no, no, no, no, but
I did used to think it was Clu Klux everybody did.
(01:47):
It just rolls off the tongue more. But then you
turn like ten or eleven or whatever, and finally your
dad is like, it's Ku Klux Klan. And then shortly
after that you realize they're just a bunch of rednecks
with too much time on their hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I can't remember what episode we talked about, but we're
like everybody hates the clan here in America. Just to
let you guys who are listening internationally know you remember that. Yeah,
(02:09):
I mean, that's one of the ones I feel safe about,
like no one's going to write it and say, well,
like what, I don't want to hear your opinions about
the clan, you know, who may who the A c
l U. That's a good point. Yeah, no, no, they
will defend my right to say that, actually right, but
they'll also defend the clans right to rally against you
saying that I've actually done it before. What's the famous
onion the headline, A c LU defends clans right to
(02:32):
burn down a c l U building. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's pretty funny. That's great stuff, all right. The onion
I look to see if that was a Joe Randazzo joint,
and unfortunate came about three years before Joe got there.
Still good. Uh So, Chucky sent me a pretty interesting
little article that I think kind of illustrates the bipolarity.
(02:54):
Maybe have the A c l U, but as we'll find,
they're really unipolar, although they seem too faced. Yes, we're
gonna get to the bottom of all this. And again,
like I like the A c l U. Al right,
I don't care what anybody says, all right. Uh So,
there's a little boy in um Cannon County, Tennessee, and
(03:16):
he was part of the Reach after school program r
E A c H. It's an acronym that I didn't
bother to look up. Some kind of slack. It starts
with reading. I bet I'll bet it does too. And
it's an after school program. And this little boy UM
was reading at this probably reading based after school program
and he's reading his Bible and one of the staff
workers said, you can't read that here. You can read
(03:37):
anything else in the world that you want, you can't
read your Bible. She said, or I was assuming is she,
but he maybe said our program gonna be shut down
because this is a state run program, state funded, and like,
we can't have this intermingling between church and state. First
of all, this is Tennessee that somebody's saying that. Secondly,
(03:58):
they tried to take the boy's Bible away because he
refused to put it up. He said, no, I'm reading this.
This is what I want to read. And there was
a big kerfuffle, and the A c l you stepped
in and is defending this boy's right to read his
Bible in church because it's in school, because it's freedom
of expression. Yeah, the same A c. L U who
(04:18):
is long um fought too not have state and school
sponsored religious readings, even saying like God bless this, Uh,
this class of two thousand fourteen, A C. L You
would say, I would be like, yeah, give us some money. So, like,
like you said, it seems like a contradiction, is actually
(04:40):
not a contradiction because they were doing the same thing.
They're fighting for someone's right to express something or read
something on their own, you know, because there's a because
it's guaranteed by the Constitution. It doesn't matter if it's unpopular. No,
they're they're going to defend you as a minority of
(05:01):
or in a single individual or a large group. It
doesn't matter as long as somebody is saying like, no,
you're not allowed to assemble, you're not allowed to say that,
you're not allowed to think that, you're not allowed to
do anything guaranteed by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
The A c l U, by their charter will step
in and defend you in your rights, whether they think
you're the violence person on the planet or not. Yeah,
(05:24):
and hold on, I want to defend myself. I wasn't
saying bipolar in the sense of the mental disorder. Bipolarity
can refer to all sorts of stuff. I didn't mean
it in that sense at all. Okay, that's good to
point out. Um, they're all over the map, But generally
they handle cases of freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
privacy rights. Um. But again they will take up and
(05:46):
we'll see what kind of cases like how you can
get your case taken up by the a c l
You later on. But they handle about six thousand court
cases a year. Uh. They are a nonprofit. They provide
legal aid and are about five hundred thousand members, card
carrying members and about two hundred full time staff attorneys.
(06:08):
Not bad at this point. And there's a national UM chapter,
and then there's state chapters. It's not state and localist
a state right. Yeah, each state has its own organization
and they don't often always agree with the national chapters,
and they have to work it out, and the states
are given the rights to work it out. So, Chuck,
let's talk about this. Why why if the a c
(06:29):
l U is defending people's rights that are guaranteed by
the Constitution, everybody loves the Founding fathers, Democrats, Republicans, commies,
everybody loves the Founding Fathers, right, and the Founding fathers
created this great Constitution and then further created this wonderful
bill of rights and everybody's happy about it. Um, Why
would everybody hate the a c l U. If they're
just defending people's rights as guaranteed by the constitution, well,
(06:52):
because their their view is we have to defend everyone,
not just pick and choose. So they end up having
to defend Nazis and clansmen and religious zealots and pornographers
and yeah, like people on the extreme fringes. They still
have rights in this country. Yea unpopulars and maybe and
(07:13):
the a c l U fights for those rights and
a lot of people hate him because of it. Yeah,
it's true. But as we'll see, some some people who
hate them also love them when the a c o
U comes around to their side to defend them when
they get screwed over. Yeah, they're very polarizing. Yeah, it's
pretty My again, my hat is off to this this
(07:34):
um organization. It's hard to do something unpopular and to
see you feel like it's right to walk a line
to which it's walk this line and it's this line
that it it it hears it's like um uh oh man,
what is the guy the safety crusader? Yeah Nader. Yeah,
he's like the a c l U. He he was like,
(07:56):
this is right, this is the right course. And if
we veer off of it, then we're wrong. If you're
not on this line, you're wrong. And he used that
kind of thinking to you know, get Seatbelts Institute and
all this stuff. But he was very unpopular. Many times
people who used to be colleagues and cohorts with him, um, like,
when they stopped seeing eye eye with him, he would
(08:18):
speak out publicly against him. And the a c l
US very much like that. It's like, this is right,
it's black and white. You are allowed to say this,
and if somebody tells you can't, then we intervene on
your behalf. Yeah, with the idea that if the government
is allowed to restrict the rights of some group that
they don't like, that could lead down the rabbit hole
to restricting other groups, and you just can't allow that
(08:40):
in a free country. That's precisely right. So, UM, I
think we've gotten the point across about the this third
time out, let's talk about the history of this organization. Yeah,
it's pretty cool. Um. It started um during World War One.
There was a group UM in New York called the
Henry Street Peace Committee in nineteen steine and they were
(09:01):
they were little sissy pacifists who didn't want to go
to war, and they spoke out against it and form
the American Union against Militarism. And um, we're talking newsletters, uh,
magazine ads, leaflets, leaflets and newsletters. Yeah. Um, but that
wasn't a popular thing back then, nor is it today.
(09:23):
If you don't support wars, generally in certain circles, you
were thought of to be unpatriotic. Yeah. It's a lot
different today though than it was before. Like you know
those people that that protested Peach Tree and fourt keeenth
outside Colony Square every Friday, like that one of the
Indigo Girls shows up once in a while, Like the
people will honk in their support. They're not going to jail. Yeah,
(09:46):
it is different in this in this era, these people
who were put sending out leaflets, it sounds so innocuous.
They went to jail. Yeah. The Palmer Raids in the
United States less than a hundred years ago. If you
say anything that was considered anti government or anti war,
you went to jail for up to maybe twenty years sometimes. Yeah. Um.
(10:09):
General Attorney General Mitchell Palmer in the nineteen in nineteen nineteen,
nineteen twenty conducted the Palmer Raids, which basically rounded up
and deported whoever they thought was a radical. Um thousands
of people, no warrants, no due process. It was just
sort of like you're coming with me, you anti war pacifists,
commy and waiting. Yeah, And I mean, like that's a
(10:31):
good point too, Like there was a lot of socialists,
There are a lot of communists, there are a lot
of anarchists, a lot of Marxists, a lot of people
who were um advocating and agitating too for other economic
and government models. Right, the pacifists weren't necessarily I mean,
they may have had something in common with those people,
(10:51):
and some of the pacifists might have been Marxists and
vice versa. But the pacifists were just anti war. Some
of them were like the U. S has no as
this intervening, and what's what amounts to a European war.
Other people say wars a terrible thing, and like I
object to it outright on its basis. Their pacifists and
(11:12):
the pacifists too would get rounded up and taken to jail.
Um and like you said, without due process, without any
kind of their rights were taken away. In nineteen seventeen
and the nineteen eighteen with the Espionage Act first, and
then the Sedition Act in in nineteen eighteen, where the
(11:34):
US passed a law that said if you if you
speak out against the government, against the war, against the
war effort, if you say we shouldn't be producing as
much rubber, well we need rubber for the war effort,
So we can throw you in jail for up to
twenty years. Man. And in twenty years, that's twenty years.
Is different back then in twenty years in two thousand
(11:54):
and twelve years, because that's like um in twenty years
for the average lifespan was point to seven of your life. Yea,
it was of your life. In that was cent of
your life thanks to the flu epidemic. So that was
a lot of years to like go to prison, you know.
(12:14):
I mean, that's still a lot of years to go
to prison. But I see what you mean. But it's
in the context of this that these people were organizing
and saying, no, we're not just gonna shut up. We're
gonna keep doing what we're doing, and we're gonna come
after you government that's using repression. So if like you
admire the a c O You today for any sort
of bravery, like if you take it back to the
(12:35):
original organization that those these were genuinely brave people who
are willing to face not just being unpopular, but going
to prison for twenty years for fighting for what freedoms
that are guaranteed in the constitution. Yeah, and fighting against
war in general. A couple of those people are the founders,
Crystal Eastman and Roger Baldwin. There are social workers and uh,
(12:59):
big supporters of the labor movement, and they founded uh
the a U A M UM that, like I said,
the American Union Against Militarism and uh they started assisting
legally with some of these cases, which was kind of
the first uh steps of what would later become the
a C l U was legal support, which is the
(13:21):
key the Civil Liberties Bureau, which is like a subset
of the UM a U A M where basically it
was like if you got sent to jail for um
handing out leaflets or something, they would come and assist
you with your court case. Yeah. And that well, that
wasn't Alongside that followed the a U A M split
and then the n c LB arose in its place.
(13:45):
I got which is good. Um Baldwin went to jail
for a year for not complying with his draft notice,
got released, set up a different n c LB, now
called the American Civil Liberty Union. So in earnest it
was born on January nineteenth, nineteen. Is it like the
day he got out or something. I don't know if
(14:06):
it's a day he got out, but it was basically
just the restructured version of the National Civil Liberties Bureau. Yeah. So,
and initially like they were thinking, well, we'll just keep
up with the leaflets they seemed to be working. How
about a newsletter to leaflets never worked, by the way, right,
but also like staging protest strikes, just getting publicity to
(14:28):
try to um have an impact on the prevailing American
sympathies towards the idea of pacifism or whatever. Yeah, they
weren't just suing people out of the gate. No. And
the reason why they stayed out of the courts in
general because because at the time the courts were overtly
hostile to the idea of freedom of speech, especially but
other constitutionally guaranteed protections. The Supreme Court would just say no,
(14:51):
we we we don't like what you have to say,
and uh, and the rest of America doesn't so no, yeah,
you're we're upholding your conviction for saying that the war
is bad. Yeah. It was weird. Like literally up until
the nineteen twenties, most of the civil liberties granted us
to us were not tested, even because the Screen Court
(15:14):
would shoot it down. Like whenever they tried, they were
just saying, no, no, you don't have those rights after all.
You know something that I'm curious about. I wonder if
there's a correlation, because this is also like the end
of the guilded age, but there was also I mean,
there were a lot of very like wealthy, powerful interests
in The income gap was pretty substantial back then, and
I wonder if, like it is now, um, with the
(15:37):
income gap growing, if there's a correlation become between income
and quality inequality and um, a repression of freedom of
speech and privacy and things like that. I wonder if
like the two are related. Sounds like a book in
the making, my friend, No question, too much work. Um,
(15:59):
All right, well, I guess we should talk about some
of their most famous early cases. Let's do that, but
let's take a little break first. Alright, So early on,
like we said, um, the Supreme Court hadn't hadn't been
challenged that much in cases like these, and when they did,
they weren't too kind to free speech. It is weird
(16:20):
to think of now, for sure. Um, but in the
nineteen thirties is when the A C all you began
to kind of make a little headway, um against kind
of against the Supreme Court. Yeah. Well, they started to
win smaller cases that you didn't have to go to
the Supreme Court, and it was kind of like, um,
(16:41):
death of repression by a thousand paper cuts, you know
what I mean. So, like all those little cases started
to add up where it was like, um, something in
some change to the law in Louisville, Kentucky, didn't really
have much effect in Missouri. But then they want a
case in Missouri. And then if you started to step
back and look at it on a map, you're like, oh,
(17:01):
all of a sudden, this the balance is swinging the
other direction. Yeah. But when they did win big Supreme
Court cases, they were huge Supreme Court cases. I mean,
like some of the most important cases of the twentieth
century the a c. L Us either been directly or
indirectly involved in, like the Scopes monkey trial that was
a big one. Yeah, they And we've talked a lot
(17:22):
about evolution lately, UM, and we didn't cover Scopes at all.
But uh, in Tennessee there was a law banning teaching
evolution in and so the a c LU went out
and found a biology teacher named John Scopes, said hey,
we would like you to teach evolution, and let's see
what happens. And he was prosecuted and the a c
(17:46):
l YOU got together with the famous attorney Clarence Darrow
to defend him, and he was still found guilty, even
though that verdict was overturned later because of a sentencing error.
But so the a c l YOU lost, they lost,
but it made big headlines and UM was really sort
of one of the turning points and establishing like freedom,
(18:06):
academic freedom in this country. Yeah, and I think not
just as far as the A c l U goes,
but any anyone who's kind of UM trying to make
a change in the nation. I think one way to
do that is to just get people talking about it,
because I think a lot of people, especially if they're
in the majority or they hold the majority view, make
the oftentimes incorrect assumption that everybody else holds the same
(18:28):
view too. And I think just if you're just confronted
by an opposing point of view, just knowing that it's
out there, whether you agree with it or not, can
kind of make you reflect and think about the views
you hold too, and why you hold them, and whether
they're um good views or not. So I think that's
the that the the impression I have of the cases
that it got people talking, and it made people who
(18:51):
agreed with not teaching evolution realize like, whoa were not
everybody thinks the same way I do. Yeah, ideally, Uh
so you know, you're oponents are going to say that
the c U is defending U, their watchdog, protecting everyone's
civil liberties, whereas people who poopoo it say no, they're
really a left wing organization and they subvert the Constitution
(19:12):
and they protect criminals, and they attack religion and they
have an extremist agenda. Um, so those are sort of
the two sides of the argument. The thing is, though,
is like they if you go back over there, their history. Okay.
This article points out the perfect example, which one the
one where in the thirties and the nineteen forties the
a c l U defended both the n double A
(19:34):
CP and blacks rights to UM enfranchisement and just equal
treatment and UM basically civil rights. And while at the
same time, during these same years, the the a c
l U is also defending the Ku Klux Klan and
it's right to assemble and speak out against UM black rights. Yeah,
(19:56):
that was the Skokie. Uh. Now, this is long before Skoki.
This is like the thirties and forties. The Skokie was
the Nazis. That was another big one. Yeah, well, I
guess we can go ahead and talk about that, the
Skokie free speech controversy. In the late seventies. Uh, a
group of neo Nazis in Chicago wanted to uh have
(20:16):
permission to go to Skokie, Illinois, not form a barbershop
quartet UM, but hold a demonstration. And that was a UM.
Skokie was famous for being um the center of a
Chicago's Jewish community post Holocaust. A bunch of Jewish people
settled there, and so of course the neo Nazis wanted
(20:37):
to go to the heart of it all in protest um.
They asked the a c LU for help and they
got it, and we're granted permission even though they didn't
use it. Yeah, because scote. When the Neo Nazis applied
for a permit to assemble or um have a parade
to Nazi parade, basically they Skokie City Council said, well,
(20:57):
you know that you have to post a dollar bond,
which is gonna cost you about a grand I just
want to let you know about that first. And the
new Nazis said, you are trampling our rights. And that's
when they got in touch with the a c l U,
and the a C l you said, yeah, they're trampling
your rights, it sounds like. And they fought too for
the Nazis right to assemble based on the idea that
(21:18):
that thousand dollar basically fee to assemble was prohibitive and
that you know, anybody who wanted to hold a parade
or a protest or anything like that in Skokie it
wouldn't necessarily be able to afford that, So protests shouldn't
just be open to the people who can afford that
thousand dollar bond. And therefore Skokie, I guess relented, But
(21:42):
the Nazis never even came. Now, they never even held
their protest. Yeah, and that's that's gonna make you unpopular.
As an organization if you are campaigning for the rights
of the Nazis, but the A c l U bites
their tongue and say no, we have to Well, you know, um,
you remember the part in the Blues Brothers. This is
all um very famously dramatized. Remember the Illinois Nazis. I
(22:04):
hate Illinois Nazis and they drive past him and make
them jump into the river. Yeah. I guarantee that was
because of the Skokie Skokie Nazi thing. It was all
around the same time. Yeah, and they were Chicago as well. Yeah,
and Chuck, have you ever seen you know the mall
part where they drive through the mall? I made the
(22:25):
slideshow UM nine abandoned malls around America, and that malls
in there, it's like abandoned in in this total state
of decay. The Dixie Mall, I believe it's what it's
called Dixie Square. It's pretty cool. Well, the other one
you have in there was Avondale Mall close to where
I grew up, and that famously had the chase scene
from Invasion USA. Oh yeah, Chuck Norris drove a truck
(22:49):
through that mall. I did not know that. And the mall.
It was kind of crappy, and I was a kid.
I remember when it shot there and then they got
like a full makeover because of the movie, and uh
now it's to Walmart. They tore down. Yeah, that's kind
of a crappy mall. Well, it looked pretty cool abandoned. Yeah,
it looks very cool. Um. Another case back to the A. C.
(23:09):
L U. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnett
in nt UH school board expelled two thousand students Jehovah's
Witness students because they refused to recite the Pledge of
Allegiance because it um their religion, forbade worshiping images including
the U. S. Flag, and they won the case. Um,
(23:30):
the Supreme Court said that you can't force someone to
declare your belief in any religion or nation, which goes
back to you know, it may be unpopular in certain circles,
but you can't say you're a free country and then
you can practice any religion you want, but then force
people to contradict that religion. You know, if this is
(23:54):
the land of the free, you have to allow You
may not like it. I'm not saying everyone has to
like this stuff, but it's a pretty slope if you
start restricting these freedoms. Can you imagine telling some little
Jehovah's witness kid like, Well, then you can't go to
school here. If you're not going to say the Pledge
of Allegiance, you have no right to educate. It's man,
this country's got not so history. Um what else? Uh?
(24:18):
Joseph Burston inc. Versus Wilson's one of my favorites. Well,
basically there's this movie, uh released here in the U s.
As The Miracle, but it was titled in Europe a
More with an E on the INSA maybe a more
A yeah, you know what. The deal with the movie
was a lady who she had a mental illness and
(24:39):
thought she was the virgin Mary. Well, she she had
too much to drink. Oh, I read mental illness. Well,
she was applied with with drink and then had sex
with a vagabond she thought was St. Joseph, who was
played by Federico Fellini, who co wrote it. I believe, yeah,
but did not direct it and got pregnant and believed
that was an immaculate concept. Right. So the Catholics in
(25:02):
the fifties done. They did not like the movie, and
they had a lot of cloud in New York at
the time. And in New York, if you were a
movie theater and you're planning on showing the Miracle, uh,
the city said, well, we're just gonna take your your
license to show movies in general. If you do that,
do not show this movie. Some places in New York
where like, this movie's banned. You can't even carry it
(25:24):
into our city borders if you want to. Um. And
they took it the A c. L. You stepped in
and they took it to the Supreme Court, and the
Supreme Court said, the state has this is a quote,
the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or
all religions from views distasteful of them. So they said,
you're right, A c. L. You. That was a big
(25:45):
deal because at the time, religion was basically this kind
of infallible institution that took precedent over everything else. The
it was the the the moral attitude of the country
where it was like, note, religions offended by it, it's bad. Sorry,
whatever laws you've got that like protect this stupid little movie.
(26:06):
Who cares, We're banning it because it's it offends a
religion and because of that and many other things that
Catholic League UH and its leader Bill Donahoe UM are
huge critics of the a c l U, although he's
also um praised the A c l You when when
they've defended Catholic rights too well, Larry Flint, remember he
(26:28):
thought some of these same battles, and his attorney famously
was like, I think he's kind of a scumbag too,
and I think that he's a smart peddler and this
stuff is disgusting. Edward Norton. Yeah, Like, but you can't, uh,
you know, you can't say he can't do it. Yeah,
that was a great movie except for Corney Love. Everything
of everything, but Corny Love was great in that movie.
(26:49):
Although I did like her A Man on the Moon
for some reason, I don't. I don't like her much period.
I'm not a fan. Really, do you like Corney Love? Okay?
Um No, but that if I did the A c
l you would defend my right to like Courtney Love
despite it being really unpopular. That is true. H Smith V.
(27:13):
All Right, the a c l U. UM. Basically what
was going on there was they had what we're called
white primaries, UH, the Democratic Party for their elections, and uh,
it was illegal because it denied blacks a chance to
uh to vote and to participate. That is exactly what
it'sunded like. And um, previous to this court said Long said,
(27:36):
political parties are private organizations. They're not subject to these
antidiscrimination laws. But the Supreme Court did the right thing
and said, you know what, being able to participate in
the voting primaries important in this country and if we
want to remain a democracy, we need to not have
things like white primaries. So we're going to reach into
your protected enclave and say you can't do that any more. Yeah,
(28:01):
because voting this that important. Yeah, which is kind of
a radical view in and of itself because it overturned
a precedent and custom. Yeah, I think we should do
some more. Um. When I was in New York, I
saw that play, The Cranston plays L B. J. And
All the Way, and it covers the year the eleven
months post Kennedy assassination to the his re election bid
(28:25):
where he got the Civil Rights Act passed. And it
was fascinating and did all kinds of research about it.
Was Kranston good, He's great, like completely became the character
like I forgot it was Cranston. And then after the play,
you know, he becomes Brian Cranston again to thank everyone,
and it's just like, it's weird just seeing an actor
in front of your eyes, like morph back into the
real person. It's pretty cool. But I want to definitely
(28:49):
tackle some more civil rights issues because probably the darkest
spot in our nation's history and been plenty of wasn't
that long ago either. I can't remember who the person's name,
but remember we were talking about Kent State and how
that was like the darkest spot on our nation's history,
and somebody wrote it was like that was pretty bad,
but don't forget all of the strikes where you know,
(29:12):
National Guard troops fired on and killed like a hundred
striking workers just for striking in the twenties or whatever.
So whoever that was, thanks for taking me to task,
because that's absolutely correct. A lot of dark spots, a
lot of dark spots, a lot of bright spots too,
sure man. And with that cheery idea, let's take one
more break. Okay, Sunshine, what do you got next? Uh? Well,
(29:38):
I guess you talked about the Scopes trial or we
did for a second. Um, some of the other most
famous cases in this country's history. Like I know people
that listen to our podcast on the Japanese and tournament camps. Yeah. Oh,
and if you can't find it, just go to our
archive page. We have an archive page now that has
(29:59):
every single one of the six plus stuff you should
Know episodes ever made, all in one place. Yeah. It
took you know, six years to make that happen, but
we're very proud of that. It's a stuff you should
Know dot com slash podcast, slash archive, so you will
find that one in there. Um, was it Japanese stragglers
or do we do one on internment camps? We do
one on internment Okay. That was when we FDR rounded
(30:22):
up or ordered the government to round up people of
Japanese descent, even some of whom were Americans, Like most
of them were, Yeah, like natural born America enuane citizens
to the relocation camps. And the a c l u
UM jumped on this, and they were they were one
of the only groups kind of standing up and saying
this isn't right at the time. Yeah. They also had
(30:45):
this whole campaign against calling French fries freedom fries, Like
you can't call it that and everyone's like, boo, sit down,
did they say that now? And then other famous cases
like Brown the Board of Education and we Wade and
Dobe Bolton. The a c l U was instrumental in
all of these. Again, um, even though it's unpopular to
(31:08):
some people. Fighting for the freedoms of the minorities. Yeah. Also, um,
recently the the Communications Decency Act, which basically made it
a crime to knowingly send pornography to minors or something
like that. He said, Nope, that's you can't tell people
they can't do that. That's freedom of speech. Yeah, it's
(31:31):
like a Janet reno idea. And they got smacked down
like overturned basically by the Supreme Court. Again, unpopular moves.
They're not out to make friends though. No. And the
one that I've got this is to me, the most
despicable case that a c l U has ever taken.
But take it however you want. Have you heard of
Nambula the National man Boy there the North American Man
(31:54):
Boy Love Association. So Namba Nambula is exactly what you think.
It's basically a club for peders and their website is
apparently it UH tutorial training Ground Forum chat room place
to get tips on how to be a more effective
pederast or pedophile. Uh. And these two guys um they
(32:17):
are named Charles James and Salvator Sakari. They were convicted
of murdering a couple's son, Jeffrey, and Um they basically
said everything we needed to know we learned from Nambula,
from the Nambula website. And so the Curlies, the people
the couple whose son was murdered by these child murderers
(32:39):
UH were went after Nambula and the a c l
U intervened and said, Nambula is actually an unincorporated association,
not a corporation, so it's allowed to extol illegal acts
as long as it's not inciting people telling people to
go do these illegal acts. It can still appreciate at
(33:00):
these illegal accident if you look at their website, that's
all they're doing. And the suit against NAMBLA has dismissed
again not popular. You know, the l c c LU
has to you know that they feel forced into some
of these situations. Probably well, there's oftentimes been a lot
of shakeups internally where people at the a c l
You're saying, no, this is this is beyond the line,
(33:23):
like they're there, this is just too wrong. What these
people are saying is too despicable, and maybe we shouldn't
be maybe they shouldn't be allowed to say it. And
the a c l U as an organization has walked
that line, lost a lot of members and a lot
of supporters and a lot of employees, but it's stayed,
you know, true to its vision and is still around today.
(33:44):
All right, Let's say you want the a c l
U to take up your cause. You have to write
them a letter. You have to outline your problem, maybe
provide a little evidence, build your case with them, and
if it's not in modern language association accepted outline form,
then they just won't even look at it. Probably so um.
And they basically determine is it a civil liberties case
(34:06):
that we should get involved with and how should we
get involved? Um. They don't just go out and see everyone. Um.
Most times they try to resolve the cases just by
getting in touch with whoever the government agency and saying, hey, um,
you might want to check out the constitution because it
seems like what you're doing now isn't isn't so great
(34:27):
and it might not even be Constitution Like it could be, Um,
it could be like we we understand what you're saying,
but recently there's some legislation passed and it's now law,
and here's the code if you want to go look
it up. But you can stop trampling this person's rights now,
Like the the the staff member at the Reach program
in Tennessee probably got a letter from the a c
(34:48):
L year or the director did, saying, actually, it's within
this child's First Amendment rights to read this Bible, so
just let him read the Bible. And they were probably like,
when we're not happy to let him read the bible's Tennessee.
And there you go, and it was settled, you know. Yeah.
Another way of looking at it, though, is the a
c L you can just strong arm people into doing
what it wants by simply writing a letter. Yeah, or
(35:11):
if they, you know, think, don't get anywhere with the letter,
that is when they either have a staff attorney or
one of their pro bono volunteers take up the case. Um.
Their headquartered in New York City. But like we said,
every state has their own chapter and they do operate autonomously,
and like we said earlier, they don't always agree with
(35:31):
the federal chapter, and the federal chapter generally leads it
up to the state to decide their own, like how
they're going to raise their money, what cases are going
to take um. But if it becomes a national like
clearly a national issue, that's when the national organization steps
in and get your like celebrity at turning into work
pro bono. Yeah, dershu Witz, bob blah blaw. I guess
(35:57):
we should talk about how they're funded. Because they're an profit. Um,
they are generally funded by donations. The A CEL you
Foundation is tax deductible, and that is the group that
actually they're sort of split down the middle between the
foundation and just the A c l U. The foundation
is who litigates. The a c l U is uh
(36:19):
focused on political lobbying, and that is not tax deductible. No,
when you become an a C l you, remember you're
actually contributing dues to the A c l U, and
your dues are not tax deductible because you're contributing to
their lobbying arm. If you contribute to the A C
l YOU Foundation, then you can that is tax deductible. Yeah,
And like supporting actual you know, court cases, they also
(36:43):
maintain UM an endowment, so they have investments UM and
most controversially, they're also supported through attorney's fees. Yeah. That's
one of the big controversies for sure. Yeah. So the
a c l U has a tactic where if they
win a case, they to recover fees like many do. UM.
(37:05):
And but when the a c l U does that, uh,
it's often these fees can run into six figures fairly
easily depending on the case. UM. And so if you're
like a little town, you know in Cannon County, Tennessee, Uh,
if you want to stand up to the a c
l U, it could very easily mean the difference between
(37:25):
being in the red and being in the black. UM.
And if you are, you very well may just say, like,
forget it, it's not worth it. We can't afford to
fight this. So yes, let's we'll turn our back on
our convictions because we want to still have a town
after the a c LU comes through here. Yeah. And
that's what critics point to, is that they use that
UM card is a form of intimidation, Like they can
(37:49):
just say that in that letter, Like, first of all,
here's the legislation that proves our client is right. Secondly,
if you want to take this to court, our estimate
is that it's gonna cost you six thousand dollars if
we win. Do you really want to spend six thousand
dollars fighting this? Yeah? Think about it. Yeah, Huh get
back to me. I've left three boxes, yes, no, or
(38:10):
maybe please check one by E O D tomorrow well
and then the other. The other criticism there, of course,
is uh, that is government money. It's your tax banging
dollars indirectly funding the a c l U through these cases. So, um,
you know, if you hate the a c l U,
you're gonna probably bang that drum. I mean, imagine if
(38:32):
your town says, yeah, we're gonna fight you, and then
they lose and they have to pay the A c
l USE fees. Yeah, that that's not that's not coming
out of the mayor's like savings. That's like your tax money.
So you just paid this organization that you now probably despise. Yeah,
let's say a c l you man, that's like that's
(38:52):
classic a CLU right there. You know. So where did
this whole card carrying member uh insult come from? Michael
du Cacus? Of course, from what that's what the article
said that he was the first person to probably proclaimed
to be a card carrying member. Yeah, and it happened
like just perfectly. It was du Caucus in an interview
in The New Yorker talking about the a c l U. Yeah,
(39:16):
come on, Uh so he says he's a card carrying member.
He said proudly that he was a card carrying member
of the a c l U to just basically to
get across his liberal bona fides. Yeah, and conservatives said, hey,
that's a great insult that we can use in the future.
George H. W. Bush in particular, he basically said, he's
a card carrying member the a c l U. Everybody
(39:36):
hates the a c l U. They defend Nazis, and
that was that. He's right, Yeah, they do defend Nazis. Yeah,
or they have and they will in the future of
some Nazis need help, Yeah, to the rescue. But they're
also defending little boy and Tennessee, he wants to read
his Bible. That's right. It's all over the map, yep.
(39:57):
And that is called device. Uh yeah. If you are
you anything else, I got nothing else. If you want to,
I love this one. If you want to learn more
about the A C L you you can type that
word in the search part how stuff works dot com
And I said search part. So it's time for the
listener mail. I'm gonna call this converted fiance. Uh. And
(40:18):
this is a gentleman from England who whose wife I'm sorry, fiance, Kathy,
I did not want to listen. They're getting married in May. Um.
So he talks a little bit about how much he
likes the show and I will skip that part and
get right to the meat. Um. I tried to get
my fiance converted. It started with the JFK podcast, with
no luck. She moaned and said it was weird, which
(40:43):
I thought that was a very straight ahead podcast actually. Uh.
Not being one to quit, I tried a few weeks
later on Living Without a Fridge. Um. As soon as
the intro began, she groaned, he's moaning and groaning. Has
she ever heard us before? No, this is brand new
to her. What's your deal, Kathy? She hate it, said, well,
let me get to it. Um this time. Halfway through, though,
(41:04):
she began commenting on some of the content, such as
placing your onions in the fridge against all odds and
next podcast saved on the playlist was man Hunts. As
soon as she heard the topic, she shut me up
from talking and listened intently. Not bad, I thought, I
didn't even think that was one of our better ones. Well,
she liked it. Uh. This morning, though, was the breakthrough.
We were in the supermarket and wanted to purchase some avocados.
(41:27):
None were ripe, and Cathy said we could do that
thing that bloke suggested and put the avocados in a
paper bag in a banana to help it ripen. She
took your advice, so while I thought. Later in the
morning she was reading about how time was running out
to find the signal for the missing black Box from
flight three seventy. She turned to me and asked why
(41:48):
they couldn't find the signal, and I said, you know
what stuff you should know has a podcast on that.
And the next day, in the car ride to the
cinema which is what they called Movies and England, which
apparently are forty minutes drive away, she said, uh. She
requested to actually play the black Box episode success. Well,
(42:08):
this guy really knows how to manipulate his fiance, so
he says, if any of your listeners have had trouble
getting their partners into it. I would suggest you keep trying.
Eventually you'll find an episode or two that will capture
their interest and they'll be hooked. And that is from
guy uh ben Venista in Horsham, UK. Nice name and
(42:29):
city name, guy. So thanks Kathy for joining up to
the to the club. Kathy soon to be ben Venista,
Welcome to the party. Yes, I think Kathy's gonna keep
herung man. Well, okay, Kathy, either way, as long as
you're listening to stuff you should know, we don't care. Uh.
If you want to let us know how you turn
somebody converted them, or if they you just can't convert them,
(42:51):
we'd be very interested to find out why. I agreed,
Why why don't they like us? It's not like we
care or anything, but you know, we just want to
know you. Again. As I said, you can hang out
with us on social media Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Just
search your favorite web browser for stuff you should know
s y, s K, Josh and Chuck something like that
and it should all come up. You can send us
(43:13):
an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and
as always, hang out with us at our home on
the Web Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How
stuff Works? Dot com
Welcome to you Stuff you should know from House Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles to be, Chuck Bryant, Jerry's there.
She just yawned. Yeah, this is stuff you should know. Yeah,
if you like this, you can hang out with us
(00:21):
on social media to chuck, they can. Yeah, we're on
Instagram now, which is exciting. Yes, and we're on Pinterest now,
which is exciting. We have our Twitter account of course,
our venerable Facebook page, yeah, and our home on the web.
Stuff you should do dot com where we have all
sorts of cool context and you can find all that
stuff by typing in s Y s K or Josh
(00:42):
and Chuck or stuff you should know, and it'll bring
up all that stuff. Fun, fun stuff. You know what
else is fun? What? Freedom of expression? That's right, buddy? Yeah?
You know why? Why? Because freedom can't protect itself? Is
that right? I think that was the slogan at one point.
It may still be. Oh yeah, American Civil Liberties Union.
(01:05):
I thought it was get bent. It's funny. It is
a controversial organization. So yeah, my heart goes out to
them like I love them in the same way that
I love the inflammation from my laceration, like I'm healing.
I know it's good for me that, but it burns
(01:27):
and hurts and it's bright red and raised. Right, I
know what you mean, Like, sure, defend the Ku Klux
Klan because there are Americans too. Yeah, yeah, what age
did you realize it wasn't klu Klux Klan? I think
I was thirty seven? Really, no, no, no, no, but
I did used to think it was Clu Klux everybody did.
(01:47):
It just rolls off the tongue more. But then you
turn like ten or eleven or whatever, and finally your
dad is like, it's Ku Klux Klan. And then shortly
after that you realize they're just a bunch of rednecks
with too much time on their hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I can't remember what episode we talked about, but we're
like everybody hates the clan here in America. Just to
let you guys who are listening internationally know you remember that. Yeah,
(02:09):
I mean, that's one of the ones I feel safe about,
like no one's going to write it and say, well,
like what, I don't want to hear your opinions about
the clan, you know, who may who the A c
l U. That's a good point. Yeah, no, no, they
will defend my right to say that, actually right, but
they'll also defend the clans right to rally against you
saying that I've actually done it before. What's the famous
onion the headline, A c LU defends clans right to
(02:32):
burn down a c l U building. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's pretty funny. That's great stuff, all right. The onion
I look to see if that was a Joe Randazzo joint,
and unfortunate came about three years before Joe got there.
Still good. Uh So, Chucky sent me a pretty interesting
little article that I think kind of illustrates the bipolarity.
(02:54):
Maybe have the A c l U, but as we'll find,
they're really unipolar, although they seem too faced. Yes, we're
gonna get to the bottom of all this. And again,
like I like the A c l U. Al right,
I don't care what anybody says, all right. Uh So,
there's a little boy in um Cannon County, Tennessee, and
(03:16):
he was part of the Reach after school program r
E A c H. It's an acronym that I didn't
bother to look up. Some kind of slack. It starts
with reading. I bet I'll bet it does too. And
it's an after school program. And this little boy UM
was reading at this probably reading based after school program
and he's reading his Bible and one of the staff
workers said, you can't read that here. You can read
(03:37):
anything else in the world that you want, you can't
read your Bible. She said, or I was assuming is she,
but he maybe said our program gonna be shut down
because this is a state run program, state funded, and like,
we can't have this intermingling between church and state. First
of all, this is Tennessee that somebody's saying that. Secondly,
(03:58):
they tried to take the boy's Bible away because he
refused to put it up. He said, no, I'm reading this.
This is what I want to read. And there was
a big kerfuffle, and the A c l you stepped
in and is defending this boy's right to read his
Bible in church because it's in school, because it's freedom
of expression. Yeah, the same A c. L U who
(04:18):
is long um fought too not have state and school
sponsored religious readings, even saying like God bless this, Uh,
this class of two thousand fourteen, A C. L You
would say, I would be like, yeah, give us some money. So, like,
like you said, it seems like a contradiction, is actually
(04:40):
not a contradiction because they were doing the same thing.
They're fighting for someone's right to express something or read
something on their own, you know, because there's a because
it's guaranteed by the Constitution. It doesn't matter if it's unpopular. No,
they're they're going to defend you as a minority of
(05:01):
or in a single individual or a large group. It
doesn't matter as long as somebody is saying like, no,
you're not allowed to assemble, you're not allowed to say that,
you're not allowed to think that, you're not allowed to
do anything guaranteed by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
The A c l U, by their charter will step
in and defend you in your rights, whether they think
you're the violence person on the planet or not. Yeah,
(05:24):
and hold on, I want to defend myself. I wasn't
saying bipolar in the sense of the mental disorder. Bipolarity
can refer to all sorts of stuff. I didn't mean
it in that sense at all. Okay, that's good to
point out. Um, they're all over the map, But generally
they handle cases of freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
privacy rights. Um. But again they will take up and
(05:46):
we'll see what kind of cases like how you can
get your case taken up by the a c l
You later on. But they handle about six thousand court
cases a year. Uh. They are a nonprofit. They provide
legal aid and are about five hundred thousand members, card
carrying members and about two hundred full time staff attorneys.
(06:08):
Not bad at this point. And there's a national UM chapter,
and then there's state chapters. It's not state and localist
a state right. Yeah, each state has its own organization
and they don't often always agree with the national chapters,
and they have to work it out, and the states
are given the rights to work it out. So, Chuck,
let's talk about this. Why why if the a c
(06:29):
l U is defending people's rights that are guaranteed by
the Constitution, everybody loves the Founding fathers, Democrats, Republicans, commies,
everybody loves the Founding Fathers, right, and the Founding fathers
created this great Constitution and then further created this wonderful
bill of rights and everybody's happy about it. Um, Why
would everybody hate the a c l U. If they're
just defending people's rights as guaranteed by the constitution, well,
(06:52):
because their their view is we have to defend everyone,
not just pick and choose. So they end up having
to defend Nazis and clansmen and religious zealots and pornographers
and yeah, like people on the extreme fringes. They still
have rights in this country. Yea unpopulars and maybe and
(07:13):
the a c l U fights for those rights and
a lot of people hate him because of it. Yeah,
it's true. But as we'll see, some some people who
hate them also love them when the a c o
U comes around to their side to defend them when
they get screwed over. Yeah, they're very polarizing. Yeah, it's
pretty My again, my hat is off to this this
(07:34):
um organization. It's hard to do something unpopular and to
see you feel like it's right to walk a line
to which it's walk this line and it's this line
that it it it hears it's like um uh oh man,
what is the guy the safety crusader? Yeah Nader. Yeah,
he's like the a c l U. He he was like,
(07:56):
this is right, this is the right course. And if
we veer off of it, then we're wrong. If you're
not on this line, you're wrong. And he used that
kind of thinking to you know, get Seatbelts Institute and
all this stuff. But he was very unpopular. Many times
people who used to be colleagues and cohorts with him, um, like,
when they stopped seeing eye eye with him, he would
(08:18):
speak out publicly against him. And the a c l
US very much like that. It's like, this is right,
it's black and white. You are allowed to say this,
and if somebody tells you can't, then we intervene on
your behalf. Yeah, with the idea that if the government
is allowed to restrict the rights of some group that
they don't like, that could lead down the rabbit hole
to restricting other groups, and you just can't allow that
(08:40):
in a free country. That's precisely right. So, UM, I
think we've gotten the point across about the this third
time out, let's talk about the history of this organization. Yeah,
it's pretty cool. Um. It started um during World War One.
There was a group UM in New York called the
Henry Street Peace Committee in nineteen steine and they were
(09:01):
they were little sissy pacifists who didn't want to go
to war, and they spoke out against it and form
the American Union against Militarism. And um, we're talking newsletters, uh,
magazine ads, leaflets, leaflets and newsletters. Yeah. Um, but that
wasn't a popular thing back then, nor is it today.
(09:23):
If you don't support wars, generally in certain circles, you
were thought of to be unpatriotic. Yeah. It's a lot
different today though than it was before. Like you know
those people that that protested Peach Tree and fourt keeenth
outside Colony Square every Friday, like that one of the
Indigo Girls shows up once in a while, Like the
people will honk in their support. They're not going to jail. Yeah,
(09:46):
it is different in this in this era, these people
who were put sending out leaflets, it sounds so innocuous.
They went to jail. Yeah. The Palmer Raids in the
United States less than a hundred years ago. If you
say anything that was considered anti government or anti war,
you went to jail for up to maybe twenty years sometimes. Yeah. Um.
(10:09):
General Attorney General Mitchell Palmer in the nineteen in nineteen nineteen,
nineteen twenty conducted the Palmer Raids, which basically rounded up
and deported whoever they thought was a radical. Um thousands
of people, no warrants, no due process. It was just
sort of like you're coming with me, you anti war pacifists,
commy and waiting. Yeah, And I mean, like that's a
(10:31):
good point too, Like there was a lot of socialists,
There are a lot of communists, there are a lot
of anarchists, a lot of Marxists, a lot of people
who were um advocating and agitating too for other economic
and government models. Right, the pacifists weren't necessarily I mean,
they may have had something in common with those people,
(10:51):
and some of the pacifists might have been Marxists and
vice versa. But the pacifists were just anti war. Some
of them were like the U. S has no as
this intervening, and what's what amounts to a European war.
Other people say wars a terrible thing, and like I
object to it outright on its basis. Their pacifists and
(11:12):
the pacifists too would get rounded up and taken to jail.
Um and like you said, without due process, without any
kind of their rights were taken away. In nineteen seventeen
and the nineteen eighteen with the Espionage Act first, and
then the Sedition Act in in nineteen eighteen, where the
(11:34):
US passed a law that said if you if you
speak out against the government, against the war, against the
war effort, if you say we shouldn't be producing as
much rubber, well we need rubber for the war effort,
So we can throw you in jail for up to
twenty years. Man. And in twenty years, that's twenty years.
Is different back then in twenty years in two thousand
(11:54):
and twelve years, because that's like um in twenty years
for the average lifespan was point to seven of your life. Yea,
it was of your life. In that was cent of
your life thanks to the flu epidemic. So that was
a lot of years to like go to prison, you know.
(12:14):
I mean, that's still a lot of years to go
to prison. But I see what you mean. But it's
in the context of this that these people were organizing
and saying, no, we're not just gonna shut up. We're
gonna keep doing what we're doing, and we're gonna come
after you government that's using repression. So if like you
admire the a c O You today for any sort
of bravery, like if you take it back to the
(12:35):
original organization that those these were genuinely brave people who
are willing to face not just being unpopular, but going
to prison for twenty years for fighting for what freedoms
that are guaranteed in the constitution. Yeah, and fighting against
war in general. A couple of those people are the founders,
Crystal Eastman and Roger Baldwin. There are social workers and uh,
(12:59):
big supporters of the labor movement, and they founded uh
the a U A M UM that, like I said,
the American Union Against Militarism and uh they started assisting
legally with some of these cases, which was kind of
the first uh steps of what would later become the
a C l U was legal support, which is the
(13:21):
key the Civil Liberties Bureau, which is like a subset
of the UM a U A M where basically it
was like if you got sent to jail for um
handing out leaflets or something, they would come and assist
you with your court case. Yeah. And that well, that
wasn't Alongside that followed the a U A M split
and then the n c LB arose in its place.
(13:45):
I got which is good. Um Baldwin went to jail
for a year for not complying with his draft notice,
got released, set up a different n c LB, now
called the American Civil Liberty Union. So in earnest it
was born on January nineteenth, nineteen. Is it like the
day he got out or something. I don't know if
(14:06):
it's a day he got out, but it was basically
just the restructured version of the National Civil Liberties Bureau. Yeah. So,
and initially like they were thinking, well, we'll just keep
up with the leaflets they seemed to be working. How
about a newsletter to leaflets never worked, by the way, right,
but also like staging protest strikes, just getting publicity to
(14:28):
try to um have an impact on the prevailing American
sympathies towards the idea of pacifism or whatever. Yeah, they
weren't just suing people out of the gate. No. And
the reason why they stayed out of the courts in
general because because at the time the courts were overtly
hostile to the idea of freedom of speech, especially but
other constitutionally guaranteed protections. The Supreme Court would just say no,
(14:51):
we we we don't like what you have to say,
and uh, and the rest of America doesn't so no, yeah,
you're we're upholding your conviction for saying that the war
is bad. Yeah. It was weird. Like literally up until
the nineteen twenties, most of the civil liberties granted us
to us were not tested, even because the Screen Court
(15:14):
would shoot it down. Like whenever they tried, they were
just saying, no, no, you don't have those rights after all.
You know something that I'm curious about. I wonder if
there's a correlation, because this is also like the end
of the guilded age, but there was also I mean,
there were a lot of very like wealthy, powerful interests
in The income gap was pretty substantial back then, and
I wonder if, like it is now, um, with the
(15:37):
income gap growing, if there's a correlation become between income
and quality inequality and um, a repression of freedom of
speech and privacy and things like that. I wonder if
like the two are related. Sounds like a book in
the making, my friend, No question, too much work. Um,
(15:59):
All right, well, I guess we should talk about some
of their most famous early cases. Let's do that, but
let's take a little break first. Alright, So early on,
like we said, um, the Supreme Court hadn't hadn't been
challenged that much in cases like these, and when they did,
they weren't too kind to free speech. It is weird
(16:20):
to think of now, for sure. Um, but in the
nineteen thirties is when the A C all you began
to kind of make a little headway, um against kind
of against the Supreme Court. Yeah. Well, they started to
win smaller cases that you didn't have to go to
the Supreme Court, and it was kind of like, um,
(16:41):
death of repression by a thousand paper cuts, you know
what I mean. So, like all those little cases started
to add up where it was like, um, something in
some change to the law in Louisville, Kentucky, didn't really
have much effect in Missouri. But then they want a
case in Missouri. And then if you started to step
back and look at it on a map, you're like, oh,
(17:01):
all of a sudden, this the balance is swinging the
other direction. Yeah. But when they did win big Supreme
Court cases, they were huge Supreme Court cases. I mean,
like some of the most important cases of the twentieth
century the a c. L Us either been directly or
indirectly involved in, like the Scopes monkey trial that was
a big one. Yeah, they And we've talked a lot
(17:22):
about evolution lately, UM, and we didn't cover Scopes at all.
But uh, in Tennessee there was a law banning teaching
evolution in and so the a c LU went out
and found a biology teacher named John Scopes, said hey,
we would like you to teach evolution, and let's see
what happens. And he was prosecuted and the a c
(17:46):
l YOU got together with the famous attorney Clarence Darrow
to defend him, and he was still found guilty, even
though that verdict was overturned later because of a sentencing error.
But so the a c l YOU lost, they lost,
but it made big headlines and UM was really sort
of one of the turning points and establishing like freedom,
(18:06):
academic freedom in this country. Yeah, and I think not
just as far as the A c l U goes,
but any anyone who's kind of UM trying to make
a change in the nation. I think one way to
do that is to just get people talking about it,
because I think a lot of people, especially if they're
in the majority or they hold the majority view, make
the oftentimes incorrect assumption that everybody else holds the same
(18:28):
view too. And I think just if you're just confronted
by an opposing point of view, just knowing that it's
out there, whether you agree with it or not, can
kind of make you reflect and think about the views
you hold too, and why you hold them, and whether
they're um good views or not. So I think that's
the that the the impression I have of the cases
that it got people talking, and it made people who
(18:51):
agreed with not teaching evolution realize like, whoa were not
everybody thinks the same way I do. Yeah, ideally, Uh
so you know, you're oponents are going to say that
the c U is defending U, their watchdog, protecting everyone's
civil liberties, whereas people who poopoo it say no, they're
really a left wing organization and they subvert the Constitution
(19:12):
and they protect criminals, and they attack religion and they
have an extremist agenda. Um, so those are sort of
the two sides of the argument. The thing is, though,
is like they if you go back over there, their history. Okay.
This article points out the perfect example, which one the
one where in the thirties and the nineteen forties the
a c l U defended both the n double A
(19:34):
CP and blacks rights to UM enfranchisement and just equal
treatment and UM basically civil rights. And while at the
same time, during these same years, the the a c
l U is also defending the Ku Klux Klan and
it's right to assemble and speak out against UM black rights. Yeah,
(19:56):
that was the Skokie. Uh. Now, this is long before Skoki.
This is like the thirties and forties. The Skokie was
the Nazis. That was another big one. Yeah, well, I
guess we can go ahead and talk about that, the
Skokie free speech controversy. In the late seventies. Uh, a
group of neo Nazis in Chicago wanted to uh have
(20:16):
permission to go to Skokie, Illinois, not form a barbershop
quartet UM, but hold a demonstration. And that was a UM.
Skokie was famous for being um the center of a
Chicago's Jewish community post Holocaust. A bunch of Jewish people
settled there, and so of course the neo Nazis wanted
(20:37):
to go to the heart of it all in protest um.
They asked the a c LU for help and they
got it, and we're granted permission even though they didn't
use it. Yeah, because scote. When the Neo Nazis applied
for a permit to assemble or um have a parade
to Nazi parade, basically they Skokie City Council said, well,
(20:57):
you know that you have to post a dollar bond,
which is gonna cost you about a grand I just
want to let you know about that first. And the
new Nazis said, you are trampling our rights. And that's
when they got in touch with the a c l U,
and the a C l you said, yeah, they're trampling
your rights, it sounds like. And they fought too for
the Nazis right to assemble based on the idea that
(21:18):
that thousand dollar basically fee to assemble was prohibitive and
that you know, anybody who wanted to hold a parade
or a protest or anything like that in Skokie it
wouldn't necessarily be able to afford that, So protests shouldn't
just be open to the people who can afford that
thousand dollar bond. And therefore Skokie, I guess relented, But
(21:42):
the Nazis never even came. Now, they never even held
their protest. Yeah, and that's that's gonna make you unpopular.
As an organization if you are campaigning for the rights
of the Nazis, but the A c l U bites
their tongue and say no, we have to Well, you know, um,
you remember the part in the Blues Brothers. This is
all um very famously dramatized. Remember the Illinois Nazis. I
(22:04):
hate Illinois Nazis and they drive past him and make
them jump into the river. Yeah. I guarantee that was
because of the Skokie Skokie Nazi thing. It was all
around the same time. Yeah, and they were Chicago as well. Yeah,
and Chuck, have you ever seen you know the mall
part where they drive through the mall? I made the
(22:25):
slideshow UM nine abandoned malls around America, and that malls
in there, it's like abandoned in in this total state
of decay. The Dixie Mall, I believe it's what it's
called Dixie Square. It's pretty cool. Well, the other one
you have in there was Avondale Mall close to where
I grew up, and that famously had the chase scene
from Invasion USA. Oh yeah, Chuck Norris drove a truck
(22:49):
through that mall. I did not know that. And the mall.
It was kind of crappy, and I was a kid.
I remember when it shot there and then they got
like a full makeover because of the movie, and uh
now it's to Walmart. They tore down. Yeah, that's kind
of a crappy mall. Well, it looked pretty cool abandoned. Yeah,
it looks very cool. Um. Another case back to the A. C.
(23:09):
L U. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnett
in nt UH school board expelled two thousand students Jehovah's
Witness students because they refused to recite the Pledge of
Allegiance because it um their religion, forbade worshiping images including
the U. S. Flag, and they won the case. Um,
(23:30):
the Supreme Court said that you can't force someone to
declare your belief in any religion or nation, which goes
back to you know, it may be unpopular in certain circles,
but you can't say you're a free country and then
you can practice any religion you want, but then force
people to contradict that religion. You know, if this is
(23:54):
the land of the free, you have to allow You
may not like it. I'm not saying everyone has to
like this stuff, but it's a pretty slope if you
start restricting these freedoms. Can you imagine telling some little
Jehovah's witness kid like, Well, then you can't go to
school here. If you're not going to say the Pledge
of Allegiance, you have no right to educate. It's man,
this country's got not so history. Um what else? Uh?
(24:18):
Joseph Burston inc. Versus Wilson's one of my favorites. Well,
basically there's this movie, uh released here in the U s.
As The Miracle, but it was titled in Europe a
More with an E on the INSA maybe a more
A yeah, you know what. The deal with the movie
was a lady who she had a mental illness and
(24:39):
thought she was the virgin Mary. Well, she she had
too much to drink. Oh, I read mental illness. Well,
she was applied with with drink and then had sex
with a vagabond she thought was St. Joseph, who was
played by Federico Fellini, who co wrote it. I believe, yeah,
but did not direct it and got pregnant and believed
that was an immaculate concept. Right. So the Catholics in
(25:02):
the fifties done. They did not like the movie, and
they had a lot of cloud in New York at
the time. And in New York, if you were a
movie theater and you're planning on showing the Miracle, uh,
the city said, well, we're just gonna take your your
license to show movies in general. If you do that,
do not show this movie. Some places in New York
where like, this movie's banned. You can't even carry it
(25:24):
into our city borders if you want to. Um. And
they took it the A c. L. You stepped in
and they took it to the Supreme Court, and the
Supreme Court said, the state has this is a quote,
the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or
all religions from views distasteful of them. So they said,
you're right, A c. L. You. That was a big
(25:45):
deal because at the time, religion was basically this kind
of infallible institution that took precedent over everything else. The
it was the the the moral attitude of the country
where it was like, note, religions offended by it, it's bad. Sorry,
whatever laws you've got that like protect this stupid little movie.
(26:06):
Who cares, We're banning it because it's it offends a
religion and because of that and many other things that
Catholic League UH and its leader Bill Donahoe UM are
huge critics of the a c l U, although he's
also um praised the A c l You when when
they've defended Catholic rights too well, Larry Flint, remember he
(26:28):
thought some of these same battles, and his attorney famously
was like, I think he's kind of a scumbag too,
and I think that he's a smart peddler and this
stuff is disgusting. Edward Norton. Yeah, Like, but you can't, uh,
you know, you can't say he can't do it. Yeah,
that was a great movie except for Corney Love. Everything
of everything, but Corny Love was great in that movie.
(26:49):
Although I did like her A Man on the Moon
for some reason, I don't. I don't like her much period.
I'm not a fan. Really, do you like Corney Love? Okay?
Um No, but that if I did the A c
l you would defend my right to like Courtney Love
despite it being really unpopular. That is true. H Smith V.
(27:13):
All Right, the a c l U. UM. Basically what
was going on there was they had what we're called
white primaries, UH, the Democratic Party for their elections, and uh,
it was illegal because it denied blacks a chance to
uh to vote and to participate. That is exactly what
it'sunded like. And um, previous to this court said Long said,
(27:36):
political parties are private organizations. They're not subject to these
antidiscrimination laws. But the Supreme Court did the right thing
and said, you know what, being able to participate in
the voting primaries important in this country and if we
want to remain a democracy, we need to not have
things like white primaries. So we're going to reach into
your protected enclave and say you can't do that any more. Yeah,
(28:01):
because voting this that important. Yeah, which is kind of
a radical view in and of itself because it overturned
a precedent and custom. Yeah, I think we should do
some more. Um. When I was in New York, I
saw that play, The Cranston plays L B. J. And
All the Way, and it covers the year the eleven
months post Kennedy assassination to the his re election bid
(28:25):
where he got the Civil Rights Act passed. And it
was fascinating and did all kinds of research about it.
Was Kranston good, He's great, like completely became the character
like I forgot it was Cranston. And then after the play,
you know, he becomes Brian Cranston again to thank everyone,
and it's just like, it's weird just seeing an actor
in front of your eyes, like morph back into the
real person. It's pretty cool. But I want to definitely
(28:49):
tackle some more civil rights issues because probably the darkest
spot in our nation's history and been plenty of wasn't
that long ago either. I can't remember who the person's name,
but remember we were talking about Kent State and how
that was like the darkest spot on our nation's history,
and somebody wrote it was like that was pretty bad,
but don't forget all of the strikes where you know,
(29:12):
National Guard troops fired on and killed like a hundred
striking workers just for striking in the twenties or whatever.
So whoever that was, thanks for taking me to task,
because that's absolutely correct. A lot of dark spots, a
lot of dark spots, a lot of bright spots too,
sure man. And with that cheery idea, let's take one
more break. Okay, Sunshine, what do you got next? Uh? Well,
(29:38):
I guess you talked about the Scopes trial or we
did for a second. Um, some of the other most
famous cases in this country's history. Like I know people
that listen to our podcast on the Japanese and tournament camps. Yeah. Oh,
and if you can't find it, just go to our
archive page. We have an archive page now that has
(29:59):
every single one of the six plus stuff you should
Know episodes ever made, all in one place. Yeah. It
took you know, six years to make that happen, but
we're very proud of that. It's a stuff you should
Know dot com slash podcast, slash archive, so you will
find that one in there. Um, was it Japanese stragglers
or do we do one on internment camps? We do
one on internment Okay. That was when we FDR rounded
(30:22):
up or ordered the government to round up people of
Japanese descent, even some of whom were Americans, Like most
of them were, Yeah, like natural born America enuane citizens
to the relocation camps. And the a c l u
UM jumped on this, and they were they were one
of the only groups kind of standing up and saying
this isn't right at the time. Yeah. They also had
(30:45):
this whole campaign against calling French fries freedom fries, Like
you can't call it that and everyone's like, boo, sit down,
did they say that now? And then other famous cases
like Brown the Board of Education and we Wade and
Dobe Bolton. The a c l U was instrumental in
all of these. Again, um, even though it's unpopular to
(31:08):
some people. Fighting for the freedoms of the minorities. Yeah. Also, um,
recently the the Communications Decency Act, which basically made it
a crime to knowingly send pornography to minors or something
like that. He said, Nope, that's you can't tell people
they can't do that. That's freedom of speech. Yeah, it's
(31:31):
like a Janet reno idea. And they got smacked down
like overturned basically by the Supreme Court. Again, unpopular moves.
They're not out to make friends though. No. And the
one that I've got this is to me, the most
despicable case that a c l U has ever taken.
But take it however you want. Have you heard of
Nambula the National man Boy there the North American Man
(31:54):
Boy Love Association. So Namba Nambula is exactly what you think.
It's basically a club for peders and their website is
apparently it UH tutorial training Ground Forum chat room place
to get tips on how to be a more effective
pederast or pedophile. Uh. And these two guys um they
(32:17):
are named Charles James and Salvator Sakari. They were convicted
of murdering a couple's son, Jeffrey, and Um they basically
said everything we needed to know we learned from Nambula,
from the Nambula website. And so the Curlies, the people
the couple whose son was murdered by these child murderers
(32:39):
UH were went after Nambula and the a c l
U intervened and said, Nambula is actually an unincorporated association,
not a corporation, so it's allowed to extol illegal acts
as long as it's not inciting people telling people to
go do these illegal acts. It can still appreciate at
(33:00):
these illegal accident if you look at their website, that's
all they're doing. And the suit against NAMBLA has dismissed
again not popular. You know, the l c c LU
has to you know that they feel forced into some
of these situations. Probably well, there's oftentimes been a lot
of shakeups internally where people at the a c l
You're saying, no, this is this is beyond the line,
(33:23):
like they're there, this is just too wrong. What these
people are saying is too despicable, and maybe we shouldn't
be maybe they shouldn't be allowed to say it. And
the a c l U as an organization has walked
that line, lost a lot of members and a lot
of supporters and a lot of employees, but it's stayed,
you know, true to its vision and is still around today.
(33:44):
All right, Let's say you want the a c l
U to take up your cause. You have to write
them a letter. You have to outline your problem, maybe
provide a little evidence, build your case with them, and
if it's not in modern language association accepted outline form,
then they just won't even look at it. Probably so um.
And they basically determine is it a civil liberties case
(34:06):
that we should get involved with and how should we
get involved? Um. They don't just go out and see everyone. Um.
Most times they try to resolve the cases just by
getting in touch with whoever the government agency and saying, hey, um,
you might want to check out the constitution because it
seems like what you're doing now isn't isn't so great
(34:27):
and it might not even be Constitution Like it could be, Um,
it could be like we we understand what you're saying,
but recently there's some legislation passed and it's now law,
and here's the code if you want to go look
it up. But you can stop trampling this person's rights now,
Like the the the staff member at the Reach program
in Tennessee probably got a letter from the a c
(34:48):
L year or the director did, saying, actually, it's within
this child's First Amendment rights to read this Bible, so
just let him read the Bible. And they were probably like,
when we're not happy to let him read the bible's Tennessee.
And there you go, and it was settled, you know. Yeah.
Another way of looking at it, though, is the a
c L you can just strong arm people into doing
what it wants by simply writing a letter. Yeah, or
(35:11):
if they, you know, think, don't get anywhere with the letter,
that is when they either have a staff attorney or
one of their pro bono volunteers take up the case. Um.
Their headquartered in New York City. But like we said,
every state has their own chapter and they do operate autonomously,
and like we said earlier, they don't always agree with
(35:31):
the federal chapter, and the federal chapter generally leads it
up to the state to decide their own, like how
they're going to raise their money, what cases are going
to take um. But if it becomes a national like
clearly a national issue, that's when the national organization steps
in and get your like celebrity at turning into work
pro bono. Yeah, dershu Witz, bob blah blaw. I guess
(35:57):
we should talk about how they're funded. Because they're an profit. Um,
they are generally funded by donations. The A CEL you
Foundation is tax deductible, and that is the group that
actually they're sort of split down the middle between the
foundation and just the A c l U. The foundation
is who litigates. The a c l U is uh
(36:19):
focused on political lobbying, and that is not tax deductible. No,
when you become an a C l you, remember you're
actually contributing dues to the A c l U, and
your dues are not tax deductible because you're contributing to
their lobbying arm. If you contribute to the A C
l YOU Foundation, then you can that is tax deductible. Yeah,
And like supporting actual you know, court cases, they also
(36:43):
maintain UM an endowment, so they have investments UM and
most controversially, they're also supported through attorney's fees. Yeah. That's
one of the big controversies for sure. Yeah. So the
a c l U has a tactic where if they
win a case, they to recover fees like many do. UM.
(37:05):
And but when the a c l U does that, uh,
it's often these fees can run into six figures fairly
easily depending on the case. UM. And so if you're
like a little town, you know in Cannon County, Tennessee, Uh,
if you want to stand up to the a c
l U, it could very easily mean the difference between
(37:25):
being in the red and being in the black. UM.
And if you are, you very well may just say, like,
forget it, it's not worth it. We can't afford to
fight this. So yes, let's we'll turn our back on
our convictions because we want to still have a town
after the a c LU comes through here. Yeah. And
that's what critics point to, is that they use that
UM card is a form of intimidation, Like they can
(37:49):
just say that in that letter, Like, first of all,
here's the legislation that proves our client is right. Secondly,
if you want to take this to court, our estimate
is that it's gonna cost you six thousand dollars if
we win. Do you really want to spend six thousand
dollars fighting this? Yeah? Think about it. Yeah, Huh get
back to me. I've left three boxes, yes, no, or
(38:10):
maybe please check one by E O D tomorrow well
and then the other. The other criticism there, of course,
is uh, that is government money. It's your tax banging
dollars indirectly funding the a c l U through these cases. So, um,
you know, if you hate the a c l U,
you're gonna probably bang that drum. I mean, imagine if
(38:32):
your town says, yeah, we're gonna fight you, and then
they lose and they have to pay the A c
l USE fees. Yeah, that that's not that's not coming
out of the mayor's like savings. That's like your tax money.
So you just paid this organization that you now probably despise. Yeah,
let's say a c l you man, that's like that's
(38:52):
classic a CLU right there. You know. So where did
this whole card carrying member uh insult come from? Michael
du Cacus? Of course, from what that's what the article
said that he was the first person to probably proclaimed
to be a card carrying member. Yeah, and it happened
like just perfectly. It was du Caucus in an interview
in The New Yorker talking about the a c l U. Yeah,
(39:16):
come on, Uh so he says he's a card carrying member.
He said proudly that he was a card carrying member
of the a c l U to just basically to
get across his liberal bona fides. Yeah, and conservatives said, hey,
that's a great insult that we can use in the future.
George H. W. Bush in particular, he basically said, he's
a card carrying member the a c l U. Everybody
(39:36):
hates the a c l U. They defend Nazis, and
that was that. He's right, Yeah, they do defend Nazis. Yeah,
or they have and they will in the future of
some Nazis need help, Yeah, to the rescue. But they're
also defending little boy and Tennessee, he wants to read
his Bible. That's right. It's all over the map, yep.
(39:57):
And that is called device. Uh yeah. If you are
you anything else, I got nothing else. If you want to,
I love this one. If you want to learn more
about the A C L you you can type that
word in the search part how stuff works dot com
And I said search part. So it's time for the
listener mail. I'm gonna call this converted fiance. Uh. And
(40:18):
this is a gentleman from England who whose wife I'm sorry, fiance, Kathy,
I did not want to listen. They're getting married in May. Um.
So he talks a little bit about how much he
likes the show and I will skip that part and
get right to the meat. Um. I tried to get
my fiance converted. It started with the JFK podcast, with
no luck. She moaned and said it was weird, which
(40:43):
I thought that was a very straight ahead podcast actually. Uh.
Not being one to quit, I tried a few weeks
later on Living Without a Fridge. Um. As soon as
the intro began, she groaned, he's moaning and groaning. Has
she ever heard us before? No, this is brand new
to her. What's your deal, Kathy? She hate it, said, well,
let me get to it. Um this time. Halfway through, though,
(41:04):
she began commenting on some of the content, such as
placing your onions in the fridge against all odds and
next podcast saved on the playlist was man Hunts. As
soon as she heard the topic, she shut me up
from talking and listened intently. Not bad, I thought, I
didn't even think that was one of our better ones. Well,
she liked it. Uh. This morning, though, was the breakthrough.
We were in the supermarket and wanted to purchase some avocados.
(41:27):
None were ripe, and Cathy said we could do that
thing that bloke suggested and put the avocados in a
paper bag in a banana to help it ripen. She
took your advice, so while I thought. Later in the
morning she was reading about how time was running out
to find the signal for the missing black Box from
flight three seventy. She turned to me and asked why
(41:48):
they couldn't find the signal, and I said, you know
what stuff you should know has a podcast on that.
And the next day, in the car ride to the
cinema which is what they called Movies and England, which
apparently are forty minutes drive away, she said, uh. She
requested to actually play the black Box episode success. Well,
(42:08):
this guy really knows how to manipulate his fiance, so
he says, if any of your listeners have had trouble
getting their partners into it. I would suggest you keep trying.
Eventually you'll find an episode or two that will capture
their interest and they'll be hooked. And that is from
guy uh ben Venista in Horsham, UK. Nice name and
(42:29):
city name, guy. So thanks Kathy for joining up to
the to the club. Kathy soon to be ben Venista,
Welcome to the party. Yes, I think Kathy's gonna keep
herung man. Well, okay, Kathy, either way, as long as
you're listening to stuff you should know, we don't care. Uh.
If you want to let us know how you turn
somebody converted them, or if they you just can't convert them,
(42:51):
we'd be very interested to find out why. I agreed,
Why why don't they like us? It's not like we
care or anything, but you know, we just want to
know you. Again. As I said, you can hang out
with us on social media Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Just
search your favorite web browser for stuff you should know
s y, s K, Josh and Chuck something like that
and it should all come up. You can send us
(43:13):
an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and
as always, hang out with us at our home on
the Web Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How
stuff Works? Dot com
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.