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:: MAX BLACK ::

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." --C.S. Lewis

"The Swiss pocket knife of conservative thought on the web..." - Eli Kardrakian

"Bookmark Max and dump your subscription to the newspaper; if you don't have a birdcage you really don't need it anyway..." - Shirley St. James

:: Sunday, December 12, 2004 ::

EFF and ACLU file Friend of the Court brief in CA Supreme Court case involving political free speech (and by extension, bloggers)

This is important folks; if this sh*t ever hits the wrong fan, you'll pray to your God the ACLU had won this battle:

"If the court finds in favor of the plaintiffs, the implications for free speech online are far-reaching. Bloggers could be held liable when they quote other people's writing, and website owners could be held liable for what people say in message boards on their sites. The end result is that many people would simply cease to publish or host websites. In its brief, EFF argues that "the specter of civil liability chills the speech" of Internet service providers and users, and will inevitably lead to "protective self-censorship."

I don't think the plaintiffs have a shot at this but, good Lord, if they win....?!

A word about the ACLU:

Many conservatives automatically condemn the ACLU and I'm not exactly sure why. I'm not a knee-jerk ACLU basher--much of what they do is good--like this case. Yeah, it seems they're always meddling with harmless institutions like the Boy Scouts of America, but overall, and if you really examine their work (and the legal precedence involved), the ACLU serves an important function. Are they ideological? Probably, but I don't feel particularly harmed when they sue to have the granite monument with the ten commandments removed from court-house lawn. It's a court-house (for Christsakes) paid for by ALL the people in the community--Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Pagans, et. al.; the Courthouse is not a Christian Church. I have a rather old, beat-up, doggy-eared leather-bound family Bible close at hand; I don't feel any more secure in my convictions to have the ten-commandments shoved in my face every time I go to the Courthouse to pay a parking ticket (in fact, it kind of offends me because it implies the municiple jurisdiction is somehow moral--a debatable proposition at best).
I know some of you may disagree with my position on the ACLU, but I don't envision them as the Devil incarnate as some pundits do.

I do, however, wish they would spend less time beating up on the Boy Scouts and Santa Clause and tackle weightier issues LIKE THIS.

:: Max 10:16 PM [+] ::
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