The Tactics of the ACLU Should Not Be Our Tactics

Last week, when I was circulating the Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment petition at popular spot for that sort of activity.  It is a place with a public sidewalk and a lot businesses but not much parking, so it gets a lot of pedestrian traffic.   Then I saw two young girls with ACLU shirts on and they had clipboards like mine, so I asked them what petition they were circulating.  They said that they weren't circulating a petition, but were fundraising for the ACLU.  But I asked them if they would sign my petition.  After explaining what the amendment was, one of the girls said that she didn't know whether or not she should sign it because she didn't know if "they" would want her to.  I wondered who "they" were.  The girl, who couldn't sign because she was not an Ohio resident told her that she could sign it if she wanted to.  I guess whenever someone from the ACLU (especially women from the ACLU) hear the word "healthcare", they think it means abortion.  (But it could just be that she actually agreed with the content of the OHCFA--I don't know.)  As this girl was signing the petition, she told me that sometimes she had signed petitions before, but put a false address on it on purpose because she didn't really believe in what the petition was for and wanted the petitioner to stop bothering her.  She also implied that she did this to thwart the efforts of the circulators.  Nice.  But she told me not worry, she was not going to that to me.  I'm not very confident that she was telling the truth, but it doesn't really matter because if it is a false signature, they will just throw it out and no harm will be done.  But what an idiot!  All this goes to show the mentality of these people.  I was anticipating a confrontation and/our dialogue about the mission of the ACLU, but the two girls didn't stick around long enough for that.

A lot of people in the liberty/patriot movement have become members of the ACLU.  I actually agree with them on some issues, like their opposition to airport security screenings and the Patriot Act.  (Even a broken clock is right twice a day.)  But everyone should know that the ACLU has fought to:

1. By federal judicial fiat, make it illegal to even have a voluntary moment of silence in a public school, even when there is no mention God, Jesus, or anything about religion.
2. By federal judicial fiat, make it illegal for high school biology textbooks to have a sticker in its front insider cover which simply says that there are alternative theories of the origins of man and other species to the theory of general evolution.  Again, there was no mention of God, Jesus, creationism, or even of Intelligent Design.
3.  Take away the right of the states to have laws against abortion.
4.  By federal judicial fiat, take away the right of the states to impose term limits on its U.S. Representative and Senators.
5.  Take away the right of parents to know what their children are being exposed in the public schools
6.  By federal judicial fiat, abolish all laws against any form of pornography, even child pornography.

I must say, though, I had previously circulated the petition for the OHCFA at a local BMV because someone told me that I could.  (I learned later that the Ohio Project itself is telling people to do this.)  But as I later realized, this is really an illegal practice* and it should be stopped immediately.  There are a host reasons why this is a bad idea.  This can be used as propaganda against us and it makes us look no better than those Democrats who broke the law by offering teenagers ice cream if they would take a bus downtown to vote.  Even though you may get permission from some BMV employee, that doesn't change the fact that it is illegal.  The employees at the BMV could get in trouble for it.  The front window clearly says "no solicitation". And its just plain wrong to break the law.  We should all want this victory to be completely above board.  Let's not be like the ACLU and their "win at all costs" mentality.

*But note that at most BMV locations (that I have seen) there are adjacent businesses.  If you were to get permission from such a business you could circulate the petition on their property as long as you don't go cross over into the part which belongs to the BMV.  And maybe there are some BMVs where the sidewalk in front of it is public (but I don't know of any) and so in that case it might also be OK.