ACLU changed their policy of supporting everyone against any freedom of speech and freedom of assembly repression by the government AFTER Charlottesville. That only supports the OP's point. That was the point they gave into to pressure from outside groups and gave up their values.
Compromising once is enough to compromise it always and their recent posturing on social media has done nothing to dissuade that this is the case. They've only doubled down and joined the outrage mob driven political system.
I personally don't want to live in a world where every political ideology needs their own legal defence non-profits which only do things for political ends... not for a higher purpose. Largely because they lose tons of credibility in the face of dismissal when they compromise their values for politics.
Credibility is very important in this sort of thing. Plenty of other major human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and the ACLU long defended far-right groups and the world didn't burn down in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, etc.
They did it because they same thing that shuts those 'bad guys' down will be used to bring down the 'good guys'.
I highly recommend the founder of Human Rights Watch's book on this topic when they defended Neo-nazis in the 1970s:
Defending My Enemy: American Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, and the Risks of Freedom:
Compromising once is enough to compromise it always and their recent posturing on social media has done nothing to dissuade that this is the case. They've only doubled down and joined the outrage mob driven political system.
I personally don't want to live in a world where every political ideology needs their own legal defence non-profits which only do things for political ends... not for a higher purpose. Largely because they lose tons of credibility in the face of dismissal when they compromise their values for politics.
Credibility is very important in this sort of thing. Plenty of other major human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and the ACLU long defended far-right groups and the world didn't burn down in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s, etc.
They did it because they same thing that shuts those 'bad guys' down will be used to bring down the 'good guys'.
I highly recommend the founder of Human Rights Watch's book on this topic when they defended Neo-nazis in the 1970s:
Defending My Enemy: American Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, and the Risks of Freedom:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryeh_Neier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...
https://www.amazon.com/Defending-My-Enemy-Neier/dp/052508972...