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0 pointspclmulqdq1y ago0 comments

When "containing a dangerous pandemic" means a restriction on civil liberties, I would expect the ACLU to comment on that matter.

I am personally happy with vaccine requirements, but IMO the ACLU should have been defending the people who weren't.

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5 comments · 2 top-level

addicted1y ago· 3 in thread

Should the ACLU defend the rights of someone to blow up nuclear bombs in their backyard?

That’s a clear curtailment of their civil liberties. And assuming they’re in a rural area may not harm anyone else either.

This is an obviously extreme example but the point still stands. Any civil liberties organization cannot focus absolutely narrowly on that question in every situation but has to apply a broader approach.

remarkEon1y ago

Surely you see the difference between someone having Strategic weapons in their garage, and the government forcing someone to take a medicine that they don't want to take, right?

>but the point still stands

On what, exactly?

pixl971y ago

You, actually, do not have the right to spread viruses around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

All individual rights are balanced with the rights of other individuals/society. You can be given the choice to vaccinate or be forcefully quarantined. This has occurred many times in the US and the right of the state to do this has been upheld.

While corona was weak we will eventually seem some dangerous bullshit spread and the anti-vax dipshits are going figure out exactly what their rights entail as they are being drug from their house at gunpoint with the express will of the majority of the population.

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pclmulqdqOP1y ago

> Should the ACLU defend the rights of someone to blow up nuclear bombs in their backyard?

If someone actually went to court over this, I would hope/expect that the NRA would send some lawyers. The ACLU isn't that into the second amendment and has never been. However, nobody has gone to court over this. They did go to court over vaccine mandates.

By the way, the only grounds the government would have to stand on here are radiation-related. It is broadly legal to use explosives on your own property unless you're too close to someone else's property. It is also broadly legal to build your own weapons.

vharuck1y ago

Advocacy organizations shouldn't aspire to extremes. The ACLU should offer reasonable and practical help and commentary on civil liberties. Otherwise, you get the modern NRA that fights every law about firearms.

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