It appears that anything depicting a white person and an America flag is subject to being labeled as Nazi propaganda nowadays, and the ACLU learned that lesson the hard way this week. The group, which focuses on protecting the rights of all Americans, posted a tweet showing a blonde baby holding an American flag and wearing a onesie that said “free speech” with the caption “This is the future that ACLU members want.” This seemingly innocent act promptly set off a leftist firestorm.
Almost immediately, followers responded with tweets of babies dressed up in Nazi uniforms, prompting the ACLU to apologize for what some took to be a reinforcement of White Supremacy, stating in a follow-up tweet “When your Twitter followers keep you in check and remind you that white supremacy is everywhere” over a .gif of Kermit the frog with the text “that’s a very good point.”
ACLU under attack
The ACLU has found it members torn in recent months, as they struggle to decide whether or not hate speech is a right that they want to defend.
Already, they have announced that they would no longer be interested in defending any groups that bring guns to a protest, but up until the Charlottesville tragedy they seemed adamant about defending the first amendment in any form, even coming to the defense of Milo Yiannopoulous and various alt-right groups in the past.
Since the tragedy, however, they have come increasingly under fire, with even the Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe taking shots at them and blaming them for the bloodshed that unfolded, telling NPR that the city of Charlottesville had originally intended to have the protests designated to a park a few miles away from the downtown area, with plenty of open spaces, but they were "unfortunately sued by the ACLU.
And the judge ruled against us." This ruling required the city government to re-issue permits and placed protests right in the heart of the city, along the streets where James Alex Fields was able to use his car as a weapon and take the life of Heather Heyer, injuring several others in the process.
The ACLU attempted to defend itself, releasing a statement of its own saying that their lawsuit did not "cause violence nor did it in any way address the question whether demonstrators could carry sticks or other weapons at the events," but many had already made up their minds, lumping in what had long been a bastion of liberal rights and defense of freedom with the violence that occurred in Virginia.
What's next?
With leftist rhetoric ramping up, however, only time will tell if the ACLU will stick to their guns and continue to defend our constitutionally protected freedoms, or if they will see an about-face in their platform and decide to take a stand against hate speech in the future, at the cost of infringing upon the rights which they have protected for so long.
