Ginsburg, Phony Arguments, Phony Refutations

[JMHACLJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/2/2005 11:42:08 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
crossf at mail.utexas.edu writes:

It's  legitimate to claim one's an extremist based on a "long term 
association with  the ACLU"?
I heard it was McCarthyite to claim one's an extremist based on  an 
association with the Federalist Society.



It either is, or is not, legitimate to claim it.
 
If that is one's claim, though, then it is different in character than the  
claim that Ginsburg demonstrated herself to be an extremist during her service  
on an intermediate appeals court where her options, like those of her 
Republican  colleagues, were limited by an august ceiling called the Supreme Court.  
 
They are different bases for making claims.  They are subject to  different 
sets of refuting facts.
 
Also, the ACLU associational disparagement might or might not be legitimate  
depending on her personal efforts to keep the ACLU on the straight and  
narrow.  Having watched a state chapter's board of directors fight over  whether to 
vindicate free speech rights or abortion rights in a case where these  rights 
were seemingly conflicted by the chapter's representation of two pro-life  
picketers (my brother and me), I am fully aware and fully appreciative that not  
every fellow traveler of the ACLU actually buys into the extremist agenda that 
 is often a hallmark of the captivity of that organization to its own 
extremists  subset.
 
So I guess I'd want to know what information is out there to show that she  
sought to curb the excesses.  
 
Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/private/conlawprof/attachments/20051102/e0aa30af/attachment.htm