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THE ACLU ON TRIAL by William H. McIlhany

THE ACLU ON TRIAL

By

Pub Date: Sept. 3rd, 1976
Publisher: Arlington House

McIlhany opens with some philosophical gobbledygook on metaphysics, epistemology, free will, and the nature of universals. He goes on to score Kant's ""disastrous contribution to the subject of ethics""(!) and to denounce the ""positivist-empiricist"" tradition of jurisprudence. What, you may well ask, has this to do with the ACLU? Simply this: most of the Union's baneful positions derive directly from its disregard of ""natural law."" As McIlhany sees it, the ACLU's contribution to the mounting injustices of US society include: opposition to capital punishment; advocacy of such ""rights"" as medical care and abortion; support of gun control; concern for the rights of prisoners and welfare recipients. (An ACLU publication, The Rights of the Poor, is described as a ""looter's handbook."") With great solemnity McIlhany weighs the evidence of whether the Union is a philosophical muddle or an honest-to-gosh Communist conspiracy. After all, Roger Nash Baldwin, the ACLU's executive director for 30 years, made no secret of the fact that he believed in ""class struggle."" More recently, McIlhany avers that the Union's preoccupation with ""civil liberties"" has in reality been a disguise for ""leftist activism."" Well-meaning innocents, beware!