Reddit reviews How Can You Represent Those People?

The very well-settled jurisprudence in the United States is that the First Amendment DOES protect expression of all viewpoints, including hate speech, notwithstanding this wacky interpretation of a John Stuart Mill quote. Cases like NSPA vs Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977) and R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992) are a couple relevant cases.

Your PS is nonsense because you've listed around 15 different examples of restrictions which are not examples of what is called a content-based restriction. Content-based restrictions are subject to strict judicial scrutiny. A restriction is content-based rather than content-neutral when it limits or restricts speech that concerns an entire topic, or that expresses a particular stance or ideology ("viewpoint discrimination"). Yes, there are many ways in speech can legally be restricted without running afoul of the first amendment. But none of your examples are content-based "viewpoint discrimination" restrictions, like a hypothetical ban on hate speech would be.

Again, a big part of the ACLU's mission is to protect the first amendment through not only issue advocacy but also through representing litigants and filing amici curiae in court cases. Suggesting that there is anything wrong with them doing this or that they should stop I think is an indicator that you don't really understand and/or don't really support the first amendment being the strongest and most broadly- and liberally-interpreted first amendment possible.

It's also an indicator of serious naivete to think that a Change.org petition is going to convince the ACLU it should stop doing core legal work that it has been doing for decades and decades.

One line from the Change.org petition text that struck me was "The gathering of white supremacist groups in Charlottesville and Berkeley, the stabbing in Portland, and countless other incidents are not worth defending." I agree. They're not. They are garbage. But you know what's not garbage and IS worth defending? The first amendment.

One feature of our legal system is that you can't bring a hypothetical case to court. You can only bring real cases and controversies. So if you want to defend the crispness of the edges of free speech jurisprudence, there really is no way to do it than to defend people who are engaging in really upsetting and offensive speech. People like Neo-Nazis or Westboro Baptist Church.

Similarly, there is no practical way to defend some of our civil rights having to do with privacy and criminal procedure without defending some really awful criminals sometimes. There is no better way to defend the right to counsel, to argue that the death penalty is unconstitutional under the 8th amendment, or to protect against unreasonable search and seizure than to defend drug dealers, murderers, terrorists and rapists. Are these people "worth defending"? In many people's views, no. In fact, I have often heard fascists express they view that not only are serious criminals not worth defending by counsel, but they don't even deserve the due process afforded by a trial, judge, jury, etc. Are they "worth defending"? Maybe not. But the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th amendments are. I've always been a big fan of the bill of rights, but one book I read shortly after law school was this one: https://www.amazon.com/How-Can-Represent-Those-People/dp/1137311940. I don't remember it speaking much to defending first amendment rights of neo-Nazis as it was more focused on criminal law, but I think a lot of the principles are the same. I recommend it highly to anyone who struggles with situations like this involving defense of the constitutional rights of really terrible, toxic, dangerous people.