Strange Bedfellows

 Talk about strange bedfellows.  But if the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) were doing its job as described instead of being leftist attack dogs, this wouldn't make the news. According to Matt Vespa at Townhall.com the ACLU Latest Client Will Make Liberal Heads Spin. That's right, the ACLU is defending the National Rifle Association (NRA).

No matter how they framed it, the American Civil Liberties Union will catch a lot of flak with the announcement of their new client: the National Rifle Association. It’s made me do a double-take. The ACLU has been one of the NRA’s chief rivals, but in this case—they’re allies.

We have to go back to 2018, when then-superintendent Maria Vullo of New York’s Department of Financial Services sent a series of letters to various companies, warning them to consider “reputational risks” regarding doing business with the NRA in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland, Florida. Some companies did cut ties, which led the NRA to sue Vullo. This case is now set to be heard before the Supreme Court, where the ACLU will argue that if left unchecked, these actions set a precedent for state power to be weaponized against organizations it disagrees with politically...

Apparently, someone in the ACLU has figured out that the ideas of free speech and free association are concepts that the Left should embrace as much as the right has. After all, if a right leaning government should come to power (as unlikely as that seems) the Left wouldn't like it very much if that government did to it what it is doing to us.

The whole notion of "reputational risk" is one of the ideas behind the ESG movement. It implies that by doing business with someone, that means that you are like that person, or that you approve of them. But nothing can be further from the truth. Business offer certain services to the public. The business cannot know every one of its customers. More importantly, the state here is blurring the lines between itself and a company. If the state has a problem with someone or an organization, they should bring appropriate charges. If it cannot bring such charges, it has no business to Shanghai companies into doing the work of the state.  We are not China (yet.)