Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should know from House Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles to be, Chuck Bryant, Jerry's there.
Speaker 1: She just yawned. Yeah, this is stuff you should know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you like this, you can hang out with us
Speaker 1: on social media to chuck, they can. Yeah, we're on
Speaker 1: Instagram now, which is exciting. Yes, and we're on Pinterest now,
Speaker 1: which is exciting. We have our Twitter account of course,
Speaker 1: our venerable Facebook page, yeah, and our home on the web.
Speaker 1: Stuff you should do dot com where we have all
Speaker 1: sorts of cool context and you can find all that
Speaker 1: stuff by typing in s Y s K or Josh
Speaker 1: and Chuck or stuff you should know, and it'll bring
Speaker 1: up all that stuff. Fun, fun stuff. You know what
Speaker 1: else is fun? What? Freedom of expression? That's right, buddy? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know why? Why? Because freedom can't protect itself? Is
Speaker 1: that right? I think that was the slogan at one point.
Speaker 1: It may still be. Oh yeah, American Civil Liberties Union.
Speaker 1: I thought it was get bent. It's funny. It is
Speaker 1: a controversial organization. So yeah, my heart goes out to
Speaker 1: them like I love them in the same way that
Speaker 1: I love the inflammation from my laceration, like I'm healing.
Speaker 1: I know it's good for me that, but it burns
Speaker 1: and hurts and it's bright red and raised. Right, I
Speaker 1: know what you mean, Like, sure, defend the Ku Klux
Speaker 1: Klan because there are Americans too. Yeah, yeah, what age
Speaker 1: did you realize it wasn't klu Klux Klan? I think
Speaker 1: I was thirty seven? Really, no, no, no, no, but
Speaker 1: I did used to think it was Clu Klux everybody did.
Speaker 1: It just rolls off the tongue more. But then you
Speaker 1: turn like ten or eleven or whatever, and finally your
Speaker 1: dad is like, it's Ku Klux Klan. And then shortly
Speaker 1: after that you realize they're just a bunch of rednecks
Speaker 1: with too much time on their hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't remember what episode we talked about, but we're
Speaker 1: like everybody hates the clan here in America. Just to
Speaker 1: let you guys who are listening internationally know you remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's one of the ones I feel safe about,
Speaker 1: like no one's going to write it and say, well,
Speaker 1: like what, I don't want to hear your opinions about
Speaker 1: the clan, you know, who may who the A c
Speaker 1: l U. That's a good point. Yeah, no, no, they
Speaker 1: will defend my right to say that, actually right, but
Speaker 1: they'll also defend the clans right to rally against you
Speaker 1: saying that I've actually done it before. What's the famous
Speaker 1: onion the headline, A c LU defends clans right to
Speaker 1: burn down a c l U building. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty funny. That's great stuff, all right. The onion
Speaker 1: I look to see if that was a Joe Randazzo joint,
Speaker 1: and unfortunate came about three years before Joe got there.
Speaker 1: Still good. Uh So, Chucky sent me a pretty interesting
Speaker 1: little article that I think kind of illustrates the bipolarity.
Speaker 1: Maybe have the A c l U, but as we'll find,
Speaker 1: they're really unipolar, although they seem too faced. Yes, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get to the bottom of all this. And again,
Speaker 1: like I like the A c l U. Al right,
Speaker 1: I don't care what anybody says, all right. Uh So,
Speaker 1: there's a little boy in um Cannon County, Tennessee, and
Speaker 1: he was part of the Reach after school program r
Speaker 1: E A c H. It's an acronym that I didn't
Speaker 1: bother to look up. Some kind of slack. It starts
Speaker 1: with reading. I bet I'll bet it does too. And
Speaker 1: it's an after school program. And this little boy UM
Speaker 1: was reading at this probably reading based after school program
Speaker 1: and he's reading his Bible and one of the staff
Speaker 1: workers said, you can't read that here. You can read
Speaker 1: anything else in the world that you want, you can't
Speaker 1: read your Bible. She said, or I was assuming is she,
Speaker 1: but he maybe said our program gonna be shut down
Speaker 1: because this is a state run program, state funded, and like,
Speaker 1: we can't have this intermingling between church and state. First
Speaker 1: of all, this is Tennessee that somebody's saying that. Secondly,
Speaker 1: they tried to take the boy's Bible away because he
Speaker 1: refused to put it up. He said, no, I'm reading this.
Speaker 1: This is what I want to read. And there was
Speaker 1: a big kerfuffle, and the A c l you stepped
Speaker 1: in and is defending this boy's right to read his
Speaker 1: Bible in church because it's in school, because it's freedom
Speaker 1: of expression. Yeah, the same A c. L U who
Speaker 1: is long um fought too not have state and school
Speaker 1: sponsored religious readings, even saying like God bless this, Uh,
Speaker 1: this class of two thousand fourteen, A C. L You
Speaker 1: would say, I would be like, yeah, give us some money. So, like,
Speaker 1: like you said, it seems like a contradiction, is actually
Speaker 1: not a contradiction because they were doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: They're fighting for someone's right to express something or read
Speaker 1: something on their own, you know, because there's a because
Speaker 1: it's guaranteed by the Constitution. It doesn't matter if it's unpopular. No,
Speaker 1: they're they're going to defend you as a minority of
Speaker 1: or in a single individual or a large group. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter as long as somebody is saying like, no,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to assemble, you're not allowed to say that,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to think that, you're not allowed to
Speaker 1: do anything guaranteed by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
Speaker 1: The A c l U, by their charter will step
Speaker 1: in and defend you in your rights, whether they think
Speaker 1: you're the violence person on the planet or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and hold on, I want to defend myself. I wasn't
Speaker 1: saying bipolar in the sense of the mental disorder. Bipolarity
Speaker 1: can refer to all sorts of stuff. I didn't mean
Speaker 1: it in that sense at all. Okay, that's good to
Speaker 1: point out. Um, they're all over the map, But generally
Speaker 1: they handle cases of freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
Speaker 1: privacy rights. Um. But again they will take up and
Speaker 1: we'll see what kind of cases like how you can
Speaker 1: get your case taken up by the a c l
Speaker 1: You later on. But they handle about six thousand court
Speaker 1: cases a year. Uh. They are a nonprofit. They provide
Speaker 1: legal aid and are about five hundred thousand members, card
Speaker 1: carrying members and about two hundred full time staff attorneys.
Speaker 1: Not bad at this point. And there's a national UM chapter,
Speaker 1: and then there's state chapters. It's not state and localist
Speaker 1: a state right. Yeah, each state has its own organization
Speaker 1: and they don't often always agree with the national chapters,
Speaker 1: and they have to work it out, and the states
Speaker 1: are given the rights to work it out. So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: let's talk about this. Why why if the a c
Speaker 1: l U is defending people's rights that are guaranteed by
Speaker 1: the Constitution, everybody loves the Founding fathers, Democrats, Republicans, commies,
Speaker 1: everybody loves the Founding Fathers, right, and the Founding fathers
Speaker 1: created this great Constitution and then further created this wonderful
Speaker 1: bill of rights and everybody's happy about it. Um, Why
Speaker 1: would everybody hate the a c l U. If they're
Speaker 1: just defending people's rights as guaranteed by the constitution, well,
Speaker 1: because their their view is we have to defend everyone,
Speaker 1: not just pick and choose. So they end up having
Speaker 1: to defend Nazis and clansmen and religious zealots and pornographers
Speaker 1: and yeah, like people on the extreme fringes. They still
Speaker 1: have rights in this country. Yea unpopulars and maybe and
Speaker 1: the a c l U fights for those rights and
Speaker 1: a lot of people hate him because of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. But as we'll see, some some people who
Speaker 1: hate them also love them when the a c o
Speaker 1: U comes around to their side to defend them when
Speaker 1: they get screwed over. Yeah, they're very polarizing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty My again, my hat is off to this this
Speaker 1: um organization. It's hard to do something unpopular and to
Speaker 1: see you feel like it's right to walk a line
Speaker 1: to which it's walk this line and it's this line
Speaker 1: that it it it hears it's like um uh oh man,
Speaker 1: what is the guy the safety crusader? Yeah Nader. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like the a c l U. He he was like,
Speaker 1: this is right, this is the right course. And if
Speaker 1: we veer off of it, then we're wrong. If you're
Speaker 1: not on this line, you're wrong. And he used that
Speaker 1: kind of thinking to you know, get Seatbelts Institute and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. But he was very unpopular. Many times
Speaker 1: people who used to be colleagues and cohorts with him, um, like,
Speaker 1: when they stopped seeing eye eye with him, he would
Speaker 1: speak out publicly against him. And the a c l
Speaker 1: US very much like that. It's like, this is right,
Speaker 1: it's black and white. You are allowed to say this,
Speaker 1: and if somebody tells you can't, then we intervene on
Speaker 1: your behalf. Yeah, with the idea that if the government
Speaker 1: is allowed to restrict the rights of some group that
Speaker 1: they don't like, that could lead down the rabbit hole
Speaker 1: to restricting other groups, and you just can't allow that
Speaker 1: in a free country. That's precisely right. So, UM, I
Speaker 1: think we've gotten the point across about the this third
Speaker 1: time out, let's talk about the history of this organization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. Um. It started um during World War One.
Speaker 1: There was a group UM in New York called the
Speaker 1: Henry Street Peace Committee in nineteen steine and they were
Speaker 1: they were little sissy pacifists who didn't want to go
Speaker 1: to war, and they spoke out against it and form
Speaker 1: the American Union against Militarism. And um, we're talking newsletters, uh,
Speaker 1: magazine ads, leaflets, leaflets and newsletters. Yeah. Um, but that
Speaker 1: wasn't a popular thing back then, nor is it today.
Speaker 1: If you don't support wars, generally in certain circles, you
Speaker 1: were thought of to be unpatriotic. Yeah. It's a lot
Speaker 1: different today though than it was before. Like you know
Speaker 1: those people that that protested Peach Tree and fourt keeenth
Speaker 1: outside Colony Square every Friday, like that one of the
Speaker 1: Indigo Girls shows up once in a while, Like the
Speaker 1: people will honk in their support. They're not going to jail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is different in this in this era, these people
Speaker 1: who were put sending out leaflets, it sounds so innocuous.
Speaker 1: They went to jail. Yeah. The Palmer Raids in the
Speaker 1: United States less than a hundred years ago. If you
Speaker 1: say anything that was considered anti government or anti war,
Speaker 1: you went to jail for up to maybe twenty years sometimes. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: General Attorney General Mitchell Palmer in the nineteen in nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty conducted the Palmer Raids, which basically rounded up
Speaker 1: and deported whoever they thought was a radical. Um thousands
Speaker 1: of people, no warrants, no due process. It was just
Speaker 1: sort of like you're coming with me, you anti war pacifists,
Speaker 1: commy and waiting. Yeah, And I mean, like that's a
Speaker 1: good point too, Like there was a lot of socialists,
Speaker 1: There are a lot of communists, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of anarchists, a lot of Marxists, a lot of people
Speaker 1: who were um advocating and agitating too for other economic
Speaker 1: and government models. Right, the pacifists weren't necessarily I mean,
Speaker 1: they may have had something in common with those people,
Speaker 1: and some of the pacifists might have been Marxists and
Speaker 1: vice versa. But the pacifists were just anti war. Some
Speaker 1: of them were like the U. S has no as
Speaker 1: this intervening, and what's what amounts to a European war.
Speaker 1: Other people say wars a terrible thing, and like I
Speaker 1: object to it outright on its basis. Their pacifists and
Speaker 1: the pacifists too would get rounded up and taken to jail.
Speaker 1: Um and like you said, without due process, without any
Speaker 1: kind of their rights were taken away. In nineteen seventeen
Speaker 1: and the nineteen eighteen with the Espionage Act first, and
Speaker 1: then the Sedition Act in in nineteen eighteen, where the
Speaker 1: US passed a law that said if you if you
Speaker 1: speak out against the government, against the war, against the
Speaker 1: war effort, if you say we shouldn't be producing as
Speaker 1: much rubber, well we need rubber for the war effort,
Speaker 1: So we can throw you in jail for up to
Speaker 1: twenty years. Man. And in twenty years, that's twenty years.
Speaker 1: Is different back then in twenty years in two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve years, because that's like um in twenty years
Speaker 1: for the average lifespan was point to seven of your life. Yea,
Speaker 1: it was of your life. In that was cent of
Speaker 1: your life thanks to the flu epidemic. So that was
Speaker 1: a lot of years to like go to prison, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's still a lot of years to go
Speaker 1: to prison. But I see what you mean. But it's
Speaker 1: in the context of this that these people were organizing
Speaker 1: and saying, no, we're not just gonna shut up. We're
Speaker 1: gonna keep doing what we're doing, and we're gonna come
Speaker 1: after you government that's using repression. So if like you
Speaker 1: admire the a c O You today for any sort
Speaker 1: of bravery, like if you take it back to the
Speaker 1: original organization that those these were genuinely brave people who
Speaker 1: are willing to face not just being unpopular, but going
Speaker 1: to prison for twenty years for fighting for what freedoms
Speaker 1: that are guaranteed in the constitution. Yeah, and fighting against
Speaker 1: war in general. A couple of those people are the founders,
Speaker 1: Crystal Eastman and Roger Baldwin. There are social workers and uh,
Speaker 1: big supporters of the labor movement, and they founded uh
Speaker 1: the a U A M UM that, like I said,
Speaker 1: the American Union Against Militarism and uh they started assisting
Speaker 1: legally with some of these cases, which was kind of
Speaker 1: the first uh steps of what would later become the
Speaker 1: a C l U was legal support, which is the
Speaker 1: key the Civil Liberties Bureau, which is like a subset
Speaker 1: of the UM a U A M where basically it
Speaker 1: was like if you got sent to jail for um
Speaker 1: handing out leaflets or something, they would come and assist
Speaker 1: you with your court case. Yeah. And that well, that
Speaker 1: wasn't Alongside that followed the a U A M split
Speaker 1: and then the n c LB arose in its place.
Speaker 1: I got which is good. Um Baldwin went to jail
Speaker 1: for a year for not complying with his draft notice,
Speaker 1: got released, set up a different n c LB, now
Speaker 1: called the American Civil Liberty Union. So in earnest it
Speaker 1: was born on January nineteenth, nineteen. Is it like the
Speaker 1: day he got out or something. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's a day he got out, but it was basically
Speaker 1: just the restructured version of the National Civil Liberties Bureau. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: and initially like they were thinking, well, we'll just keep
Speaker 1: up with the leaflets they seemed to be working. How
Speaker 1: about a newsletter to leaflets never worked, by the way, right,
Speaker 1: but also like staging protest strikes, just getting publicity to
Speaker 1: try to um have an impact on the prevailing American
Speaker 1: sympathies towards the idea of pacifism or whatever. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: weren't just suing people out of the gate. No. And
Speaker 1: the reason why they stayed out of the courts in
Speaker 1: general because because at the time the courts were overtly
Speaker 1: hostile to the idea of freedom of speech, especially but
Speaker 1: other constitutionally guaranteed protections. The Supreme Court would just say no,
Speaker 1: we we we don't like what you have to say,
Speaker 1: and uh, and the rest of America doesn't so no, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're we're upholding your conviction for saying that the war
Speaker 1: is bad. Yeah. It was weird. Like literally up until
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, most of the civil liberties granted us
Speaker 1: to us were not tested, even because the Screen Court
Speaker 1: would shoot it down. Like whenever they tried, they were
Speaker 1: just saying, no, no, you don't have those rights after all.
Speaker 1: You know something that I'm curious about. I wonder if
Speaker 1: there's a correlation, because this is also like the end
Speaker 1: of the guilded age, but there was also I mean,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of very like wealthy, powerful interests
Speaker 1: in The income gap was pretty substantial back then, and
Speaker 1: I wonder if, like it is now, um, with the
Speaker 1: income gap growing, if there's a correlation become between income
Speaker 1: and quality inequality and um, a repression of freedom of
Speaker 1: speech and privacy and things like that. I wonder if
Speaker 1: like the two are related. Sounds like a book in
Speaker 1: the making, my friend, No question, too much work. Um,
Speaker 1: All right, well, I guess we should talk about some
Speaker 1: of their most famous early cases. Let's do that, but
Speaker 1: let's take a little break first. Alright, So early on,
Speaker 1: like we said, um, the Supreme Court hadn't hadn't been
Speaker 1: challenged that much in cases like these, and when they did,
Speaker 1: they weren't too kind to free speech. It is weird
Speaker 1: to think of now, for sure. Um, but in the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties is when the A C all you began
Speaker 1: to kind of make a little headway, um against kind
Speaker 1: of against the Supreme Court. Yeah. Well, they started to
Speaker 1: win smaller cases that you didn't have to go to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, and it was kind of like, um,
Speaker 1: death of repression by a thousand paper cuts, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So, like all those little cases started
Speaker 1: to add up where it was like, um, something in
Speaker 1: some change to the law in Louisville, Kentucky, didn't really
Speaker 1: have much effect in Missouri. But then they want a
Speaker 1: case in Missouri. And then if you started to step
Speaker 1: back and look at it on a map, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, this the balance is swinging the
Speaker 1: other direction. Yeah. But when they did win big Supreme
Speaker 1: Court cases, they were huge Supreme Court cases. I mean,
Speaker 1: like some of the most important cases of the twentieth
Speaker 1: century the a c. L Us either been directly or
Speaker 1: indirectly involved in, like the Scopes monkey trial that was
Speaker 1: a big one. Yeah, they And we've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about evolution lately, UM, and we didn't cover Scopes at all.
Speaker 1: But uh, in Tennessee there was a law banning teaching
Speaker 1: evolution in and so the a c LU went out
Speaker 1: and found a biology teacher named John Scopes, said hey,
Speaker 1: we would like you to teach evolution, and let's see
Speaker 1: what happens. And he was prosecuted and the a c
Speaker 1: l YOU got together with the famous attorney Clarence Darrow
Speaker 1: to defend him, and he was still found guilty, even
Speaker 1: though that verdict was overturned later because of a sentencing error.
Speaker 1: But so the a c l YOU lost, they lost,
Speaker 1: but it made big headlines and UM was really sort
Speaker 1: of one of the turning points and establishing like freedom,
Speaker 1: academic freedom in this country. Yeah, and I think not
Speaker 1: just as far as the A c l U goes,
Speaker 1: but any anyone who's kind of UM trying to make
Speaker 1: a change in the nation. I think one way to
Speaker 1: do that is to just get people talking about it,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of people, especially if they're
Speaker 1: in the majority or they hold the majority view, make
Speaker 1: the oftentimes incorrect assumption that everybody else holds the same
Speaker 1: view too. And I think just if you're just confronted
Speaker 1: by an opposing point of view, just knowing that it's
Speaker 1: out there, whether you agree with it or not, can
Speaker 1: kind of make you reflect and think about the views
Speaker 1: you hold too, and why you hold them, and whether
Speaker 1: they're um good views or not. So I think that's
Speaker 1: the that the the impression I have of the cases
Speaker 1: that it got people talking, and it made people who
Speaker 1: agreed with not teaching evolution realize like, whoa were not
Speaker 1: everybody thinks the same way I do. Yeah, ideally, Uh
Speaker 1: so you know, you're oponents are going to say that
Speaker 1: the c U is defending U, their watchdog, protecting everyone's
Speaker 1: civil liberties, whereas people who poopoo it say no, they're
Speaker 1: really a left wing organization and they subvert the Constitution
Speaker 1: and they protect criminals, and they attack religion and they
Speaker 1: have an extremist agenda. Um, so those are sort of
Speaker 1: the two sides of the argument. The thing is, though,
Speaker 1: is like they if you go back over there, their history. Okay.
Speaker 1: This article points out the perfect example, which one the
Speaker 1: one where in the thirties and the nineteen forties the
Speaker 1: a c l U defended both the n double A
Speaker 1: CP and blacks rights to UM enfranchisement and just equal
Speaker 1: treatment and UM basically civil rights. And while at the
Speaker 1: same time, during these same years, the the a c
Speaker 1: l U is also defending the Ku Klux Klan and
Speaker 1: it's right to assemble and speak out against UM black rights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the Skokie. Uh. Now, this is long before Skoki.
Speaker 1: This is like the thirties and forties. The Skokie was
Speaker 1: the Nazis. That was another big one. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: guess we can go ahead and talk about that, the
Speaker 1: Skokie free speech controversy. In the late seventies. Uh, a
Speaker 1: group of neo Nazis in Chicago wanted to uh have
Speaker 1: permission to go to Skokie, Illinois, not form a barbershop
Speaker 1: quartet UM, but hold a demonstration. And that was a UM.
Speaker 1: Skokie was famous for being um the center of a
Speaker 1: Chicago's Jewish community post Holocaust. A bunch of Jewish people
Speaker 1: settled there, and so of course the neo Nazis wanted
Speaker 1: to go to the heart of it all in protest um.
Speaker 1: They asked the a c LU for help and they
Speaker 1: got it, and we're granted permission even though they didn't
Speaker 1: use it. Yeah, because scote. When the Neo Nazis applied
Speaker 1: for a permit to assemble or um have a parade
Speaker 1: to Nazi parade, basically they Skokie City Council said, well,
Speaker 1: you know that you have to post a dollar bond,
Speaker 1: which is gonna cost you about a grand I just
Speaker 1: want to let you know about that first. And the
Speaker 1: new Nazis said, you are trampling our rights. And that's
Speaker 1: when they got in touch with the a c l U,
Speaker 1: and the a C l you said, yeah, they're trampling
Speaker 1: your rights, it sounds like. And they fought too for
Speaker 1: the Nazis right to assemble based on the idea that
Speaker 1: that thousand dollar basically fee to assemble was prohibitive and
Speaker 1: that you know, anybody who wanted to hold a parade
Speaker 1: or a protest or anything like that in Skokie it
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily be able to afford that, So protests shouldn't
Speaker 1: just be open to the people who can afford that
Speaker 1: thousand dollar bond. And therefore Skokie, I guess relented, But
Speaker 1: the Nazis never even came. Now, they never even held
Speaker 1: their protest. Yeah, and that's that's gonna make you unpopular.
Speaker 1: As an organization if you are campaigning for the rights
Speaker 1: of the Nazis, but the A c l U bites
Speaker 1: their tongue and say no, we have to Well, you know, um,
Speaker 1: you remember the part in the Blues Brothers. This is
Speaker 1: all um very famously dramatized. Remember the Illinois Nazis. I
Speaker 1: hate Illinois Nazis and they drive past him and make
Speaker 1: them jump into the river. Yeah. I guarantee that was
Speaker 1: because of the Skokie Skokie Nazi thing. It was all
Speaker 1: around the same time. Yeah, and they were Chicago as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Chuck, have you ever seen you know the mall
Speaker 1: part where they drive through the mall? I made the
Speaker 1: slideshow UM nine abandoned malls around America, and that malls
Speaker 1: in there, it's like abandoned in in this total state
Speaker 1: of decay. The Dixie Mall, I believe it's what it's
Speaker 1: called Dixie Square. It's pretty cool. Well, the other one
Speaker 1: you have in there was Avondale Mall close to where
Speaker 1: I grew up, and that famously had the chase scene
Speaker 1: from Invasion USA. Oh yeah, Chuck Norris drove a truck
Speaker 1: through that mall. I did not know that. And the mall.
Speaker 1: It was kind of crappy, and I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I remember when it shot there and then they got
Speaker 1: like a full makeover because of the movie, and uh
Speaker 1: now it's to Walmart. They tore down. Yeah, that's kind
Speaker 1: of a crappy mall. Well, it looked pretty cool abandoned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks very cool. Um. Another case back to the A. C.
Speaker 1: L U. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnett
Speaker 1: in nt UH school board expelled two thousand students Jehovah's
Speaker 1: Witness students because they refused to recite the Pledge of
Speaker 1: Allegiance because it um their religion, forbade worshiping images including
Speaker 1: the U. S. Flag, and they won the case. Um,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said that you can't force someone to
Speaker 1: declare your belief in any religion or nation, which goes
Speaker 1: back to you know, it may be unpopular in certain circles,
Speaker 1: but you can't say you're a free country and then
Speaker 1: you can practice any religion you want, but then force
Speaker 1: people to contradict that religion. You know, if this is
Speaker 1: the land of the free, you have to allow You
Speaker 1: may not like it. I'm not saying everyone has to
Speaker 1: like this stuff, but it's a pretty slope if you
Speaker 1: start restricting these freedoms. Can you imagine telling some little
Speaker 1: Jehovah's witness kid like, Well, then you can't go to
Speaker 1: school here. If you're not going to say the Pledge
Speaker 1: of Allegiance, you have no right to educate. It's man,
Speaker 1: this country's got not so history. Um what else? Uh?
Speaker 1: Joseph Burston inc. Versus Wilson's one of my favorites. Well,
Speaker 1: basically there's this movie, uh released here in the U s.
Speaker 1: As The Miracle, but it was titled in Europe a
Speaker 1: More with an E on the INSA maybe a more
Speaker 1: A yeah, you know what. The deal with the movie
Speaker 1: was a lady who she had a mental illness and
Speaker 1: thought she was the virgin Mary. Well, she she had
Speaker 1: too much to drink. Oh, I read mental illness. Well,
Speaker 1: she was applied with with drink and then had sex
Speaker 1: with a vagabond she thought was St. Joseph, who was
Speaker 1: played by Federico Fellini, who co wrote it. I believe, yeah,
Speaker 1: but did not direct it and got pregnant and believed
Speaker 1: that was an immaculate concept. Right. So the Catholics in
Speaker 1: the fifties done. They did not like the movie, and
Speaker 1: they had a lot of cloud in New York at
Speaker 1: the time. And in New York, if you were a
Speaker 1: movie theater and you're planning on showing the Miracle, uh,
Speaker 1: the city said, well, we're just gonna take your your
Speaker 1: license to show movies in general. If you do that,
Speaker 1: do not show this movie. Some places in New York
Speaker 1: where like, this movie's banned. You can't even carry it
Speaker 1: into our city borders if you want to. Um. And
Speaker 1: they took it the A c. L. You stepped in
Speaker 1: and they took it to the Supreme Court, and the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court said, the state has this is a quote,
Speaker 1: the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or
Speaker 1: all religions from views distasteful of them. So they said,
Speaker 1: you're right, A c. L. You. That was a big
Speaker 1: deal because at the time, religion was basically this kind
Speaker 1: of infallible institution that took precedent over everything else. The
Speaker 1: it was the the the moral attitude of the country
Speaker 1: where it was like, note, religions offended by it, it's bad. Sorry,
Speaker 1: whatever laws you've got that like protect this stupid little movie.
Speaker 1: Who cares, We're banning it because it's it offends a
Speaker 1: religion and because of that and many other things that
Speaker 1: Catholic League UH and its leader Bill Donahoe UM are
Speaker 1: huge critics of the a c l U, although he's
Speaker 1: also um praised the A c l You when when
Speaker 1: they've defended Catholic rights too well, Larry Flint, remember he
Speaker 1: thought some of these same battles, and his attorney famously
Speaker 1: was like, I think he's kind of a scumbag too,
Speaker 1: and I think that he's a smart peddler and this
Speaker 1: stuff is disgusting. Edward Norton. Yeah, Like, but you can't, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't say he can't do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a great movie except for Corney Love. Everything
Speaker 1: of everything, but Corny Love was great in that movie.
Speaker 1: Although I did like her A Man on the Moon
Speaker 1: for some reason, I don't. I don't like her much period.
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan. Really, do you like Corney Love? Okay?
Speaker 1: Um No, but that if I did the A c
Speaker 1: l you would defend my right to like Courtney Love
Speaker 1: despite it being really unpopular. That is true. H Smith V.
Speaker 1: All Right, the a c l U. UM. Basically what
Speaker 1: was going on there was they had what we're called
Speaker 1: white primaries, UH, the Democratic Party for their elections, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was illegal because it denied blacks a chance to
Speaker 1: uh to vote and to participate. That is exactly what
Speaker 1: it'sunded like. And um, previous to this court said Long said,
Speaker 1: political parties are private organizations. They're not subject to these
Speaker 1: antidiscrimination laws. But the Supreme Court did the right thing
Speaker 1: and said, you know what, being able to participate in
Speaker 1: the voting primaries important in this country and if we
Speaker 1: want to remain a democracy, we need to not have
Speaker 1: things like white primaries. So we're going to reach into
Speaker 1: your protected enclave and say you can't do that any more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because voting this that important. Yeah, which is kind of
Speaker 1: a radical view in and of itself because it overturned
Speaker 1: a precedent and custom. Yeah, I think we should do
Speaker 1: some more. Um. When I was in New York, I
Speaker 1: saw that play, The Cranston plays L B. J. And
Speaker 1: All the Way, and it covers the year the eleven
Speaker 1: months post Kennedy assassination to the his re election bid
Speaker 1: where he got the Civil Rights Act passed. And it
Speaker 1: was fascinating and did all kinds of research about it.
Speaker 1: Was Kranston good, He's great, like completely became the character
Speaker 1: like I forgot it was Cranston. And then after the play,
Speaker 1: you know, he becomes Brian Cranston again to thank everyone,
Speaker 1: and it's just like, it's weird just seeing an actor
Speaker 1: in front of your eyes, like morph back into the
Speaker 1: real person. It's pretty cool. But I want to definitely
Speaker 1: tackle some more civil rights issues because probably the darkest
Speaker 1: spot in our nation's history and been plenty of wasn't
Speaker 1: that long ago either. I can't remember who the person's name,
Speaker 1: but remember we were talking about Kent State and how
Speaker 1: that was like the darkest spot on our nation's history,
Speaker 1: and somebody wrote it was like that was pretty bad,
Speaker 1: but don't forget all of the strikes where you know,
Speaker 1: National Guard troops fired on and killed like a hundred
Speaker 1: striking workers just for striking in the twenties or whatever.
Speaker 1: So whoever that was, thanks for taking me to task,
Speaker 1: because that's absolutely correct. A lot of dark spots, a
Speaker 1: lot of dark spots, a lot of bright spots too,
Speaker 1: sure man. And with that cheery idea, let's take one
Speaker 1: more break. Okay, Sunshine, what do you got next? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess you talked about the Scopes trial or we
Speaker 1: did for a second. Um, some of the other most
Speaker 1: famous cases in this country's history. Like I know people
Speaker 1: that listen to our podcast on the Japanese and tournament camps. Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: and if you can't find it, just go to our
Speaker 1: archive page. We have an archive page now that has
Speaker 1: every single one of the six plus stuff you should
Speaker 1: Know episodes ever made, all in one place. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: took you know, six years to make that happen, but
Speaker 1: we're very proud of that. It's a stuff you should
Speaker 1: Know dot com slash podcast, slash archive, so you will
Speaker 1: find that one in there. Um, was it Japanese stragglers
Speaker 1: or do we do one on internment camps? We do
Speaker 1: one on internment Okay. That was when we FDR rounded
Speaker 1: up or ordered the government to round up people of
Speaker 1: Japanese descent, even some of whom were Americans, Like most
Speaker 1: of them were, Yeah, like natural born America enuane citizens
Speaker 1: to the relocation camps. And the a c l u
Speaker 1: UM jumped on this, and they were they were one
Speaker 1: of the only groups kind of standing up and saying
Speaker 1: this isn't right at the time. Yeah. They also had
Speaker 1: this whole campaign against calling French fries freedom fries, Like
Speaker 1: you can't call it that and everyone's like, boo, sit down,
Speaker 1: did they say that now? And then other famous cases
Speaker 1: like Brown the Board of Education and we Wade and
Speaker 1: Dobe Bolton. The a c l U was instrumental in
Speaker 1: all of these. Again, um, even though it's unpopular to
Speaker 1: some people. Fighting for the freedoms of the minorities. Yeah. Also, um,
Speaker 1: recently the the Communications Decency Act, which basically made it
Speaker 1: a crime to knowingly send pornography to minors or something
Speaker 1: like that. He said, Nope, that's you can't tell people
Speaker 1: they can't do that. That's freedom of speech. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like a Janet reno idea. And they got smacked down
Speaker 1: like overturned basically by the Supreme Court. Again, unpopular moves.
Speaker 1: They're not out to make friends though. No. And the
Speaker 1: one that I've got this is to me, the most
Speaker 1: despicable case that a c l U has ever taken.
Speaker 1: But take it however you want. Have you heard of
Speaker 1: Nambula the National man Boy there the North American Man
Speaker 1: Boy Love Association. So Namba Nambula is exactly what you think.
Speaker 1: It's basically a club for peders and their website is
Speaker 1: apparently it UH tutorial training Ground Forum chat room place
Speaker 1: to get tips on how to be a more effective
Speaker 1: pederast or pedophile. Uh. And these two guys um they
Speaker 1: are named Charles James and Salvator Sakari. They were convicted
Speaker 1: of murdering a couple's son, Jeffrey, and Um they basically
Speaker 1: said everything we needed to know we learned from Nambula,
Speaker 1: from the Nambula website. And so the Curlies, the people
Speaker 1: the couple whose son was murdered by these child murderers
Speaker 1: UH were went after Nambula and the a c l
Speaker 1: U intervened and said, Nambula is actually an unincorporated association,
Speaker 1: not a corporation, so it's allowed to extol illegal acts
Speaker 1: as long as it's not inciting people telling people to
Speaker 1: go do these illegal acts. It can still appreciate at
Speaker 1: these illegal accident if you look at their website, that's
Speaker 1: all they're doing. And the suit against NAMBLA has dismissed
Speaker 1: again not popular. You know, the l c c LU
Speaker 1: has to you know that they feel forced into some
Speaker 1: of these situations. Probably well, there's oftentimes been a lot
Speaker 1: of shakeups internally where people at the a c l
Speaker 1: You're saying, no, this is this is beyond the line,
Speaker 1: like they're there, this is just too wrong. What these
Speaker 1: people are saying is too despicable, and maybe we shouldn't
Speaker 1: be maybe they shouldn't be allowed to say it. And
Speaker 1: the a c l U as an organization has walked
Speaker 1: that line, lost a lot of members and a lot
Speaker 1: of supporters and a lot of employees, but it's stayed,
Speaker 1: you know, true to its vision and is still around today.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's say you want the a c l
Speaker 1: U to take up your cause. You have to write
Speaker 1: them a letter. You have to outline your problem, maybe
Speaker 1: provide a little evidence, build your case with them, and
Speaker 1: if it's not in modern language association accepted outline form,
Speaker 1: then they just won't even look at it. Probably so um.
Speaker 1: And they basically determine is it a civil liberties case
Speaker 1: that we should get involved with and how should we
Speaker 1: get involved? Um. They don't just go out and see everyone. Um.
Speaker 1: Most times they try to resolve the cases just by
Speaker 1: getting in touch with whoever the government agency and saying, hey, um,
Speaker 1: you might want to check out the constitution because it
Speaker 1: seems like what you're doing now isn't isn't so great
Speaker 1: and it might not even be Constitution Like it could be, Um,
Speaker 1: it could be like we we understand what you're saying,
Speaker 1: but recently there's some legislation passed and it's now law,
Speaker 1: and here's the code if you want to go look
Speaker 1: it up. But you can stop trampling this person's rights now,
Speaker 1: Like the the the staff member at the Reach program
Speaker 1: in Tennessee probably got a letter from the a c
Speaker 1: L year or the director did, saying, actually, it's within
Speaker 1: this child's First Amendment rights to read this Bible, so
Speaker 1: just let him read the Bible. And they were probably like,
Speaker 1: when we're not happy to let him read the bible's Tennessee.
Speaker 1: And there you go, and it was settled, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another way of looking at it, though, is the a
Speaker 1: c L you can just strong arm people into doing
Speaker 1: what it wants by simply writing a letter. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: if they, you know, think, don't get anywhere with the letter,
Speaker 1: that is when they either have a staff attorney or
Speaker 1: one of their pro bono volunteers take up the case. Um.
Speaker 1: Their headquartered in New York City. But like we said,
Speaker 1: every state has their own chapter and they do operate autonomously,
Speaker 1: and like we said earlier, they don't always agree with
Speaker 1: the federal chapter, and the federal chapter generally leads it
Speaker 1: up to the state to decide their own, like how
Speaker 1: they're going to raise their money, what cases are going
Speaker 1: to take um. But if it becomes a national like
Speaker 1: clearly a national issue, that's when the national organization steps
Speaker 1: in and get your like celebrity at turning into work
Speaker 1: pro bono. Yeah, dershu Witz, bob blah blaw. I guess
Speaker 1: we should talk about how they're funded. Because they're an profit. Um,
Speaker 1: they are generally funded by donations. The A CEL you
Speaker 1: Foundation is tax deductible, and that is the group that
Speaker 1: actually they're sort of split down the middle between the
Speaker 1: foundation and just the A c l U. The foundation
Speaker 1: is who litigates. The a c l U is uh
Speaker 1: focused on political lobbying, and that is not tax deductible. No,
Speaker 1: when you become an a C l you, remember you're
Speaker 1: actually contributing dues to the A c l U, and
Speaker 1: your dues are not tax deductible because you're contributing to
Speaker 1: their lobbying arm. If you contribute to the A C
Speaker 1: l YOU Foundation, then you can that is tax deductible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like supporting actual you know, court cases, they also
Speaker 1: maintain UM an endowment, so they have investments UM and
Speaker 1: most controversially, they're also supported through attorney's fees. Yeah. That's
Speaker 1: one of the big controversies for sure. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: a c l U has a tactic where if they
Speaker 1: win a case, they to recover fees like many do. UM.
Speaker 1: And but when the a c l U does that, uh,
Speaker 1: it's often these fees can run into six figures fairly
Speaker 1: easily depending on the case. UM. And so if you're
Speaker 1: like a little town, you know in Cannon County, Tennessee, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you want to stand up to the a c
Speaker 1: l U, it could very easily mean the difference between
Speaker 1: being in the red and being in the black. UM.
Speaker 1: And if you are, you very well may just say, like,
Speaker 1: forget it, it's not worth it. We can't afford to
Speaker 1: fight this. So yes, let's we'll turn our back on
Speaker 1: our convictions because we want to still have a town
Speaker 1: after the a c LU comes through here. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: that's what critics point to, is that they use that
Speaker 1: UM card is a form of intimidation, Like they can
Speaker 1: just say that in that letter, Like, first of all,
Speaker 1: here's the legislation that proves our client is right. Secondly,
Speaker 1: if you want to take this to court, our estimate
Speaker 1: is that it's gonna cost you six thousand dollars if
Speaker 1: we win. Do you really want to spend six thousand
Speaker 1: dollars fighting this? Yeah? Think about it. Yeah, Huh get
Speaker 1: back to me. I've left three boxes, yes, no, or
Speaker 1: maybe please check one by E O D tomorrow well
Speaker 1: and then the other. The other criticism there, of course,
Speaker 1: is uh, that is government money. It's your tax banging
Speaker 1: dollars indirectly funding the a c l U through these cases. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, if you hate the a c l U,
Speaker 1: you're gonna probably bang that drum. I mean, imagine if
Speaker 1: your town says, yeah, we're gonna fight you, and then
Speaker 1: they lose and they have to pay the A c
Speaker 1: l USE fees. Yeah, that that's not that's not coming
Speaker 1: out of the mayor's like savings. That's like your tax money.
Speaker 1: So you just paid this organization that you now probably despise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's say a c l you man, that's like that's
Speaker 1: classic a CLU right there. You know. So where did
Speaker 1: this whole card carrying member uh insult come from? Michael
Speaker 1: du Cacus? Of course, from what that's what the article
Speaker 1: said that he was the first person to probably proclaimed
Speaker 1: to be a card carrying member. Yeah, and it happened
Speaker 1: like just perfectly. It was du Caucus in an interview
Speaker 1: in The New Yorker talking about the a c l U. Yeah,
Speaker 1: come on, Uh so he says he's a card carrying member.
Speaker 1: He said proudly that he was a card carrying member
Speaker 1: of the a c l U to just basically to
Speaker 1: get across his liberal bona fides. Yeah, and conservatives said, hey,
Speaker 1: that's a great insult that we can use in the future.
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush in particular, he basically said, he's
Speaker 1: a card carrying member the a c l U. Everybody
Speaker 1: hates the a c l U. They defend Nazis, and
Speaker 1: that was that. He's right, Yeah, they do defend Nazis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or they have and they will in the future of
Speaker 1: some Nazis need help, Yeah, to the rescue. But they're
Speaker 1: also defending little boy and Tennessee, he wants to read
Speaker 1: his Bible. That's right. It's all over the map, yep.
Speaker 1: And that is called device. Uh yeah. If you are
Speaker 1: you anything else, I got nothing else. If you want to,
Speaker 1: I love this one. If you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about the A C L you you can type that
Speaker 1: word in the search part how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: And I said search part. So it's time for the
Speaker 1: listener mail. I'm gonna call this converted fiance. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this is a gentleman from England who whose wife I'm sorry, fiance, Kathy,
Speaker 1: I did not want to listen. They're getting married in May. Um.
Speaker 1: So he talks a little bit about how much he
Speaker 1: likes the show and I will skip that part and
Speaker 1: get right to the meat. Um. I tried to get
Speaker 1: my fiance converted. It started with the JFK podcast, with
Speaker 1: no luck. She moaned and said it was weird, which
Speaker 1: I thought that was a very straight ahead podcast actually. Uh.
Speaker 1: Not being one to quit, I tried a few weeks
Speaker 1: later on Living Without a Fridge. Um. As soon as
Speaker 1: the intro began, she groaned, he's moaning and groaning. Has
Speaker 1: she ever heard us before? No, this is brand new
Speaker 1: to her. What's your deal, Kathy? She hate it, said, well,
Speaker 1: let me get to it. Um this time. Halfway through, though,
Speaker 1: she began commenting on some of the content, such as
Speaker 1: placing your onions in the fridge against all odds and
Speaker 1: next podcast saved on the playlist was man Hunts. As
Speaker 1: soon as she heard the topic, she shut me up
Speaker 1: from talking and listened intently. Not bad, I thought, I
Speaker 1: didn't even think that was one of our better ones. Well,
Speaker 1: she liked it. Uh. This morning, though, was the breakthrough.
Speaker 1: We were in the supermarket and wanted to purchase some avocados.
Speaker 1: None were ripe, and Cathy said we could do that
Speaker 1: thing that bloke suggested and put the avocados in a
Speaker 1: paper bag in a banana to help it ripen. She
Speaker 1: took your advice, so while I thought. Later in the
Speaker 1: morning she was reading about how time was running out
Speaker 1: to find the signal for the missing black Box from
Speaker 1: flight three seventy. She turned to me and asked why
Speaker 1: they couldn't find the signal, and I said, you know
Speaker 1: what stuff you should know has a podcast on that.
Speaker 1: And the next day, in the car ride to the
Speaker 1: cinema which is what they called Movies and England, which
Speaker 1: apparently are forty minutes drive away, she said, uh. She
Speaker 1: requested to actually play the black Box episode success. Well,
Speaker 1: this guy really knows how to manipulate his fiance, so
Speaker 1: he says, if any of your listeners have had trouble
Speaker 1: getting their partners into it. I would suggest you keep trying.
Speaker 1: Eventually you'll find an episode or two that will capture
Speaker 1: their interest and they'll be hooked. And that is from
Speaker 1: guy uh ben Venista in Horsham, UK. Nice name and
Speaker 1: city name, guy. So thanks Kathy for joining up to
Speaker 1: the to the club. Kathy soon to be ben Venista,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the party. Yes, I think Kathy's gonna keep
Speaker 1: herung man. Well, okay, Kathy, either way, as long as
Speaker 1: you're listening to stuff you should know, we don't care. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to let us know how you turn
Speaker 1: somebody converted them, or if they you just can't convert them,
Speaker 1: we'd be very interested to find out why. I agreed,
Speaker 1: Why why don't they like us? It's not like we
Speaker 1: care or anything, but you know, we just want to
Speaker 1: know you. Again. As I said, you can hang out
Speaker 1: with us on social media Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Just
Speaker 1: search your favorite web browser for stuff you should know
Speaker 1: s y, s K, Josh and Chuck something like that
Speaker 1: and it should all come up. You can send us
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and
Speaker 1: as always, hang out with us at our home on
Speaker 1: the Web Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How
Speaker 1: stuff Works? Dot com