A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

However, when it comes to defending conservative causes, such as the
right
of religious students to pray in school

That's like asking them to defend the right to fire a gun in school.

Why? In case you missed it, the courts have ruled that students are
entitled
to pray in school, just so long as it's not school officials who are
leading
the prayers.

Defending civil liberties means that you don't necessarily go along with
whatever the court has to say on an issue.

It does mean going along with what the Constitution says, however.


But that puts them squarely at odds with the Constitution
and the religious student's right to freely exercise their religion.

It's their job to be at odds with whatever it is that is threatening civil
liberties.

Except when the civil liberties threatened happen to be ones that support
things like religion and private property.


You must learn
to distinguish between a school and its administration leading, engaging
in
or fostering prayer by students and the free exercise of religion by
individual students, acting on their own. That other students may be made
uncomfortable by these private displays of religion is not important, as
the
Constitution requires them to tolerate such things.

If the displays are private, there's obviously no problem, because nobody
would even know they were praying.

"Private" does not mean "invisible." I can pray out loud on the sidewalk all
day long and there's nothing anyone can do about it.



or defense of individual landowners
property rights against unlawful seizure of their land by the government

I'm not sure that civil liberties and property rights are necessarily a
good
fit.

In case you missed it, the right to own private property is one of our

Who is "our" here?

Each and every citizen of the United States, of course.


the rights of gun owners to keep and bear arms

Well, perhaps the concern is the right for other people to be safe from
gun
nuts.

Perhaps, but that puts them squarely at odds with the Constitution and the
civil liberty to own a gun.

It's their job to be at odds with anything that threatens civil liberties.

Except when the threatened civil liberty is the right to keep and bear arms.


Thus, even if a judge rules that it is perfectly fine for Scott Weiser to
park a tank on his front lawn and point it at his neighbor's house, you
might well expect the ACLU to disagree.

Hyperbolic amphigory.


--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser