Voltaire kind of said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." And that's pretty much Freedom of Speech in the US. You CAN say stuff, you aren't immune to consequences, but the basic right does exist. Today we'll talk about the founding of the ACLU, and the time that they supported the right to have a bad opinion.
Voltaire kind of said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." And that's pretty much Freedom of Speech in the US. You CAN say stuff, you aren't immune to consequences, but the basic right does exist.
Today we'll talk about the founding of the ACLU, and the time that they supported the right to have a bad opinion.
Taylor: I bought a clothing steamer because I bought stuff
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA096.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Boom. Taylor, we are live. How are you?
>> Taylor: Good. My husband just handed me. I bought a clothing steamer because I bought stuff that needs to be ironed, and I'm absolutely not ironing anything. So I'm excited to see if this works.
>> Farz: I'd be curious to know how it works, too, because I only throw my clothes in the dryer and hope that that will press them sufficiently for me a thousand percent.
>> Taylor: I just bought, like a really nice dress and I just put it in the dryer. I was like, hope you come out not wrinkly because I'm not doing anything else.
>> Farz: I did ruin at least one fairly nice polo doing it that way. So.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah.
Doomed to Fail brings you history's most notorious disasters and failures
>> Farz: Well, so do you want to. Do you want to do a little intro since I remember this time?
>> Taylor: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. We bring you history's most notorious disasters and failures. And I'm Taylor, joined by Fars. And today we're going to hear a story from Fars.
>> Farz: I went pretty deep with this one, but it shouldn't be that long of a episode. So sort of deep. And I'm going to go through a little bit of history in the U.S. starting with World War I, that leads up to an event happening in the 1960s that is fairly prescient to modern times.
During World War I, US was focused around the concept of conscientious objectors
So I'm going to start my conversation here with the topic of when around World War I, the US was kind of focused around the concept of conscientious objectors. Do you know what that is, Taylor?
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Farz: So basically, for anybody who doesn't, these are folks that, for moral or religious or personal reasons, rejected the idea of picking up arms on behalf of a country and going to war and hurting other people for that cause, which is a problem in a situation like World War I, where the draft was implemented and forced young men, solely young men, to go into armed conflicts.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I'm not going discussed with the.
>> Farz: Whole women and children first concept, which I begin to lean against, by the way. So during World War I and under the Selective Service act of 1917, the only conscientious objectors were those were protected under law because of defined religious affiliations. Think of like the Quakers and the Amish, for example. So those people were exempt. Everyone else was kind of just out of luck in this situation. And I didn't realize this, but we treated conscientious objectors like really badly and During World War I times, folks were thrown into prisons. They were thrown into, like, work camps. They were like borderline tortured.
>> Taylor: You didn't get to say no, you were. Even though you weren't going, you still were.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: You're not going.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, well, because it was just seen as like. Go ahead.
>> Taylor: Sorry. I have something stupid to say. You know how Australia was made by a bunch of criminals?
>> Farz: Yes.
>> Taylor: It didn't occur to me until very, very recently that they didn't just send them to Australia, let them go, they sent them Australia and kept them in jail. And then like, they were like penal camps in Australia. Yeah, I thought they just, like, dropped them off of the beach.
>> Farz: They did, yeah. I was. I remember the movie Papillon. Remember that one? No, that was like, French, but, like, it was a similar concept. It was Devil's island, and they just released the criminals on this one island. I was like, it's kind of lovely.
>> Taylor: Like, not the most, but I don't think that that's exactly what happened.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, More on that later. Probably more on that. Yeah, we'll. We'll definitely get into Papillon and double that one later.
The ACLU was founded to defend conscientious objectors during World War I
So, yeah, there was two laws, the espionage act of 1917 and the Sedition act of 1918. And those were the laws that if you were refusing service or if you were speaking out against or on behalf of conscientious objectors, you would be subject to, like, prosecution, essentially, which is where a woman, who I would consider a great woman, comes into this picture. A woman named Crystal Catherine Eastman. Do you know that name? Yeah, I didn't either. And I was shocked that I didn't. Like, I was. I was shocked that, like, what this person did and what she contributed, I had no idea what her name was. And I'll tell you why. We don't know her name later on, but Chris Leesman, kind of an unsung hero in feminists more in the US she rose to prominence as a lawyer focused on pushing forward agendas on feminism, socialism, and anti military action. So she was staunchly anti military action, which is like a weird spot to be in when, like, World War II comes running. It's like, I don't know, should he be anti? Like, you kind of should be pro military. This is the problem that every ideology runs against is like the real world, right?
>> Taylor: I mean, you can be like, hey, guys, let's. Let's just chill out. But, like, Hitler's not going to chill out.
>> Farz: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So her first foray into the public sphere was her Work investigating workplace safety for a Pittsburgh newspaper, which shined a light on occupational. Occupational safety issues in the us. She would go on to become the first woman assigned to the New York, New York Board for Worker Safety as a commissioner. And she would draft the first version of worker compensation laws for New York.
>> Taylor: So what year is this?
>> Farz: This would have been the late 1800s. Beginning of 1900s.
>> Taylor: Nice. It's kind of when TR was like the police commissioner in New York. He would go around and like, make sure everything was okay. Like undercover, but, like, very clearly still tr, you know, like a bigger mustache over the mustache.
>> Farz: They're never gonna. Well, then again, all the men probably had mustaches.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: So her next area of interest was working on women's suffrage in Wisconsin, which is where she had moved after getting married. She left New York, went to Wisconsin, all that stuff. She would extend this work to being part of the commission that drafted the equal. Equal Rights Amendment at the federal level. And she would later found the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which is apparently the oldest ongoing political party in the country, which I did not know.
>> Taylor: Cool, though.
>> Farz: Kudos to her for that. Yeah. This was when her interest bounced into the peace movement and coincided with the US's involvement in World War I, which is where she would make her biggest and longest lasting legacy, which is a part where we will be shocked that we don't know this one thing. So she, along with others, founded a thing called the nclb, which stood for the National Civil Liberties Bureau. Sounds kind of familiar. Is almost the point of it was to defend conscious conscientious objectors and defend them legally because she was a lawyer and it was a group of lawyers that founded this organization. Today, this organization is known as the aclu.
>> Taylor: That's awesome.
>> Farz: This wild, isn't it? Here's the part that was nuts about this. So if you go to the ACLU's website, they start talking about their history as having been founded in the 1920s. There's no mention of Crystal Eastman in any of this. For whatever reason, the ACLU completely divorced itself from their association with Eastman.
>> Taylor: Do you know why? Are you going to tell me why or you don't know?
>> Farz: There was a why? It was something along the lines of she got into it with, like, the. The one of the other founders and then got booted. Like it was something like that. It was. It was some internal political strife that resulted in this history going the way that it went. So the impetus for the ACLU fundamentally was to protect freedom of speech as A foundational issue, which is a very topical thing these days in the U.S. you got.
>> Taylor: You got there. I see where you are.
>> Farz: There it is. So that started with conscientious objectors and their supporters, but it quickly evolved into protecting union members, racial dialogue around civil rights. And they recognize something that is absolutely. And obviously being eroded in today's modern America is you should protect the speech you don't like, because that's the only speech that requires protection. It's like, I don't know why this concept is so hard to. It's like, right? There is nothing.
>> Taylor: Otherwise there wouldn't be a point. Because you'd be like, yeah, everybody just says nice stuff about me.
>> Farz: Yeah, everything. We just agree on everything. It's like, yeah, that's what. And I'm going to get to the point here because I'm going to go into a story that shows how far from this concept we are based on what happens after the founding of aclu.
Frank Joseph started his political career running the Midwestern branch of the Nazi Party
So I'm going to talk about this guy named Francis Joseph Collin, who I'm going to refer to from here on out as Frank Joseph. Frank was born to a Jewish German father who survived Dachau, a concentration camp, and an American Catholic mother who the father met after Dachau, after he was a child in Chicago. So he started his political career by running the Midwestern branch of the American N*** Party.
>> Taylor: Jeez.
>> Farz: Before having a falling out with the next guy in line to lead the party because the founder. The founder was assassinated of the American N*** Party. Then the next guy in line, it was supposed to be either Frank or this other guy, but that guy discovered that Frank was Jewish, and so he was basically excommunicated. Also.
>> Taylor: Bring that up again, because you showed me his head was at Daco.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Okay, cool. I just.
>> Farz: His name was Cohen.
>> Taylor: The bad name.
>> Farz: Yeah, his original name was Cohen, and then the dad changed it to Colin when he got to the U.S. what's interesting about the American N*** Party is that that guy's assassin was another member of the party who was, like, p***** because he was treated badly. Like, he was sent to be like, you know, the coffee boy.
>> Taylor: The Nazis are being mean to me.
>> Farz: Yeah, he was sent out to be, like, an errand boy, and he was p***** off about that. That's why he ended up killing the main guy. So it wasn't like a political thing. It was purely just like, this guy's mean to me. I don't like it anymore. So Frank would move. Go ahead. Sorry.
>> Taylor: No, I was just like, the story has just Gone so many places.
>> Farz: But I'm taking it there to prove. No, but I understand, like, when we look at our modern times, like things are so. It's like, shut the up. Like, we have to have dialogues with each other. Anyway. Okay, so.
Frank founded the National Socialist Party of America in Chicago in the 1960s
So getting back to Frank real quick. So he moves on from that party to founding his own party, the National Socialist Party of America. So another N*** group in the US And Frank's approach to engagement was just being as loud and annoying as possible and organizing rallies and marches mostly around the Chicago area where he was based.
>> Taylor: Is this. Oh, sorry, this is like, l. Is this I hate Illinois Nazis time?
>> Farz: Wait, wait. What?
>> Taylor: In Blues Brothers, they say I hate Illinois Nazis all the time, actually.
>> Farz: Probably because Tiny wise, like, it's an alliance. Yeah. So there was one time when he wanted to hold a rally, whatever you want to call it, in a town 15 miles outside of Chicago called Skokie, Illinois. So Skokie had a reputation of being one of the most Jewish cities in America, with about 60% of its population being Jewish. The 1960s, of that 60% being Jewish, 10% of them, sorry, out of the entire population, 10% were Holocaust survivors.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: And he was going to hold a N*** rally there. So it's for this reason that in 1977 and 78, when Frank decided to hold his rally in Skokie, the village, the city denied his permit to do so. He appealed the decision, which is when the ACLU steps in on behalf of Frank again, one of the most liberal organizations in the world, but on behalf of Frank, files a lawsuit called the National Socialist Party of America versus the Village of Skokie. What was the.
>> Taylor: But no, I. Exactly what you're saying. Like, you. You should need to defend everyone's right to free speech. Yeah.
>> Farz: Yes. It should be a conversation like. Like you, if you only talk to yourselves.
>> Taylor: Oh, totally. What do you mean?
>> Farz: This is the part that absolutely caved my head in. His lawyer from the aclu, the one that's there to defend the N*** party in a Holocaust town in Skokie, Illinois, is a guy named David Goldberger.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I hear. I hear that. It's also when, like, who did John Adams represented those. The soldiers in the British Mass in the Boston Massacre.
>> Farz: Yes, yes.
>> Taylor: He's like, they have the right to have a lawyer, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So this guy, David Goldberger, on behalf of the aclu, he argues that denying the permanent infringes on these guys freedom of speech. The appellate court in Illinois and the state supreme Court denied review of the case Outright, it goes up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court says, you can't do that, because if you start doing that for this guy, what does that mean for every other guy that comes after this guy, whether we like it or not, and sends it back to the lower court saying, you got to have, like, if you're going to do this, there has to be guard rails in place. You look like you're going to say something.
>> Taylor: No good.
>> Farz: And so that's what they did. They heard both sides of the argument. And the argument was, okay, fine. Like, the villager was like, fine, we'll let them do it. But they can't display swastikas everywhere, because that's going to cause harm to people. They'll see that given their experiences in Holocaust camps. And the Supreme Court or the state court denied that and was like, no, like, on its own. Like, this is part of free speech and you can't amend it. It actually ultimately didn't matter because he ended up just being like, I'm done with this. I'm not going to do this in Skokie. I'm just going to go to Chicago and do it. What's interesting is that a later President, like, 13 years later, her name's Nadine Strawson, was the president of aclu. And what she said is that the same laws and the tactics being used against these people with the same tactics being used against MLK Jr. When he was trying to argue for civil liberties and civil rights. So he.
>> Taylor: Right, saying that he couldn't do his things in places and all that.
>> Farz: Yeah, exactly. In fact, there was one situation where one of the parks these guys marched in, MLK marched in, like, 20 years earlier, and he didn't get a permanent, so police were, like, throwing bricks in his face. This is what I'm getting at. What I'm getting is, like, this whole thing of, like, let's just find our silos and do. We're safe and comfortable in our silos. Like, the guy's name, he was James Goldberger with the ACLU defending this guy.
>> Taylor: Like, I do think that he should have potentially seen a therapist.
>> Farz: Doesn't work. We already discussed on the last episode, it does work.
>> Taylor: And it just, like, something else is going on with that guy.
You should be encouraged to engage with stuff you don't want to know
Right.
>> Farz: Which. Which guy?
>> Taylor: With Frank. Like, what's his deal? Why is he like this?
>> Farz: Okay, but, like, again, like, that's why I kind of, like, started. Where I started was to give you an. A picture of, like, how something like a Crystal Eastman and, like, who she is, the human being leads to this outcome and, like, why that arc is rational. It makes sense so that people can hopefully wake up and look around at themselves and like, dude, we're kind of in this thing together. And this whole, like, we're enemies and we gotta fight each other and like, whoever you don't like, they shouldn't talk anyway. It's. It's ballistically stupid.
>> Taylor: Totally. I'm just saying that, like, what is Frank's deal that he became a N***?
>> Farz: There has to be self hate. There has to be self hate. Yeah, yeah. There has to be some because, yeah, like I said, like, the dad changed the name. Their name wasn't Colin, it was Cohen.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: And also Frank's grandparents all died in. In Dachau. The dad was the only one that got out.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's. It's a strange path to take.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Taylor: But I also. But I also agree that, like, you know, you should be. You're allowed to say stuff.
>> Farz: I would go further. I would say you're not just allowed to say stuff. You should be encouraged to engage with stuff you don't want to know and hear. Yeah. And I think. I think it's too easy now for people not to do that. In my mind, I'm like, this is like. Yeah, like that. That is a massive divide and that is a chasm. That. Yeah. Bad, bad chasm.
>> Taylor: I feel bad that you didn't know the Rapture was today.
>> Farz: Again, I don't know where you get your media from.
>> Taylor: We have different, very different feeds.
>> Farz: We have very different feeds. I do like, though, when I meet someone who has the exact same feed that I do because it's like the same cat videos going back and forth left and right.
>> Taylor: That's so funny.
>> Farz: So. So anyways, that's my story. I started with Crystal Eastman, got to this guy Frank, got to the aclu, got to the Supreme Court case. And hopefully it like, shows that, like, these things don't just happen because it's like you want it to happen the way you want it to happen. It happened over a fairly long history in a central belief and, I don't know, a core tenant of America. So, yeah, no, they'll take something away from that, but I doubt they will. We'll see.
>> Taylor: Maybe. I hope they do. I mean, yeah, there's. It's so easy to be in a silo of information. I'm looking at my feed, I guess I don't see anything about the Rapture. Maybe, just maybe it didn't happen. Just kidding.
>> Farz: You mean the poster? Well, so Anyways, that's what I was. This s***'s been heavy on my mind for a very long time now or recently. And I am probably gonna be going down a rabbit hole like this for.
>> Taylor: A while because it's interesting and also, like, you know, it. It continues to. I don't know. Like, the problems are all very similar from all time.
>> Farz: You know, I think the problem is that the technology changed.
>> Taylor: Yes. That's fair. And now how nice would it be to not know the news and just, like, find out in the morning when you get your paper and then maybe something crazy happened. Someone would, like, yell in the street.
>> Farz: You hear this all the time about, like, why is it that, like, a lot of, like, the main big cities are more, like, progressive and less, like, prone to, like, racism and whatever? And so much of the research that comes out of that is because you got to go to work with these people. You got to be in the subway with them. You got to, like, get a deli with them. You got to actually engage with them. And, like, now you can sit in your house and just scroll and see all the other people that think the same s***.
>> Taylor: You think it feeds you more of it. I'm always like, what am I looking at? Like, it's. My Instagram feed is half people I don't even follow. You know, they just, like, show up.
>> Farz: Yeah. Like, you can't humanize the other perspective because you don't have to. And that's. Whatever. It's a s***** outcome.
>> Taylor: It's very s*****. I did see something that a good option for male loneliness is for them to start bands. And maybe you could have more rock bands. I think there should be more ska bands.
Morgan: I do get advertised for men's only yoga sessions
So.
>> Farz: So I do. I do get advertised. I do get advertised now for, like, men's only yoga sessions in the park, and men's only this and that, and, like, there is something to that as well. But I guess, like, all of it boils down to, like, actually, like, looking someone in the eyes so you can see that they're actually a human being as opposed to just, like, a image, like a profile.
>> Taylor: Yeah. If you don't see anyone, like, there's people who don't see anyone. Yeah. Like, that's possible now, you know, I guess maybe. I mean, in different extremes, it's always been possible, but now you can really, you know, do a lot without ever getting near another human being.
>> Farz: Yeah. So, anywho, I know it was a short one and I painted a really windy path, but hopefully.
>> Taylor: No, I like it. That's fun. I like It. I like it.
>> Farz: So thank you for sharing. Yeah. Thank you for listening and thank you all for listening. And do we have any more listen rail?
>> Taylor: I do. I have another one from Morgan who said that after Covid, people started going back to the office. Things like standing water were a problem. We talked about what, Legionnaires disease. Because people hadn't been like, actively using the plumbing in buildings.
>> Farz: That makes sense. That makes sense.
>> Taylor: And I remember when I first moved to Las Vegas, like, our house was really dry because no one was living in it and it was empty and it was brand new. So we would get like electric shocked constantly. You know what I mean? When it was like just because static air. Yeah. It was like extra staticky because there was like. If you aren't actively using the water in a house in a place that's so dry, it's just going to get like, so much more dry, you know, we heard.
>> Farz: I didn't know that.
>> Taylor: Yeah, so there's that. So, you know. Did you throw away your little humidifiers yet?
>> Farz: Rachel picked it up from there and put it in the. It's. It's next to the trash can.
>> Taylor: Okay, great. Put it in the trash can. No. And then I did talk to my parents. They did know a young woman in college who died because they were at a. At a bar. My parents weren't there, but they knew the people involved. A guy who was under, happened to be underage, but he didn't go to jail. So he must have been like 17. Because I think the drinking age, like, just. I think when my parents were in college in the late 1970s, the drinking age in Illinois changed to 21, but in Wisconsin it was still 18. And they were in. But there was a lot of accidents because they went to Northern Illinois University and people would just go for the border, you know, and like, drink. And then they got accidents. But there was a young man who threw a bottle. The bottle shattered and part of the glass sliced the jugular of another college student and she died. And the friends that they know, they were there, they were like. The bar was just covered in blood. It was awful.
>> Farz: Did he go to jail? You said he didn't go to jail.
>> Taylor: No, mom said he didn't because, like, they were able to somehow prove that it was an. I mean, obviously it was an accident, but, like, still, he helped her.
>> Farz: Jeez, that's rough.
>> Taylor: I just wanted to confirm that story for my parents.
Justin: Last podcast was pretty good. The Aaron Hernandez one was pretty, pretty good
And then my last thing is we got an email today from Justin saying thank you for the re releases and thank you Justin, for listening.
>> Farz: Thank you, Justin. And please write to us. We do love that@dubinflpadmail.com.
>> Taylor: Yeah, all the socials.
>> Farz: I literally had a moment where, like, I. I stroked out for a second. I thought I said last podcast.
>> Taylor: That has happened to me like, a thousand times. Like, it is. It is. It is not. Not an active thing to not say last podcast sometimes because I hear it so much.
>> Farz: Right. When I said, I was like, did I say our name or their name?
>> Taylor: I've definitely thought that we've done. I've been listening to some older ones and they're very fun. Older. Last. Last podcasts.
>> Farz: You were right, though. The Aaron Hernandez one was pretty, pretty good.
>> Taylor: It's pretty good. I laughed really hard in a lot of places in a very, very horrible subject to laugh.
>> Farz: It's such a. It's. It's weird. It's one of those, like, subjects. It's, like, forever fascinating.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Just. It's basically talking a lot about cte. And I was looking at. There's, like, a, you know, a lot of little kids here that play football. And I see them, and they're so small, and they have their helmets on. And I'm like, not enough. You know.
>> Farz: Did you see that movie with Will Smith about the Doctor? I didn't see it either.
>> Taylor: I should. But also the thing that they mentioned regarding CTE is that, like, there might be, like, a headband that can, like, help if it, like, is connected. I imagine it's connected to the inside of the helmet. I have this. I have not. I did not look this up at all. But I do remember a long time ago, reading article that they're studying woodpeckers, because woodpeckers, their heads go like. They do that. That insane shaking. But their brains are protected by something happening in their skull. So if they can, like, emulate that to have, like, the helmet. Because the helmet does not take the impact like you think it does.
>> Farz: It's their tongue. So if you look at, like, like their cross section of their skull, their tongue's crazy long, and it goes all the way and wraps around the brain. And so when they do it, it's that. That's so it's. It's in the. It's between the bone and the brain, not between the skin and the bone.
>> Taylor: Right. But you can't do that for a person.
>> Farz: Yeah. You. You make them all have brain surgery.
>> Taylor: Woodpecker head, cross section. Ew.
>> Farz: Anyway, now you know.
>> Taylor: I guess. Now I know.
>> Farz: Sweet. Well, we can go ahead and cut it off. There. Are you all good?
>> Taylor: Ew. Ew.
>> Farz: Never mind.
>> Taylor: Goodbye. Thanks. All right.