Atlasian Civil Liberties Caucus (ACLC)

[Emsworth]

   C.   Any current member may ask the Vice-Chairman/Secretary to hold a vote on the prospective member’s petition for membership.  If no member requests a vote, the prospective member becomes a member.  If the vote is held, a two-thirds majority vote of voting members is required for the member to attain membership.

I would suggest that the required majority be a simple majority, rather than a two-thirds majority. A two-thirds maority should be necessary for expulsion, but it should not, in my opinion, be so difficult to become a member.

Assuming that Bono and Q are running for the positions of Chair and Secretary, I would like to indicate my desire to serve as Policy Chair.

[Emsworth]

When voting formally begins later tonight, I strongly urge the ACLC to endorse LiberalPA for the Senate race. He is, unlike his opponent, a member of the Caucus. Moreover, I feel that he would be a great help in ensuring that the Senate passes laws that respect and protect civil liberties.

[Emsworth]

No, no, no.  Why are we focusing on "under God" but not the fact that it is a pledge of nationalism?  We shouldn't support changing the wording of the plank; what we should oppose is the mandatory recitation of it in schools and workplaces.

That's fair enough.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I would not mind separating the two; however, I do feel that the ACLC should firmly support the right to have an abortion.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That part of the platform was (clearly) not very well-written. I would not mind making any changes you suggest

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That's fine; 18 would be an appropriate age.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This applies to search and seizure in general. Clearly, we cannot reasonably oppose "searching" in all cases; if a warrant is issued on probable cause, that should be fine even for a civil liberties caucus.

I also agree that planks on the topics mentioned (guns included) should be added.

[Emsworth]

Ebowed',s suggestions seem excellent; I support all of them.

My only suggestion relates to the Racial Freedom section. As it stands, it opposes the use of affirmative action in "schools and workplaces" and states that the use of race as a "university admissions factor" is unconstitutional. I feel that we should qualify the statement to say that this applies only to public and governmental institutions. A private university should be free to use whatever factors it wants to, including race. So I would suggest:

Racial Freedom
We believe that the use of race or class in public university admissions is blatantly unconstitutional.  We oppose racial profiling, racial quotas for public schools and government workplaces, hate speech legislation, and hate crimes legislation.

[Emsworth]

I agree, except for the last one. It does not indicate which god, or which religion's god.

That's irrelevant. It still assumes that a god exists.

[Emsworth]

- Age limit?  What do you mean by this?  You should be at least 16 to get married, but there needs to be some limits because I don't think 70 year olds marrying 20 year olds should be legal.  Maybe an age difference limit of 20 - 30 years?

I don't think that there is any rational basis on which the government can presume to deny the right to marry simply because of an age difference. Although this is fine as a personal view, I would not favor including such a position in the platform.

Eighteen years is an acceptable minimum age; up to sixteen, I think, is also fine with parental consent.

[Emsworth]

Banning polygamy and bigamy, while not a traditionally socially liberarian position, is necessary for the well being of society.  The kind of stuff that goes on in Mormon fundamentalist polygynist socities definitely should not be legal.

It would, I think, be best not to take a position on the issue in the platform.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The position, I think, should be based on the notion that a fetus is not a person. The amount of legal precedent favoring such a view is much more than some might imagine. Once the fetus is defined not to have the right to life, I should say that the Caucus cannot reasonably oppose abortion at any stage.

[Emsworth]

I don't mind separating the plank on abortion and contraception into two separate planks. Also, a vote could be held on whether the ACLC should be completely pro-life, pro-choice in the first, the second, or the third trimester, or completely pro-choice.

[Emsworth]

Boston, Mass.