I've said multiple times now that I think the ACLU did the right thing in the Skokie case. I don't know why you keep thinking I want a "political-driven legal group" (nor why you imply the defense of civil rights isn't "political").
Like I said, nothing the ACLU has done or said since then has shown this is narrowly limited to Charollettesville. I highly doubt they would do Spokane today.
I followed their work for years and supported them for a long time. I'm saddened to see them shift in this direction.
> do you think all the human rights, union, indigenous, etc groups control which protests Antifa shows up at? Should they have to self-regulate their protests so no one shows up wearing all-black is allowed to participate?
Of course they should self-regulate - or at least make it very clear when the presence of violently-inclined groups isn't welcome to the organizers. Because the alternative is that the government will regulate those protests instead, which would be a lot worse.
I never said it was. And that completely misses the point on why it's important. (surprise: you don't have to defend Charlottesville to defend the ACLU)
You're basically providing anyone an easy tool to kill any protest before it gets off the ground.
Any protest where antifa plays a role would be DOA (and having attending my fair share that's at least ~50% of the major ones)... do you think all the human rights, union, indigenous, etc groups control which protests Antifa shows up at? Should they have to self-regulate their protests so no one shows up wearing all-black is allowed to participate?
Anyway you're free to stop supporting ACLU if you prefer a political-driven legal group. I'm sure they exist. ACLU lost 30,000 members after Spokane but was still a force to be reckoned with for decades. I'm just saddened to see this short-term thinking also infecting lawyer groups and famous rights-defending academic institutions. I'm not surprised to see it in the media, Reddit, and elsewhere where higher values aren't embedded in their purpose.
The courts should always be the last line of defence and at a minimum should be immune from politics. Without politically neutral legal defence groups the world will be far worse off than the benefits of stopping a few nazis from protesting.