> On the other hand, those who approach civil liberties as a matter of principle face no such dilemma.

...until they remember that there are that there is more than one civil liberty, and more than one person who has civil liberties, and that sometimes one person exercising a particular civil liberty can prevent or conflict with another person exercising a different civil liberty.

Once you are dealing with a society bigger and more complicated than Gilligan's Island, you cannot escape these dilemmas.

I don't see why that would be a dilemma for the civil-liberties-as-a-principle group. One can support the legal rights of both parties with opposing views. For example historically, the ACLU has defended both the NRA and the victims of policies that were funded by the NRA.

This isn't how most people actually work. Most of us see principles as a means to an end, even if we don't say so, or initially don't admit it.

It's kind of a fairy tale of the kind Disney sells you: if you do the right thing, everything works out for the best. We like that idea because simplicity is appealing, but the real world is complicated and conflicts with such nice notions.

In Disney movies when you do the right thing, it saves the world in the end.

In the real world when you do the right thing, sometimes all you achieve is nazis running over a crowd, and you end up with a crisis of conscience and not much to show for it.

> This isn't how most people actually work. Most of us see principles as a means to an end, even if we don't say so, or initially don't admit it.

I agree completely. This is exactly the reason why I believe most ACLU staff are thoroughly unqualified for the job. Defending civil liberties as a matter of principle is not something most people can do. That's perfectly fine. What annoys me is the hypocrisy of it. Don't believe in civil liberties for all? Fine, just don't pretend you do.

Not sure if you're aware, but way back when the ACLU supported Nazis right to march on pragmatic as well as principled grounds.

If WE are stopping the BAD GUYS from marching on OUR turf, then what precedent does that set for permitting a civil rights march in Selma?

The way I read that is that the pragmatic bit is the true reason, deep down.

Most of us aren't pure-logic Kantian robots. We have a goal in mind that's beyond simply being logically consistent. When we form an organization that sometimes defends the Nazis, we're not doing it because our only motivation is that some rights are absolutely inviolable no matter what. We do it for mostly pragmatic reasons, such as the one you've outlined. If the Nazis get a fair trial, then that helps ensure that we also do. If we make too bad of a law to use against the Nazis, we could end up as victims of it some day. Defending the Nazis is ultimately a means to the end of achieving a good society for us to live in.

That's why whenever the true end of doing such things starts being endangered, principles start faltering.

All principles are rooted in that kind of pragmatism, starting with thou shalt not kill.

And it's valuable. Barely a year after getting people fired for takes was popularized during BLM, we see the cannon turned on journalists who wrote a pro-palestine essay in college. Nobody could have predicted it.