Veritas wasn't the problem here. The problem here is that Democrats basically accepted the narrative because it was politically convenient at the time, even as everybody knew exactly what had happened. Didn't matter.
While ACORN was a heavily Democratic organization, it wasn't a party front like so many nonprofits have become. Democrats that didn't do anything for people had trouble with ACORN, and they were glad to get rid of them. Democratic congresspeople eventually joined in, and their outlets ran cover for them destroying a grassroots community organization. Definitely one of the largest in the country of that type, if not in the history of the modern US.
Blaming it on O'Keefe is easy. I wish Democrats would stop using their failures as explicit justifications for limitations on civil liberties.
There's definitely a lot of truth here & valuable perspective.
Given what a sensationalistic heavily spun story the other side of the media was rolling with, it is a bit hard to imagine who is going to step up & grab the third rail to make a case here. The whole story starts & ends with selectively chosen soundbites being used to wreck & ruin a name, and signing up to be the next target in this kind of a sniper war is terrifying; even if you can form ranks it's unclear that your constituents won't see only the worst-most spun forms of your defense. It's a problem with democracy in general that nuance & perspective don't convey nearly as well, are much harder cases to build than attention grabbing soundbites.
I can definitely appreciate the value of 1 part federal consent laws, as enabling folks to help bring to light the bad in this world. Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant & all that. That this was such murky shit doesn't really change that basis. Still, it's quite disappointing to see what seems, to me, like such an off-base & illegitimate Federal ruling used to so broadly undermine State legislature. Using the fact that this law allowed recording of the police & felonies endangering human life as the sole basis - because that's discriminatory - to say it's unfair & entirely has to be ended seems absurd.
It's true, and I agree with how you weigh these crimes by parties against the public & discourse.
But. Different parties each have their own interest & angles for why they un-rightfully squeeze liberties in different ways. It's fine to point out flaws, to identify greater evils. But we have to resist what-about-ism as a complete counter; everyone can be guilty of the same classes of errors. It doesn't win elections, but the moral high ground of acknowledging nuance & complexity & being willing to be vulnerable is, to me, the mark of genuineness that is the highest form of patriotism.
Reality is rarely clean, and that willingness to acknowledge the muddiness of the world & it's many situations is what enables us to iterate & progress.
While ACORN was a heavily Democratic organization, it wasn't a party front like so many nonprofits have become. Democrats that didn't do anything for people had trouble with ACORN, and they were glad to get rid of them. Democratic congresspeople eventually joined in, and their outlets ran cover for them destroying a grassroots community organization. Definitely one of the largest in the country of that type, if not in the history of the modern US.
Blaming it on O'Keefe is easy. I wish Democrats would stop using their failures as explicit justifications for limitations on civil liberties.