Doomed to Fail - Ep 221: Defending your right to say it - The ACLU & Freedom of Speech

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

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. Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Boom. Taylor, we are alive. How are you? Dude. My husband just handed me about 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 this works. 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. I just bought a really nice dress, and I just put it in the dryer. I was like, hope you come out not regally because I'm not doing anything else. I did ruin at least one fairly nice pull of doing it that way. So.

Yeah. Yeah. So do you want to do our little intro? Yes, hello. 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. 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.

So I'm going to start my kind of, conversation here with the topic of when around World War I, the U.S. was kind of focused around the concept of conscientious objectors. Do you know what that is, Taylor? Yes. 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 um which is a problem in a situation like world war one where the draft was implemented and forced young men solely young men to go into armed conflicts yeah i'm not going discussed with the whole women and children first concept which i vehemently am against by the

um so during world war one and under the selective service act of 1917 the only conscientious objectors 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. you didn't say no you were

even though you weren't going you still were yeah yeah yeah well because it was just seen as like go ahead sorry I have something stupid to say you know how

Australia was made by a bunch of criminals yes it didn't occur to me until very very recently that they didn't just send them to Australia and let them go to Australia and kept them in jail and then they were like penal camps

in Australia yeah I thought they just didn't like draw them off from the beach 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 double's island and you they just released the criminals on this one island i was like it's kind of lovely like right but i don't think that that's exactly what happened yeah yeah well more on that later probably more on that yeah well we'll definitely get into papillon and doubled island later um so yeah there was two laws um the 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? Mm-mm. Yeah, I didn't either

and I was shocked that I didn't. Like, 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 Crystal Eastman, kind of an unsung hero in feminist war in the U.S. 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. This is like a weird spot to be in when, like, World War II comes wrong. It's like, I don't know. Shouldn't you be anti-? Like, you kind of should be pro-military.

Yeah. This is the problem that every ideology runs against is like the real world. Right. I mean, you could be like, hey, guys, let's just chill out, but like, Hitler's not going to chill out. 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 U.S. She would go on to become the first woman assigned to the New York Board for Worker Safety as a commissioner. and she would draft the first version of worker compensation laws for New York.

What year is this? This would have been the late 1800s, beginning of 1900s. Nice. It's kind of when TR was like the police commissioner in New York. He would go around and make sure everything was okay. Like undercover, but very clearly still TR. You know, like a bigger mustache over the mustache. They're never going to.

Well, then again, all the men probably had mustaches back then. Yeah. 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 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. Cool.

So, kudos to her for that. Yeah. This was when our interest bounced into the peace movement and coincided with the U.S.'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's statement. So she, along with others, founded a thing called the NCLB, which stood for the National Civil Liberties Bureau. Sounds kind of familiar-ish, almost. The point of it was to defend conscientious objectors and defend them legally because she was a lawyer

and was a group of lawyers that founded this organization. Today, this organization is known as the ACLU. That's awesome. This is wild, isn't it? Mm-hmm. 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. Huh. Do you know why? Are you going to tell me why? Or you don't know. There was a why. it was something along the lines of she got into it with like 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 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 US you got you got there I see we are 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 there is nothing otherwise there wouldn't be a point because you'd be like yeah everybody just says nice stuff about me yeah 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. So I'm going to talk about this guy named Francis Joseph Olin, who I'm not referred to from here on now as Frank Joseph.

Frank was born to a Jewish German father who survived Docow, a concentration camp, and an American Catholic mother who the father met after Docow, after he was a child in Chicago. So he started his political career by running the Midwestern branch of the American Nazi Party before having a falling out with the next

guy in line to lead the party because the founder was assassinated of the American Nazi 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 I was going to bring that up again Because you told me his side was a DACO?

Yeah. Okay, cool. His name was Cohen. The bad DACA, right? Yeah, his original name was Cohen, and then the dad changed the Colin when he got to the U.S. What's interesting about the American Nazi party

is that that guy's assassin was another member of the party who was, like, pissed because he was treated badly. Like, he was sent to be, like, you know, the coffee boy. The Nazi didn't bring mean to me. Yeah, he was sent out to be like an errand boy, and he was pissed 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 wouldn't move. Go ahead. Sorry. No, I was just like, the story has just gone so many places. But I'm taking it there to prove. No, but I understand.

Like, when we look at our modern times, like, things are so dumb, it's like, shut the fuck off. Like, we have to. to have dialogues with you. Anyway, okay. 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 Nazi group in the U.S. 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. Is this one, oh, I'm sorry, is this like, Luzberg. Is this, I hate Illinois

Nazis time? Wait, and what? In Blues Brothers, they say, I hate Illinois Nazis all the time. Actually, probably, because tiny wise, like, it's at a lines. Yeah. So, there was one time when you 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. In the 1960s, of that 60% being Jewish, 10% of them, sorry, out of the entire population, 10% were Holocaust survivors. Wow. And he was going to hold a Nazi 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 butt? No, I, it's exactly what you're saying. Like, you should need to defend everyone's right to free speech. Yeah. Yes. It should be a conversation, like, like, you, if you only talk to yourself,

no, totally. What do you learn? This is the part that. absolutely cave my head in his lawyer from the ACLU the one that's there to defend the Nazi party in a Holocaust town in Skokie Illinois is a guy named David Goldberger yeah I hear I hear that um it's also when like who did john adams um represented those the soldiers and the british mass in the boston massacre yes like he was like he's like they have the right to have a lawyer you know yeah it

Exactly. Exactly. So this guy, David Goldberger, on behalf of the ACLU, he argues that denying the permanent infringers 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 guardrails in place you look like you're going to say something no go ahead and so that's what they did they heard both sides of the argument and the argument was okay fine like the village 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 to see that given their experiences in holocaust camps um and the spring fort or the state court denied that 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 Skokam's going to go to Chicago and do it what's interesting is that a later president like 13 years later her name is Nadine Strausson was a 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. Right. Saying that he couldn't do his things in places and

all that. Yeah, exactly. In fact, there was one situation where one of the parks these guys marched, MLK marched in like 20 years earlier, and he didn't get a permit, and so police were like throwing bricks of his face. Like, 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 our safe and comfortable in our silos. Like, Because he seems Goldberger with the ACLU defending this guy. I do think that he should have potentially seen a therapist. It doesn't work. We already discussed on the last episode. It does work. And it just like something else is going on with that guy, right?

Which guy? With Frank. Like, what's his deal? Okay, okay. But again, like that's why I kind of like started where I started was to give you 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 makes sense so that people can hopefully wake up and look around of themselves and like dude we're kind of in this thing together in this whole like we're enemies and we got to fight each other and like whoever you don't like they shouldn't talk

anything it's a it's ballistically stupid totally I'm just saying that like what is Frank's deal that he became a Nazi there has to be self-hate There has to be self-hate. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like I said, like I said, like, the dad changed the name. Their name wasn't Colin. It was Colin. Yeah, yeah. And also, Frank's grandparents all died in Dockow. The dad was the only one that got out. Yeah, that's, it's a strange path to take. Yeah, yeah. But I also agree that, like, you know, you should be, you're allowed to say stuff.

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 it's too easy now for people not to do that in my mind. I'm like, this is like, yeah,

like that is a massive divide and that is a chasm that, yeah, bad chasm. I feel bad that you didn't know the rapture was today. Again, I don't know. where you get your media from we have very different very different feeds

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 that's so funny so anyways that's my story I started with Crystal Eastman got to this guy Frank

got to the ACLU got to spring 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 and a central belief and I don't know

a core tenant of America so yeah no I hear that. Probably don't take something away from that but I doubt they will we'll see 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 feet I guess I don't see anything about the rapture, maybe it just Maybe it didn't happen Just kidding I mean the post or Well so anyways That's what I was

This shit's been heavy on my mind For a very long time now Or recently And I am probably going to be going down A rabbit hole like this for a while Because It's interesting And also like you know

It continues to I don't know, like the problems are all very similar from all time, you know. I think the problem is that the technology changed. 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? 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 shit you think you never have to feed you it feeds you more of it I'm always like what I'm looking at like it's my Instagram feed is half people I don't even follow you know just like show up yeah like you you can't humanize the other perspective because you don't have to and that's whatever it's a shitty outcome um it's very shitty um i did say something that's a good option for male loneliness is for them to start bands and maybe you could have more

rock bands there's a lot of that there should be more ska bands so i do what if you 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 that 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 picture. Yeah, if you don't see anyone. Like there's people who don't see anyone. that's possible now I guess 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 yeah so anyhow I know it was a short one

and I painted a really windy path but hopefully I like it that's fun I like it I like it so thank you for sharing yeah

thank you for listening and thank you all for listening and Do we have any more or less than rail? I do. I have another one from Morgan who said that after COVID, like people started going back to the office, things like standing water were a problem.

They were talking about what Legionnaires disease because people haven't been like actively using the plumbing and buildings. Ooh, that makes sense. That makes sense. 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 it was like, yeah, it was like extra staticy because there was like, if you aren't actively using the water in a house and a place that's so dry, it's just going to get like so much more dry, you know? Weird. I didn't know that. It doesn't make sense.

Yeah, so there's that. So, you know, did you throw away your little humidifiers yet? Rachel picked it up from there and put it in the, It's next to a trash can. Okay, great. Put it in the trash can. They'll put it in the trash can. And then I did talk to my parents.

They did know a young woman in college who died because they were at a bar. My parents weren't there, but they knew the people involved. A guy who happened to be underage, but he didn't go to jail. So he must have been like 17. I think when my parents were in college in the late 1970s, the drinking age in 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 an accident. 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. Did he go to jail? You said he didn't go to jail? No. The mom said he didn't. Because it like was like, we were able to somehow prove that it was an accident. I mean, obviously it was an accident, but, like, still, he helps her. Jeez, that's rough. I just wanted to confirm that story

for my parents. 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. Thank you, Justin. And he's right to us. We do love that. At duneafelpottergum.com.

Yeah, Doobot, all the socials. I literally had a moment We're like, I stroked out for a second, I thought I said last podcast. 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, like, because I hear it so much. Right when I said, I was like, did I see our name or their name? I've definitely done, we've been listening to some older ones and they're very fun, older last, last podcast.

You were right, though. The Aaron Hernandez one was pretty good. It's pretty good. I laughed really hard in a lot of places in a very, very horrible subject to laugh. It's such a, it's weird. It's one of those, like, subjects. It's like forever fascinating. 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 her helmets on. And I'm like, not enough. You know? Did you see that movie with Will Smith, but the doctor? I didn't see it either. 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 think I imagine it's connected to the inside of the helmet. I have not, I did not look this up at all. I do remember a long time ago reading an article that they're studying woodpeckers because woodpeckers, their heads go, like they do 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 it's their tongue so if you look at like they're a 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 in the it's between the bone and the brain not between the skin and the bone right but you can't do that for a person yeah you get you make them all have Brains, Registry. Woodpicker head cross-section. Ew.

Anyway. Now you know. I guess now I know. Sweet. Well, we can go ahead and cut it off there. Are you all good? Ew. Ew.

Never. Okay. Bye. Thanks. All right. See. Thank you.