Bierfeldt and Ron Paul Hire the ACLU to file a lawsuit. Oh Lord....
Ron Paul is a man who is often misunderstood, and misrepresented, by the media and the general public alike. A man with a strong Austrian streak who has written articles and pamphlets for this very website, also ran for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. While there are very valid reasons for him to run for a larger nomination, by doing so he very much gave the sign of the viability of the system which he supposedly believes in. Setting that aside for the time being, there were egregious circumstances involving the Lambert St. Louis International Airport and the Transportation Security Administration and someone in Dr. Pauls campaign. While in town taking care of Ron Paul campaign business, his treasurer was apprehended in part because of the large amount of cash that he had on his person at the time. The TSA "arrested" him and attempted to question him, namely because he was a member of the Campaign for Liberty and the CfL was thought to be a militia by the Missouri state government. The TSA is now being sued on behalf of Mr. Bierfeldt by the ACLU.
The American Civil Liberties Union is a group that has as its goal to uphold the policies set forth by the Constitution of the United States, and seeks to protect the rights and liberties of citizens. While engaging in a noble cause, they have fallen off track somewhere along the line. The group has many good arms that seek to extend freedom to all Americans, but others that greatly destroy personal rights. One of the greatest debates of memory is that of Affirmative Action, the legislation that gives preferential treatment to African Americans and other minorities in lieu of other non-minorities. According to wikipedia, they use Affirmative Action " as a means of redressing past discrimination and achieving a racially diverse student body." In order to do this, minorities are held to different admission standards and are let in without regard to the same rules and regulations that those of majority status are held to. As far as I am concerned, this is giving preferential treatment to "minorities" much the same way that only whites got preferential treatment at some of these same institutions in the past. The problem with this is the people being hurt by this legislation and these rules are not the same people who endured the punishment in the past. The people who were segregated against lived generations ago or at least sought schooling decades ago, and the attempt to reward blacks by giving them preference only hurts them. I would explain my opinion, but I think Thomas Sowell has done so very much better than I could even imagine.
With this being the case, it makes very little sense to me why the ACLU is representing this case. Generally cases of this magnitude are filed and pursued by those within a circle of trust and common belief, and in a political movement there must be lawyers available to pursue this legal action. I feel like Dr. Paul and his treasurer as well as the others involved have allowed for a hailstorm of problems by allowing an organization that stands for and fights for the wrong ideas to be attempting to protect their rights. Much the same way as Jesse Jackson would not be employed to file racism charges for me (a white male), it makes little sense for a fraud of a libertarian organization to be protecting the best hope our movement has had of making some headway in the public arena.