OT: You'll have to pry my ACLU card from my cold, dead hand, Mike C.

> OK, this mindset leads to absurdities like the ACLU defending the
> free speech rights of those who would lock up the ACLU leadership if
> they ever took power,...

Um, you mean like what the current group would do if they had their
druthers?  Well, that's it then: time to lock up those Republicans....

> and the US's perennial habit of 
> enshrining evil dictators 
>  as bastions of the "free world."  

Well, yeah.  Like, there's some kind of problem with that?  ;-}