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Barry Goldwater (courtesy corbisimages.com)

goldwaterinstitute.org writes:

Earlier this week, U.S. Sen Dick Durbin (D-Ill) contacted the Goldwater Institute to inquire about the private organization’s relationship to the American Legislative Exchange Council–most notably, whether the Institute has supported ALEC in the past or endorsed the group’s “Stand Your Ground” model legislation. The following is a response by Goldwater Institute senior staff to Sen Durbin’s office, and this letter (pasted below) will be sent to the office of Sen Durbin today. Sen Durbin’s original letter is linked at the bottom of this article . . .

August 9, 2013

ATTN: THE OFFICES OF SENATOR RICHARD DURBIN

We are in receipt of your letter dated August 6, 2013 requesting information about the Goldwater Institute’s relationship with the American Legislative Exchange Council and whether or not we support the “Stand Your Ground” legislation adopted as a model bill by that group.

“Have You No Sense of Decency?”

That was the question posed by attorney Joseph Welch that historians credit with ending Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunt.

It is the same question we pose to your office today in response to your effort to intimidate us for daring to associate with the free market, limited government organization known as the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Simply put, especially in the wake of IRS intimidation and harassment of conservative organizations, your inquisition is an outrage.

We refuse to answer whether we are or ever have been a supporter of ALEC or its model legislation. We refuse to answer not because we disavow ALEC—far from it. We refuse to answer because as free Americans, that is our right.

Your attempt to silence your fellow Americans through threats and intimidation because they don’t share identical political beliefs is disgraceful and not worthy of the title you hold.

Thank you for your attention,

Darcy Olsen

President, Goldwater Institute

Clint Bolick

Vice President for Litigation, Goldwater Institute

Nick Dranias

Director for Policy Development, Goldwater Institute

Letter from Sen Durbin to the Goldwater Institute

 

 

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RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

43 COMMENTS

  2. I love that the federal government is going to convene a hearing about state laws in which they have no standing.

    • They may have no standing to do anything, but by god they’re “doing something” and “taking action”

    • A Dick without standing trying and failing to probe where he’s not wanted…there’s a metaphor in here somewhere.

    • Just imagine if slavery was never a part of the U.S. and imagine where states’ rights would be.

      • I know its a pointless thought, like imagining I had a pet dragon or something, but over and over again I curse the people who were first involved in bringing slaves to the US, God, I hate slavery, far more than Sharpton, King, Frederick Douglas, Malcom X, any of them. None of these divisive issues, politics, taboo topics, etc. would exist had it not been for slavery.

    • This is the proper attitude to have. But remember, it works both ways. Just because a STATE passes an anti-gun law doesn’t mean that the federal government can stop them under the auspices of 2A. This is why incorporation of 2A isn’t necessarily a good thing.

  4. Just like the “shall issue” movement regarding ccw licenses, Florida also lead the way with Florida 776.013 within which section (3) is the SYG portion. The overall thing is the ‘Castle Doctrine.’ There was a bunch of misinformation that Florida got it from ALEC but it was actually the other way around. BTW, Durbin is an ass-clown.

    • Hear in WI we don’t sugar coat it. It’s affectionately known as simply “Castle Doctrine”.

      It’s under attack from the leftists before it was passed. No surprises with current day developments.

    • All these anti 2A extremists, opportunists and intimidation terrorists are are arrogant ass clowns.

  5. Great reply to “Dirty Dick” Durbin.
    I’m old enough to say that I voted for Barry when he ran for the Presidency.

      • I was fifteen during the 1964 campaign and didn’t even know what liberal & conservative meant, but in our high school Young Americans for Freedom were selling cans of “Gold Water: the Right drink for the Conservative taste” and bumper stickers “AuH2O!” Sen. Goldwater was being tarred as a crazy nuclear cowboy (like they would do with Reagan in 1980). He was a great man though critical of the Moral Majority wing of the Republican party.

        I saw that pic of Goldwater with the scoped pistol on our B-board; it was captioned “Die, Ted!!!”

        Bravo to the Goldwater Foundation. Dick Turban is an arrogant fascistic creep.

  6. Even better, the frickin’ DICK didn’t have common courtesy to sign the letter himself. They used a signing machine. I hope Ted Cruz gets a copy of this letter and response and brings it up during the hearings.

  8. living in AZ. we get to see the goldwater institute fight with municipalities quite often, I can say I don’t always follow the logic,but I liked this quite a bit.

  9. This is the guy who fvcked up the established debit card fees that banks can charge. Kiss free checking goodbye as banks increase other consumer costs to make up for the dc lost fee revenue.

    • You slaming Turdbin with this unconnected thought? No problem criticising Dicky. But ATM fees? You mean those nifty machines (and their required mag cards) the banks jammed down customer throats 20years ago as a replacment for “expensive” tellers manning customer counters/lobby hours. The “cost reduction” only lasts until you can charge the customer in a new way.

  10. Behold the consistency of Dick Turban, ladies and gentlemen:

    “It is absolutely unacceptable to single out any political group — right, left or center — and say we’re going to target them. That is unthinkable. That goes back to some of the worst days of the Richard Nixon administration.”
    —U.S. Senator Dick Turban, D-Ill., on IRS targeting of conservative groups for special scrutiny, May 13, 2013.

  12. Good for Goldwater. I live in AZ and they’ve been great shedding light on the ridiculous pension spiking going on with public sector unions too.

  13. Hoo-Rah,these are my kind of folks,Durbin is an Illinois communist,I hope this letter pisses him off to no end.Threats and intimidation are all some of these so-called elected officials that are to represent the people think they can use to make people submit to their agenda.Eventually there will be an insurrection due to politicians acting this way to the people,sometime in the near future there will be a spark that sets it off.Those in D C should be very concerned because there are more of us armed citizens than there are of all the forces that the government could bring to bear!Be prepared and ready.Keep your powder dry.

  14. The linked PDF from Comrade Durbin says he is sending similar letters to other people who might have associated with ALEC…. We should all file FOIA Requests to get copies of the letters sent to other organizations and then send copies of the Goldwater Response to those folks.

    And! Lets do what we can to make sure he joins the ranks of the unemployed in 2014. We might have to explain to the younger generation about the McCarthyism thing but it will be worth the effort.

  18. Durbin is my senator despite all of the times I’ve voted against him. If my fellow Illinoisans were a but smarter he would no longer be in office.

    P.S. We now know that McCarthy was right about communists in the US government after Russia released classified documents back in the 90’s that showed they did have hundreds of communists in the government. Sadly, people still vilify him, even though we now know he was correct.

    • It was the witch-hunt method that gained him the notoriety. We have the same thing now, we just call them terrorists and ship them off to secret prisons. Less fuss.

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