A few bad ACORNS need not spoil the whole barrel

Why has no one said the following?:

"Although there were undoubtedly a few people associated with ACORN, whose actions are definitely questionable, the whole organization cannot be held responsible, anymore than the republican delegation to the senate, for the actions of a senator who liked to pay prostitutes to change his soiled diapers, or for another republican senator who trolled airport bathrooms, looking for sex.... or for the entire republican house membership be held responsible for a sitting congressman who sent multiple lewd emails to the underage children of constituents & well-connected people, who were serving as pages.

Those events were immediately deemed "personal failings", and in no part a reflection of the organizations to which those individuals belonged. "

Funny how no one reminds the world about these nice people.

Google them up but first make sure you add the words voter fraud into the search bar.

OK if we're playing by the same rules they want to use condemn ACORN with, let's go ahead and seize Goldman-Sachs, Citi and all the other swindlers. I can live with that.

Fair is Fair.

that help largely black folks.

In that situation, the rule "It Takes 10 Atta-boys For Every Aw-shit" applies. At *least* 10.

Welcome to America.

an opponent attacks another. Pretty much a constant. Part confirmation bias, part ill will.

Are all ACORN folk corrupt? Nah. Are all teapartiers racist? Nah. But both are convenient narratives for dismissing the other out of hand and attaching the worst possible label to them. Same for political parties--Foley was basically accused of doing questionable, but not illegal, things in the end; Rangel's allowed to slide because he mostly fessed up to a lot of undeclared money, property, and New York rent-control law violations. Foley was a huge left-wing issue; Rangel is a huge right-wing issue. They're issues for the same reason, and issues of law are, in many contexts, at least secondary.

If nothing else, it enforces group boundaries lest people listen to the infidel and apostate and be corrupted by outlandish--or inlandish--ideas.

...anyone who speaks out to defend them will be getting blowback and lots of it, that's why. Why? Because our intrepid propagandists cleverly worked in not just prostitution, but child prostitution. And when you get right down to it, both stings did expose people with shockingly bad moral values, I don't care which side of the political fence one is on.

ACORN just took a body blow, delivered by some unscrupulous activists and some people who are both stupid and evil who fell for their shtick.

If the shoe were on the other foot and there was video of people from a right-leaning organization doing the same thing, I believe most of us here would be outraged. It's one thing to talk about how to avoid taxes, or other financial shenanigans; it is quite another to go along with people as they discuss how they are going to set up a child prostitution ring. And again, if it was only one tape, that could be explained away as bad apples. Two tapes, in different offices? Not so easily waved away.

This is disastrous for ACORN. The only thing that could help would be if it were proven that the employees were paid to say what they said by the same right wing operatives who set up the sting, or their backers. It is not outside the realm of possibility; I'm guessing ACORN employees are not the highest paid people around, it being a non-profit and all. But other than that, I don't see how ACORN ever gets back to the automatic support that many of us have given it. I can make lots of allowances, but two sets of employees who don't even flinch when discussing how to set up a child prostitution ring? Ouch.

I know you couldn't pay me enough to appear on a video pretending to help someone set up a child prostitution ring. I think they found a few bad apples, and are setting up the whole organization to take the fall. Do they also have videos of any ACORN branches that threw them out or called the cops on them? If so, will they release them, too?

...it is highly unlikely that it was a setup on both sides of the equation. But that is the only thing IMO that could soften the body blow that ACORN just took.

It is tragic. Of course, the operatives who pulled this will not be showing any video that is helpful to ACORN. I suspect they have lots of it -- they tried this at other ACORN offices and got nowhere. It would be interesting to see video of the interactions in those other cases. I'm not holding my breath.