by Kerry Dougherty
Gosh, I’m getting old. I’m old enough to remember when the ACLU — the American Civil Liberties Union — cared about constitutional rights. You know, the civil liberties of ordinary decent people.
No more.
As best I can tell, this far-left organization has been largely indifferent over the past 10 months as government officials, using COVID-19 as an excuse, merrily stomped all over our civil liberties.
In some places — Virginia, for instance — law-abiding, healthy Americans are told they can’t leave their homes during certain hours. The government dictates how many people can gather in private homes. Children are not permitted to attend public school, including kids with disabilities who are entitled by law to an education tailored to meet their needs.
Until the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in, many Americans were told they couldn’t attend worship services. On top of that, dozens of autocratic governors are extending emergency orders for months on end without legislative oversight.
Does the ACLU care?
Doesn’t look like it.
In fact, on its website, the ACLU admits that its focus during the pandemic is on prisoners, illegals and guaranteeing that governors don’t use the virus as an excuse to interfere with abortion rights.
Naturally, the ACLU of Virginia is now howling. They want Gov. Ralph Northam to get busy springing more prisoners.
‼️ATTN: Two more people in VA prisons have died from COVID-19 since Friday. They were not sentenced to die.
This is a policy decision, @GovernorVA. Please uphold your commitment to "do no harm" & use your powers to release as many people as possible, as early as possible. pic.twitter.com/fmQ1v8ENc5
— ACLU of Virginia (@ACLUVA) December 27, 2020
News flash: Northam and his soft-on-crime parole board have been busy freeing criminals for months. Including murderers serving life sentences. According to the commonwealth’s own numbers, there were 26,695 inmates in Virginia prisons in April. By November that number had dropped to 24,681. (That doesn’t include the thousands of inmates housed in Virginia’s 72 city and county jails.)
Yet Virginia’s Department of Health reports that there have been only 104 outbreaks in correctional facilities since the start of the pandemic. Those resulted in just 38 deaths.
What’s truly remarkable is how Virginia’s prison and jail officials have managed to keep inmates healthy during a pandemic and how well they’ve managed outbreaks when they did occur. No need to open the prison doors any wider.
The ACLU is right about one thing: Those who died of COVID behind bars didn’t have death sentences.
Then again, neither did the 2,295 nursing home residents who died of the virus so far. They constitute a whopping 53.5% of all confirmed COVID deaths in the commonwealth.
And the carnage continues. At least 15 new deaths were reported in long-term care facilities in the past three days.
Maybe the ACLU should look into the heartless conditions the elderly are forced to endure. Some residents were essentially kept in solitary confinement during the past 10 months and most were not allowed visitors. If thousands of prisoners were tossed into solitary for months on end the ACLU would be screaming. But the elderly? Who cares about them? They’re left to wither and die. Alone and afraid. If only there were an organization dedicated to protecting the rights of all Americans.
Instead, the ACLU is trying to gin up sympathy for convicts who are serving their sentences in close quarters.
Sorry, I’m far more worried about those serving sentences in nursing homes simply because they’re old and can’t take care of themselves.
This column was republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited.
