I have a complicated relationship with the American Civil Liberties Union. I’m grateful for their ongoing support of LGBTQ freedoms. At the same time their leaning into woke issues annoys me, especially when it comes to criminal justice. The ACLU, it seems to me, is soft on crime.
I live in a dangerous city, Oakland, where crime is a reality we deal with every day. There are plenty of people in this town, including most of our electeds, who tell us the way to deal with crime is to be more understanding of criminals, and to invest our hard-earned dollars in efforts to prevent crime in the first place by dealing with its so-called “root causes.” As the ACLU argues in a recent editorial of their magazine, they wish to “change the narrative about public safety” and “support affirmative solutions instead of fear-based proposals that trample civil liberties.”
Lots to unpack here. What is the “narrative about public safety” they wish to change? I infer it’s the concern those of us in big blue cities have with bad people roaming our streets and preying upon us. Whether it’s a planned-out assault, like driving a stolen car into a store, a mugging (of which I’ve been the victim three times), or a murder, we citizens of Oakland live with these threats as an everyday reality. These are not fear-based “narratives,” damn it, they are existential issues. There is no “civil liberty” to rob, steal or assault one’s neighbors. When the law cracks down on evil-doers, it is not trampling on anyone’s rights. That is simply woke B.S.
Have you ever read that book, “Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics”? It outlined, in 1976, how public opinion is manipulated through the use of carefully manicured “statistics.” In the ACLU’s editorial, they put great weight on “a series of surveys of voters” (conducted by the ACLU itself) that, they claimed, “showed…that its opinions about how to decrease [crime] are overwhelmingly focused on the positive, not the punitive.” By “the positive,” the ACLU means “increasing access to mental health care, addressing economic despair, and expanding economic opportunities for young people.”
Now, while all of those goals are praiseworthy, the fact is that the public—you and me—have heard this message repeatedly for decades. We’ve believed it and as a result have contributed hundreds of millions of our hard-earned dollars to enacting these goals by legislation sponsored by left-leaning politicians. And we’ve discovered that we were suckers. The Recalls of Sheng Thao and Pamela Price prove this: we’re not buying that propaganda anymore.
When the editorial claims that “putting more police on the streets and imposing stricter jail and prison sentences are deeply unpopular with most voters,” they lie. In fact that’s exactly what most voters want. It’s the essence of why we recalled Price: she stood for exactly what the ACLU stands for (the ACLU of Northern California strongly opposed her recall). Voters watched as the situations in Oakland and Alameda County steadily deteriorated as Price routinely refused to press charges against thugs, and let them off with misdemeanors instead of felonies, and went after cops instead of criminals. This issue is what got Donald Trump elected. For the ACLU to claim otherwise is one of the worst derelictions of public duty I’ve ever seen from an organization purportedly interested in truth and justice.
I understand the argument that if we support the ACLU in the case of things we care deeply about, such as LGBTQ rights, we have to support it even when they take up the cause of things we oppose, like the right of Nazis to speak in the public square. This is a true statement. I oppose the ACLU’s position on public safety, but in the end I have to support their right to take that position and argue it in both the courts of public opinion and of the law. Still, I wish the ACLU would care more about us, the innocent people, than they do about the criminals.
Steve Heimoff