Pop quiz.

What do gun control, Planned Parenthood, and the minimum wage have in common?

Got an answer? Now, add pot prohibition to the list. Does that change your answer?

The essay title, of course, gave the answers away. The first three are high priority issues for modern progressives, and the fourth is one that progressives are kinda sorta half-way standing against. All four, though, are rooted in racism.

Gun control laws were originally emplaced to prevent blacks from owning guns. Planned Parenthood was spawned by the eugenics movement which sought reductions in black birth rates because they were considered “feeble-minded.” The minimum wage was intended from its outset to protect white male workers’s wages from the women and minorities who’d do the same work for less money. Pot prohibition was first enacted due to anti-Mexican sentiment, and was later fully embraced out of bigotry against “jazz musicians,” aka cool black people.

One might object to characterizing these issues in the same fashion today, but that objection will be rooted in personal discomfort rather than dispassionate logic.

Consider that some of the proposals put forth to restrict gun ownership involve heavy taxation and/or mandated insurance coverage. Who does that hurt the most? The poor. The poor, who are disproportionately minorities.

Consider the abortion rate among blacks is 5 times that for whites.

Consider that the least-skilled workers in the country, workers who are most adversely impacted by higher minimum wages, are disproportionately minorities.

Consider that African Americans comprise 14 percent of regular drug users but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses.

Of these four issues, only marijuana has shifted somewhat on the Progressive to-do list. The Left has a softer stance on the drug war than the Right, but its policy prescriptions are still rather half-baked (pun clearly intended). As for the rest? The minority inner cities are America’s areas of highest crime, yet the Left continues to insist that more gun control is the solution. On abortion and Planned Parenthood, the Left holds to a hard-line position on abortion access and wants it funded with public money. Pro-life groups estimate that 16 million black babies have been aborted in the past 40 or so years. Finally, one of the Left’s highest priorities is an even higher minimum wage, which will inevitably force even more unskilled minorities onto the welfare ranks.

Progressives declared themselves the champions of minorities back in the Great Society days of LBJ’s presidency, despite the fact that progressivism’s party (the Democrats) stood far more strongly in opposition to civil rights legislation than the supposedly racist Republicans. Progressivism has advanced policies (including the War on Poverty and countless welfare programs) that have created a permanent underclass and a culture of dependence among minorities today. The Left continues to pound the message that only they stand up for the rights of minorities, a message that is rewarded with strong party loyalty and even stronger voting loyalty.

There’s a thing about party loyalty: The stronger it is, the more likely it will be unrewarded. Barring connections or insider status, a party loyalist gives the party no real reason to act on the things he considers important. Parties and politicians have a primary goal: winning. The actions they take and the policies they pursue are driven first and foremost by the desire to gain and retain power. That is accomplished by garnering votes, and votes that are “in play” are votes that will draw attention. A loyalist requires far less attention or effort to be kept loyal – the tribalistic aspects of human nature take care of that. All the party needs to do to reinforce that loyalty is find ways to enhance that tribalism. It does by rewarding the community leaders, not the communities themselves. Those leaders then propagate the message that the community needs to be loyal to the party, and help quash the unfortunate truths about that party’s history. Thus, the racist roots of progressivism, and its continued adherence to policies both born out of racism and harmful to minorities, remain undiscussed and unrecognized.

Racism is an obvious and ugly stain on American’s history, and it continues to inform both societal issues and public policy. What, I believe, is lost in all this is the fact that racism was and is perpetuated by government force. Jim Crow laws were just that – laws. Gun control laws, minimum wage laws, drug prohibitions, all laws. The “solutions” to all the perceived ills of modern society? More laws. Affirmative action, forced association, and anti-discrimination laws that get more granular with each passing year. Redistributive laws – tax some to give to others. Laws that phase out benefits (other laws) as earnings increase, creating the welfare trap.

Progressivism is, as much as anything else, the imposition of a desired social order via government force. We see in its history its antipathy to minorities, and we see in its current policies exploitation of minorities. Modern progressive policies harm minorities disproportionately, but minorities are convinced to continue to support those progressives.

What to do about this? Two things. One, point all this out. Repeatedly. Two, remind loyalists that loyalty is how one gets ignored, in practice if not in rhetoric. The liberty movement could make big inroads here, pointing out that the real enemy is government itself. The progressives are certainly not going to come clean. As for the conservatives? They’re too busy demanding walls be built.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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