When does it end? When does the liberal stop seeing everything through the prism of victimization? In one sense I am hoping that it is not soon, that being so that Donald Trump is reelected as president in 2020. You know that the left is going to feel victimized in a way they never have before. But unfortunately, many of these people are running our state and local governments and everything they do is a reaction to perceived discrimination.
The latest battleground includes zoning laws in local municipalities. Specifically, the left hates single family housing for a variety of reasons. The left wing nutjobs believe single family homes damage the environment, promote segregation, and are bastions of elitism. They have managed to hit on three of the hottest buttons that seemed to motivate their followers and the movement is gaining popularity because of it. Sadly, none of their problems are based upon factual evidence but are typically absent of facts to support their conclusions and false solutions.
The desired solution is called “upzoning”: changing all the laws that prohibit high density housing in specific areas of a municipality. What that means is building multi-unit structures in neighborhoods or communities that allow only single-family homes to be constructed. Oregon has already passed such a law at the state level while Virginia is considering 6 different bills to accomplish the same purpose. Minneapolis, Austin, and Seattle are among the municipal governments that have also passed similar ordinances.
Delegate Ibrahim Samirah of Virginia is sponsoring all 6 bills. He posted his reasoning on his Facebook page: he claims it is statistically proven that suburbs throughout this country are white and wealthy, claiming that local government officials have ignored the desires of the poor and minority groups who cannot express their wish to live in these neighborhoods because of a lack of access to those local governmental bodies.
Samirah goes on to rely on some old arguments that because minorities and the poor cannot live in these neighborhoods, they lack access to the good schools, suburban way of life, low crime, and other services and amenities. Responding to a question about the trend to preserve nature and open spaces in many of these communities, he conceded that was a laudable goal, but that high-density neighborhoods were much more energy efficient than suburban areas offsetting the benefit of preserving open spaces and actually threatening the preservation of those areas because of climate change due to inefficient energy use.
Alex Baca, a self-proclaimed ‘urbanist’ from Washington D.C., has been quoted by many of the politicians pushing this movement at the state and local level. He writes that The American dream of owning your own plot of land with your own home is inherently racist and bigoted. PNB's supporters acknowledge that many citizens in local areas may desire to keep the neighborhoods the way they are but enacting these laws at the state level will ensure that their wishes are overridden by the greater good for society.
Well, they are generally correct in stating that high-density urban housing areas are known for high crime rates, high unemployment rates, and disproportionate occupancy from minority groups, but they are missing the reasons that this is true. It is government control of those areas that has created those situations. The removal of free market forces and personal responsibility has created the dependency class resulting in the negative living conditions. The lack of incentive to improve one’s conditions is the greatest contributor to urban blight.
And of course, hypocrisy abounds. The people promoting this idea of ‘upzoning’ do not live in high density housing complexes in low income urban areas. In fact, the majority of them live in single family homes in upscale neighborhoods with private schools. Interestingly, none of them are promoting high density housing in their neighborhoods. Even a couple of them that live in urban areas owned their townhouse. That is typical of socialist ‘solutions’ whether the problem is real or perceived.
This makes the upcoming year one of the most important in our history. The elections will determine if we continue down this path toward more government or return power to the people. It is important, no critical, that we not only turn out in large numbers, but that we also understand the liberals will use everything within their power to steal the election from the American people. The comments cited earlier in this column about overriding the will of the people should be one of the scariest things you have ever read. If that does not motivate you, then nothing will.