“There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays.” —Booker T. Washington, freed slave, educator, orator

As if this election season had not already been enough of a mind-boggling, common sense-defying circus, along come more clowns to add to the antics. We refer to the Black Lives Matter movement, the latest incarnation of the racial grievance cartel, carrying on in the (not so) proud tradition of huckster race pimp Al Sharpton.

Some 60 groups associated with the Black Lives Matter movement have issued a list of policy demands. These demands include reparations for slavery, additional “investment” in education (including free education for life for all blacks), jobs programs, and an end to the death penalty, just to name a few.

On the question of reparations, how exactly do we atone for real injustices against past generations without punishing the innocent and the living? Well, here’s an idea: Since the Democrat Party is the party of slavery (the GOP was founded as an abolition party), and enacted Jim Crow laws, and since the KKK was the militant terror arm of the Democrat Party, perhaps we should confiscate all funds and assets of the Democrat Party and place them in a trust fund from which reparations will be paid. Furthermore, in states with party registration, perhaps a fee of $25 for anyone registering as a Democrat is in order — the proceeds of which will also be placed in the reparations fund. This will allow the guilty party (or Party, as it were) to pay for its institutional sins, without punishing the innocent.

We will also agree to end the death penalty for innocent blacks, and what blacks are more innocent than the unborn? In the United States, blacks make up 13% of the population but account for a staggering 37% of all abortions. These tiny, defenseless black babies have committed no crime, yet are literally ripped from the womb. In America, there are nearly as many black babies aborted as are born, and in New York City, more black babies are aborted than born.

Of course, for those black children that manage to escape the womb before being killed by a Democrat, there should also be legal protections. The Black Lives Matter movement began following the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray. Martin was killed after he attacked a neighborhood watchman. Brown was shot and killed when, after a convenience store robbery, he attacked officer Darren Wilson and tried to wrestle his gun away. Garner died of a heart attack after resisting arrest. And Freddie Gray was a drug dealer who died while thrashing around in a police van following his arrest. None of these men would have died had they not been engaged in criminal activity.

Yet we must also acknowledge that police don’t always get it right, and in those instances when officers use excessive force, they should be held accountable, including prosecution and imprisonment if the facts of the case warrant such a verdict.

Interestingly, one of the demands of the BLM crowd is an end to the use of body cameras by police. One can only wonder why that might be. After all, if there is truly a war on black men by the police, and innocent young black men are being gunned down without provocation, one would think that BLM would want those atrocities captured on camera, showing for the entire world the veracity of their claims. If they are innocent, why would they not want video of these interactions?

Some of the other demands are simply non-starters.

For example, BLM demands include the end of private education in America, and putting all hiring, firing, curriculum and discipline issues in the hands of “parents, students and community members.” We can look at the absolute most expensive, worst performing school systems in major cities throughout the country, and most of them have one thing in common: They have been run by Democrats for decades. There is no legitimate reason why we should make all of the nation’s schools as bad as those run by Democrats.

Also included is “a guaranteed minimum livable income for all Black people,” to which we offer a counter-proposal of lowering taxes so that all Americans get to keep more of what they earn, thereby making living more affordable for all.

In a summary explanation of the demands, the BLM groups demand reparations for “past and continuing harms to African-Americans.” But rather than fund reparations for ongoing harms, we should enact policies that better the lives of black Americans so that there is no need for reparations.

For example, Democrat policies have utterly destroyed the black family, with nearly 75% of American black children born out of wedlock. Since roughly 85% of men in prison were raised in homes without a father, one of the best things we could do is acknowledge the importance of fathers to the raising of children, and enact policies that encourage marriage before childbirth, and stop paying rewards for unwed pregnancies. Likewise, minimum wages will be irrelevant if we are holding the national education cartel accountable for results, rather than sending these children out into the world completely unprepared to compete in a global economy.

Salvation for blacks in America, and for all Americans, comes not in the form of reparations, or yet another government program. It comes in the form of personal responsibility, morality, civility, education and individual freedom.

But that doesn’t bring money or power to the likes of Al Sharpton and the Black Lives Matter movement, so they aren’t interested. For those of us who truly believe that black lives matter, let’s reject the extortion racket benefiting the few and do what benefits the most.