It has been said that every cloud has a silver lining. If there is a silver lining in the current liberal progressive cloud floating this country towards a social democracy, it is that we now have ample evidence allowing us to sketch what the current idea of a liberal utopia looks like. In the new liberal utopia, you can forget about personal liberty, except for a couple of notable exceptions designed to give the illusion of freedom, because the central government has everything figured out and will force their desires on you for your own good. So you should be thankful they have relieved you of the burden of carrying out your daily life as you see fit in an ethical, lawful manner. Over the course of the past two years, I have seen patterns emerging of what the new liberal utopia offers, beginning with health care. I have covered this topic in detail in previous posts, so I only reiterate that the liberal utopia offers a one size fits all approach to healthcare that strips away the sovereignty of the states to find their own individual solutions, as well as stripping away the sovereignty of the doctor-patient relationship in favor of Washington bureaucrats. Government will become a central player in healthcare from a 2000+ page monstrosity of a bill compounded with byzantine regulations that are having devastating effects on health insurance plans across the country.
Here are a few items for your further consideration that I believe provide some indication of the direction of the liberal utopian movement, which not only consists of the federal government, but far left leaning states such as California and New York.
- Michelle Obama, as a part of her “Let’s Move” campaign, is moving from healthy eating and exercise cheerleader (which obviously hasn’t worked with her junk food loving husband) to enforcer with her new push to place 5,000 salad bars in public schools nationwide. Controlling what children eat in public schools is only the beginning. Adults and children under the healthcare law are the next waypoint to government control of what we eat, as illuminated by the recent San Francisco Board of Supervisors ban on toys in Happy Meals (surprisingly, Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill, but the board has vowed to press on by overriding his veto).
- As if the trans fat ban wasn’t enough, New York city mayor Michael Bloomberg began meddling early this year in the amount of salt restaurants could put in food. This was followed up by a proposed State Assembly bill from a liberal do-gooder, Felix Ortiz, that would ban the use of salt altogether. Everyone knows that Americans each too much salt, but isn’t freedom and liberty all about making your own personal choices without self-serving, sanctimonious politicians telling mature adults what they can and cannot put in their bodies? Again, I see this tying back to the healthcare bill since government has made itself a serious player. If they’re involved in your healthcare, then they can tell you what you can eat.
- U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is leading a push to potentially ban any use of mobile phones in cars, including hand-free calls. This might also limit features that automakers (private enterprises) can include that allow people to communicate on social networks by voice. Apparently the consumer can’t make a personal decision for themselves as to what features they would like, so LaHood must make it for all of them.
- Thankfully, cap and trade legislation didn’t pass, and with a Republican majority in the House as well as a few Republican pickups in the Senate, we might not have to worry about this job killing legislation. In the liberal utopia, somehow it makes sense to implement draconian policies based on the supposedly scientific view that the very carbon dioxide we exhale every moment is a poisonous gas that must be regulated. Don’t they know the earth has been regulating carbon quite nicely for about 4.5 billion years?
- The current administration has been incessant about green energy jobs, turning a blind eye to the reality that wind and solar are not currently viable options. We have an abundance of energy, particularly natural gas, whose exploration and extraction can actually create millions of jobs that will help us to become more energy independent. Yet the government is adamant that they need to continue to subsidize green energy, which it favors, while hampering exploration of traditional energy sources.
- Class warfare has become the mantra of the utopian movement. If you can pit the “poor” against the “rich” (with “rich” being arbitrarily defined as making over $250,000), then you have a whole class of people that can be blamed for another’s poverty, whose wealth must then be summarily “spread around” in the name of “fairness.” The sole intent appears to be to promote the idea that utopians are for the “little guy,” though in truth, the little guy needs the rich guy to provide a private sector job as much as the rich guy needs the little guy’s labor. One doesn’t gain at the expense of the other. Yet according to the utopian vision, it is not up to you to use your own personal initiative and ingenuity in order to prosper in a market economy, but it is up to the government to manipulate the free market system to its own ends, which only perpetuates a permanent underclass instead of encouraging an upwardly mobile one.
What I think the above examples indicate is that the current administration’s intent, in collusion with a Democratic majority Congress, was to grow itself into every aspect of human life, taking away the rights of citizens to make personal choices for themselves, their children, and their businesses. This was before the Republicans put a dent in their plans this past election. While the utopians did acknowledge that was the very perception of the people based on the Republican route in the House, they didn’t think the people were smart enough to have called the situation correctly, but were simply anxious about high unemployment and the difficult economic environment. I guess Americans didn’t “get the memo” that no longer does one have to accept personal responsibility as a means to support oneself, create economic opportunity, and maintain a free society, but central government will take on this role and will control the economy through regulation, instead of outright ownership of private companies, in order to achieve its own utopian ends. Apparently Americans are smarter than Washington thinks they are.
I did state there are a couple of notable exceptions where the big government utopians seemingly don’t want to get involved in your daily life. These two exceptions would be on abortion and sexuality. On abortion, liberals argue the “pro choice” position to the point it is almost deafening. They drone on about conservatives wanting to “turn back the clock” because we believe that Roe v. Wade was an incorrect Supreme Court decision conferring on women the Constitutional right to an abortion. It is not a Constitutional right because having an abortion in no way helps a woman to pursue life, liberty and happiness. This should be decided at the state level by the people, not nine people in black robes. The fundamental reason I believe liberal utopians are so animated about being pro choice (which is the equivalent of being against choice for the fetus involved), is because if they demand personal responsibility from women, then there would be less of a need for the ruling class of utopians. It is also the secular nature of utopians, who eschew objective moral values, to promote moral relativity so they don’t have to be accountable themselves to social mores. Yet they would impose their morality on those whom they govern, instead of leaving alone self-governance through natural law and religion, which has guided this country since its founding.
The second notable exception is sexuality, particularly homosexuality. Let me be unequivocal that conservatives want nothing to do with what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes, as long as no laws are broken. The problem is there are relationships that do harm in sexual and societal ways. Physical harm is done in male on male sexual contact over time. Moreover, homosexual behavior is heavily correlated with AIDS, rectal cancer, cervical cancer, hepatitis, IV drug use, and sexually transmitted diseases, which impacts society as a whole. In short, homosexual behavior is unhealthy and has negative public consequences for all. Yet while liberal utopians are silent on this, they are staunch proponents of gay marriage, as if forcing it on all the people at the federal level and putting its imprimatur on it will change homosexual behavior patterns. To me, their position is baffling, but it does fit with their narrative of promoting irresponsible lifestyles so they can swoop in and “help” those who reap the tragic consequences of their own free will actions. The problem here is that people are physically harming themselves and others, yet all the utopians can think to do is to fall over backwards in support of gay marriage without considering the repercussions. In case anyone misunderstands my position on this, I speak from love.
So if utopia means less personal liberty, “choice” for the woman while denying any rights to the fetus, and promoting relationships that are destructive both physically to the person and to society at large, then I can make do without it.
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