Utopia Won't Work!

23 August 2017

The basic tenet of the Progressive Left in America and elsewhere is that people need trained experts to run their government and tell the people what is best for them. This political philosophy has been active and well in America ever since the days of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Today’s Progressives on the left include Lyndon Johnson, Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren—they, among many others know how to be good people planners (or…so they think).

There have been other Progressives in recent history—all of whom knew what would be best for the people, e.g., Adolf Hitler, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Idi Amin, and most notably Maximilien Robespierre (leading architect of the French Revolution). They all claimed special inspiration to plan and run their respective nations. Those secular Progressives have wreaked havoc on their people. In the 20^th Century, alone, Communism has taken 100 million lives; the Nazis killed 20 million more. The administration of Chairman Mao killed untold millions in China; and other left-wing utopian progressives have killed even more. 

These progressive systems have run counter to classic philosophers, especially Aristotle, who taught that man is by nature political, that is, naturally social, reasonable, morally aware, and that all human beings are equal to others in potential development. He taught that no human being is any less human than any other. This is consistent with the biblical teaching that all of mankind is created in the image of God.

The classical and biblical human rights listed above, comprised the belief structure that described the beliefs of the neoconservative movement, which were manifested in the early years after the Second World War. Later, in the 60’s and 70’s, the term “neoconservative” took on a more interventionist connotation, in that its imperatives advocated a much more interventionist quality—these interventionist tendencies were incorporated into the foreign policies of the administrations of George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and the second Bush president., The “neo-cons,” as they were called pushed for nation changing activities abroad dedicated to enlightening the foreign peoples so that all peoples over the globe might enjoy the freedoms and liberties of present-day Americans. These policies have spectacularly failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Interventionist policies began to fade in the administration of Barak Obama; and now, I do not believe many Americans think that it is possible or practical to try to modify the polities of foreign nations.

The American founders set forth a system of government characterized by the statement in the Declaration of Independence that all men, everywhere are standing in “…the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them….” This document does not suggest that these progressive ideas of utopia on earth should hold sway over free men.

William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925-2008 He was a widely popular conservative TV host and author.) recognized the futility of progressive ideas of utopian aims; he popularized the phrase: “Don’t let them immanentize the eschaton.”

This impossibly awkward statement became so popular that people actually painted it on their T-shirts and campaign buttons. In translation, the phrase means,” Don’t fall for utopian political schemes, because they can’t work.”

In closing, remember George Orwell’s famous aphorism: “There are some ideas so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them.”

(You might notice that I am still reading a good book, i.e., “American Greatness, by Buskirk and Leibsohn.” None of the above ideas are mine; they come from Chapter 7 of this book.)