The Illusion of Utopia: A Critical Look at Progressive Ideals and Economic Realities

Summary of Key Points:

1. Individual vs. Collective Happiness:

   • Happiness is an individual pursuit, not a collective right. Everyone’s dreams and goals are different, so a one-size-fits-all approach does not work.
   • Some progressives believe the government should control and fund child care and daycare, while others argue it’s the parent's responsibility, not the state's.

2. Parental Responsibility:

   • The responsibility of raising, feeding, and clothing children lies with those who decide to conceive or adopt, not the government.
   • Government welfare programs often create ghettos and foster dependency rather than solving the underlying issues.

3. Economic Realities:

   • In both the US and Canada, a small percentage of the population pays the majority of taxes, while many pay little or none.
   • A fair tax system should ensure that all citizens contribute, avoiding an undue burden on a few.

4. Greed and Corruption:

   • Greed is not limited to Wall Street; it is also found among union leaders, politicians, and various interest groups.
   • Excessive regulations and demands drive businesses to seek cheaper labour and less restrictive environments abroad.

5. Historical Lessons:

   • Revolutions, like those in France, Russia, and China, often lead to more oppression and loss of freedoms than the regimes they replaced.
   • Modern political and union leaders often prioritize their personal success over the welfare of those they represent.

Many left-leaning academics, like Chris Hedges, criticize the free market system and capitalism, arguing that they lack proper competition and reasonable rules. However, their alternatives often hinge on utopian visions of wealth distribution and spiritual enlightenment, which do not translate into practical policies.

Democracy and freedom thrive on responsible governance and individual accountability, not unrealistic utopian ideals or class warfare. Ensuring economic and social stability requires balancing individual freedom with fair contributions from all citizens, rather than relying on expansive government control and entitlements.

Academia like Hedges are left-wing ideologists and hold the belief, that democracy of the free market system and capitalism is dysfunctional and has no proper competition with reasonable rules, but what are his alternative suggestions for proper completion and reasonable rules that are required under his ideals and theories of spiritual enlightenment for a Utopian collective community based on wealth distribution?

On a pragmatic and philosophical ground, the important point is that the pursuit of happiness is on an individual basis, not a collective right, as my dreams are different from yours and someone else’s is completely different from both of ours.

For example, the political holy grail of progressive socialized liberalism and some feminists is that the government should control and taxpayers should fund child care and daycare. Others hold the opinion that it is not the children who require liberating from the family but perhaps the mother should be liberated from the child.

It is not only the fathers who are supposed to guide their youth but the mothers, fathers and grandparents of their own offspring who are directly responsible for the youth of today.

The responsibility for sheltering, raising, feeding and clothing is the direct responsibility of those who decide to conceive or adopt a child.  

Government-run handout programs and mass social herding formulas for housing, rent, child care and unsustainable subsidies or socialism/communism is not the answer as history has shown.

It is however a worldwide failure and has done nothing other than create ghettos of segregated warehouses of poor people living in misery.

For myself, I believe that any fair-minded individual would not dispute the political reality that today the core agenda of domestic social liberalism relates to the support for a welfare state, abortion and the racial identity politics of multiculturalism-based redistribution of wealth through class warfare.

An unmanageable national debt aggravated by spending and borrowing for unsustainable entitlements and handouts has both caused and exacerbated the burden of an inequitable system of taxation whereby 10% of the US population pays 80% of all taxes and 43% of Americans account for 20% of paid federal taxes while 47% of the US population pay NO federal taxes?

Thus the so-called wealthy in the US already pay the brunt of taxes while 47% pay no taxes. In Canada, 33.4% of citizens pay less than $2 in federal taxes. Therefore 66.6% of Canadians are subsidizing 33.4% of the population.

A fair share, in Canada and the US, should mean that all citizens pay an equal amount of taxes as opposed to paying NO federal taxes at all.

Any mischief, based on an excessive desire to acquire and possess more than what one needs or even deserves especially concerning material wealth, did not originate from nor is it limited to that of the Wall Street or Bay Street of the world.

It all began with the greed of Union leaders as well as their members be it teachers, hospital workers, police, bureaucrats etc. along with politicians and corporations and the shareholders of publicity traded companies.

Such firms and organizations also represent companies in the resource development sector for green energy solutions and other special interest groups publicly traded around the globe.

Because of our now excessive and numerous government regulations and attempts to micromanage the free enterprise system through government controls and outright nationalizations of industries or corporations combined with excess wage, benefit and pension demands by all guilty parties businesses go to China, India, South America and other countries around the world to find a less expensive workforce and less government.

Unfortunately, the leaders today, be they politicians or union leaders, seem far more concerned with raising political donations or union dues through new members for their own re-elections and play fast and furious with our money for their own personal success and prosperity at the expense of the those who actual pay taxes or union dues.

It is not only individuals like Hughes who feel they are entitled to receive handouts from others or the wealthy.

It’s politicians, academia, artists, academics, students, bureaucrats, corporations, unions, special interest groups, it is your neighbours and those that pay little or no federal income taxes all of whom fanatically believe they are entitled to their personal entitlements at other people's expense.

This is not freedom or democracy but a resurgence of progressive totalitarian socialized liberalism. If anything occupying pressure groups protesting against the Wall Streets or Bay Streets of the world or individual achievements and wealth without any pronounced alternatives suggest anarchy.  

Perhaps as most academics preach they wish for a return to Fascism, Maoism, Maoism, Communism or 21st-century totalitarian socialism?

History has documented for us all that unexpected power by revolutions throughout the world are prone to arrogance, disrespect, intrusive and short-lived freedoms for the people at the expense of law and order, liberties and freedoms.

For example the French Revolution, given the benefit of history, "it's difficult to understand why anyone doubts the fascist nature of that revolution. It was totalitarian, terrorist, nationalist, conspiratorial and populist.

And it produced the first modern dictators, Robespierre and Napoleon. The paranoid Jacobin mentality made the revolutionaries more savage and cruel than the king they replaced. Over fifty thousand people died in the terror of that revolution."

The Russian Revolution and its later day revolutionary leaders were responsible for the deaths of more than 40 MILLION people in the name of that revolution.

The Chinese Revolution under Mao saw over 65 MILLION people killed in the name of that revolution. The Cuban revolution saw close to 50 thousand kicked, tortured, and terrorized and thousands of political prisoners still remain in jail for daring to speak up against Castro and his brother.

Unfortunately, today’s elected career politicians and bureaucrats within this new world consist mostly of blame passers who never take responsibility or come to grips with their personal refusal to stand up and be held accountable.

Money left in the hands of taxpayers is far more productive than putting it in the hands of career politicians, special interest groups and unelected bureaucrats.

Democracy yes, but anarchy, class warfare and revolutions NO as they tend to destroy freedom and liberties not build them.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/social-media-pummels-cbc-kevin-o-leary-nasty-185457737.html?

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/10/10/charles-krauthammer-changing-our-world-faster-than-light/