Everyone wants to live in a place where all needs are met, where there is no anxiety, discord, or strife.  Whether by legislation or brute force, those who call themselves progressives, socialists, the radical left, or simply Democrats intend to achieve such a utopia in the U.S.

All actions are permissible, as the end justifies the means.  Right and wrong, morality and ethics take a back seat.  Totalitarianism may be required.

Tactics include hypocrisy and double-standards; diversion, distortion, disinformation, and misinformation; logical inconsistency; and rejection of proven science.

Radical activists conceal the fact that, to protect the Earth from pollution, climate change, and other ravages of human technology, utopia will require “rollback of the industrial age” — that is, without electricity, a hunter-gatherer society, where all your needs are provided, by you!

Socialists (utopians) claim they advocate tolerance for all peoples and all viewpoints — but only the officially approved, politically correct ones qualify.  A founding member of the American socialist movement, Herbert Marcuse, wrote, “Tolerance is extended to policies, conditions, and modes of behavior which should not be tolerated [italics added] because they are impeding, if not destroying, the chances of creating an existence without fear and misery” (utopia). 

On January 6, 2021, a crowd of unarmed, nonviolent Trump-supporters entered the Capitol illegally.  Videos confirm that they calmly toured the premises, some shepherded by police.  The DoJ has charged more than 1,000 Americans over J6, most with insurrection — the “violent attempt to overturn recognized authority or legally constituted government.” 

Six months earlier (June 2020) in Seattle, heavily armed individuals took over federal buildings, including the courthouse, and violently ejected “legally constituted government” to establish the CHAZ, or the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.  Though this was an insurrection by definition, the socialist perpetrators have not been prosecuted. 

For progressives, social justice requires a double-standard rule of law.  J6 was called democracy-overthrowing insurrection, while CHAZ was labeled “unlawful occupation protest.” 

Diversity, inclusion, equity (DIE) is a hallmark movement for utopians.  They advance CRT (Critical Race Theory) in schools and universities to counter systemic racism: whites oppressing blacks and browns in housing, education, business, healthcare, and government.  Those who question systemic racism are automatically condemned as “racist.”

Racism can be defined as “prejudice or antagonism against people based solely on their membership is a racial or ethnic group.”  CRT embodies the essence of that racism that DIE purports to oppose. 

The Democrat mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, held a 2023 Christmas party for “Electeds of Color.”  In the name of diversity and inclusion, she excluded and discriminated against whites elected to Boston city council. 

The E in DIE stands for equity, not equality.  The latter is a fundamental value for Americans — equal opportunity for all, excluding no one from a chance to achieve his dreams.  Equity means equal outcome, where everyone has the same wealth, status, material possessions, and achievements, a condition clearly impossible.  With their demand for equity, progressives assert that utopian equity can be achieved.  People just need to give up the right to choose (freedom) — temporarily, of course.

Utopian elites see the “deplorable” masses as ignorant children while they are the wise adults.  Since Father Knows Best, Father (Washington) must make important decisions as the children cannot be trusted to do the right thing.  Hubris leads to totalitarianism.

The radical left rejects proven science, like photosynthesis.  In 2022, the EPA declared carbon dioxide (CO2) a “pollutant.”  Every schoolchild knows that, using chlorophyll, trees convert water (H2O) plus CO2 into sugar and oxygen (O2). To combat the supposed pollution of the atmosphere by CO2, the British Parliament passed a carbon tax, which forced British power plants to switch from burning coal to burning wood chips.  Woods chips are made by cutting down trees.  Trees absorb CO2 to generate O2.  Fewer trees mean less O2.  Claiming to protect us, utopian climate activists will reduce the production of that without which human beings cannot live. 

Finally, there is Gaia, Mother Earth, and all her creatures, who must protected from damage caused by human technology.  Leftists seek to eliminate fossil fuels, whose greenhouse gases are reputed to cause climate change.  Their solution is green energy, like power from wind farms.

The utopian double-standard is again evident.  Those who hail wind energy as the protector of Gaia apparently have no problem when wind turbines kill as many as 679,089 small birds a year. 

Several conclusions are clear.

Progressive-socialists seek to create their vision of utopia in the U.S., preferably the entire world.  They ignore the fact that humans are human and therefore imperfect.  Utopia on Earth is more than simply unrealistic — it is categorically impossible. 

An attempt to create utopia requires a totalitarian approach to governance.  In this effort, no moral restrictions or ethical limitations apply.  Inconsistencies and logical contradictions do not deter leftists from their goal.  Nothing is wrong if it moves society in the right direction.

With the progressive mindset, inequality, enslavement, intolerance, discrimination, and exclusion are permissible along the way to leftist utopia where there will be equity, freedom, tolerance, diversity, and inclusion. 

Those who advocate utopia must be stopped, in the name of those values that Americans hold most dear: freedom, personal responsibility, equality, rule of law for all (no exceptions), and the Bill of Rights, which was written to protect individual freedom from the very tyranny utopians demand (in our best interest, of course!) 

Beware! 

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster” (Frederick Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886).  When opposing the utopians, we must eschew their tactics.  The end does not justify any means.  There is Right, and there is Wrong — no “context” necessary.  If opponents of utopians adopt utopian tactics, then the good guys are not at all different from the bad guys. 

Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA is professor emeritus of pediatrics, pathology, and decision science; former director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation; former director, New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange; and author of the multi-award winning book Curing the Cancer in U.S. Healthcare: StatesCare and Market-Based Medicine. 

Image: Lyza via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.