Drum roll, please, for the top ten unintended consequences caused by progressive/radical rules and laws:

10. Decline of the bee population due to whirring noises from wind farms created by the urging of environmental activists who do not care if their initiatives upset the fragile balance of nature.

9. Devastation of huge swaths of the American West by wildfires, many caused by environmental laws that prevent clearing forest floors.

8. Government mandates that gasoline at the pump contain a percentage of ethanol derived from corn and wheat, triggering a serious increase in food prices during hard times for many Americans, and starvation in poor countries.

7. Refusal by Obama to allow passage of legislation to approve the Keystone Pipeline has resulted in an increase in train wrecks of trains carrying flammable and toxic crude.

6. The legality of gay unions upheld by the Supreme Court of the U.S. has encouraged a push to legitimize polygamy.

5. The world's record illegitimacy rate in the U.S. black community is largely due to the Great Society legislation of 1965 establishing Aid to Dependent Families welfare payments that required young mothers to be unwed, creating millions of kids with no fathers who join gangs to seek their identity.  

4. Also upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, Obamacare, born out of idealism and theory rather than facts, is fraught with unpredicted outcomes – including rises in health care costs; instability of health insurance firms, who are losing money and seeking mergers; companies laying off or not hiring new employees; and nationwide anxiety by ordinary citizens.

3. Congressional progressives’ idealistic desire to provide access to housing for all Americans by manipulating policies by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – and advantage taken by investment and hedge funds – led to possibly the worst economic recession in U.S. history.

2. The idealistic decision by the U.S. to assist the Afghans in their struggle against the Soviet Union led to the most complicated diplomatic and military engagement in U.S. history, now involving the entire Middle East and terrorism.

1. The idealistic, theoretical action in the late 1970s by progressives in the mental health area to empty mental hospitals, saying the mentally ill can fit into society, leading to the homeless problem and alarming mass murders in the U.S. by mentally ill killers.