Fair 'nuff..there's truth to this Green-lite complaint. Urban sprawl is often maddening, as we all know: who among us haven't sat seething in a traffic jam, or winced at yet another hundred acres of trees or fields torn down and scraped into brown dusty dirt to make way for still yet another mall? Would the landscape be far more pleasant without these eyesores of progress? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could protect undeveloped green rolling hills from the ravagings of bulldozers, and cement trucks? Well, sure...at least on the face of it.

What's wrong with this picture?

Well, nothing at all if one is a solipsist and lives entirely within mushy Utopian daydreams. However, if liberalism would bother to rub the sleep from its starry eyes, it would note the obvious: We can stop urban sprawl...if we don't build more housing. Of course, if we don't build more housing, then existing housing gets more expensive. In other words: We've gotta make a choice. We can't have both more affordable housing (which demands more construction) and simultaneously stop urban sprawl (which demands a stop to development).

But in daft liberal visions, we can have both: we can have more affordable housing even as we end urban sprawl. Of course, real life requires hard choices, and hard choices are precisely what liberalism hates. It's far more enjoyable, apparently to make pious speeches from the sidelines.

An even starker--and potentially tragic--example of dingbat liberal Utopianism surfaced in this spring's free trade wars. The Battle of Seattle, for instance, was a showcase for Utopian self-contradiction. On the one hand: enemies of free trade charged that corporate colonization of Third World labor is exploitive. The anti-globalists noted that local labor often works long hard hours for lousy pay with no job security--which is indeed often the case. In exalted, self-congratulatory speeches, the critics demanded "fair work standards" and "non-exploitive" wage structures.

Now, only the most grizzled hater of humanity doesn't want Third World labor get a better deal. But as we've already seen, there's nothing easier than making Utopian demands...especially when we don't have to live with the consequences of those demands.

Lost in the furious self-praise were the marginalized voices of actual Third World workers. Yes, the workers will tell us, labor conditions are often lousy, and sometimes truly grim. Yes, by Western standards they are frequently unacceptable. But here's the rub: as crummy as those conditions are now, they are better than nothing.

In other words, if "exploitive" corporations are unable to set up shop in nation A, they will move on to nation B. Is this maddening? Of course it is. But that's the choice available. Only the most gullible Utopian can believe for ten seconds that corporations will enter the Third World and pay First World wages. And by acting as proxy saviors for Third World labor, many American liberals (or "progressives," as they sometimes applaud themselves) work against the interests of ordinary Third World workers who, in choosing between a lousy job and no job, will probably choose a lousy job.

And on similarly confused grounds: Only the most addled anti-globalist can curse job flight from the First World to the Third and at the same time pretend to care about Third World labor. Again, there's a hard choice of priorities to be made: Is liberalism more interested in protecting jobs here, or more interested in establishing "fair" labor in the Third World? Of course, economic growth is not necessarily a zero-sum gain...in other words, it is possible to have economic activity in both the First and Third World.

However, economic growth is a long-term proposition...it does not, cannot, and never has, occurred overnight. The inescapable fact is this: hard choices must be made about priorities, and those hard choices are precisely makes liberalism break out in hives.

Granted, there's another thing that today's liberals and progressives could try: stop whining and take action. For instance: instead of just griping from the sidelines about Nike and Shell and other multi-nationals, take matters into your own hands. Get organized and set up your own "progressive" factory in the Third World...lead by example. Don't like the way clothing factories exploit Chinese labor? Set up your own clothing factory with "non-exploitive" labor standards. Don't like the exploitation of Indonesian labor in Nike factories? Do something about it...get organized and establish your own shoe factory.

And that surely won't happen. It's a breeze to be generous with someone else's money and time ... and besides, setting up a factory is awfully hard work. It's so much more emotionally satisfying to criticize others, then hurry home to catch a flick on cable (Oops! Giving money to Time-Warner??? Where'd those liberal bona fides go??!!)