Change

~~ "We change, whether we like it or not." --Ralph Waldo Emerson ~~

Well, it's been almost a month now. Had enough Change yet?

I do hope not, because they are just getting started. As stated by the President himself, when referring to the trillion dollar "stimulus" bill: "...it's only the beginning of what, I think, all of you understand is going to be a long and difficult process..."

He campaigned on Change, and people were screaming for Change. I wonder exactly how many knew that the Change they voted for was, in reality, a renewed assault on the individual in favor of the Collective?

~~ "Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely." --Karen Kaiser Clark ~~

Indeed... it will be a long and difficult road to strip America of the remaining vestiges of its true self. It won't be easy to completely ruin the most successful economy in the history of the human race. It will be a challenge of the highest order to "remake" our nation, as the new President called for here: "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

Remaking America? Some people wondered exactly what that meant. Not me. I know just what he meant by it. Many among us will not recognize it for what it is... until it's far too late-- which it may already be, in some respects. The leftists are deadly serious about their agenda... and now they have a charismatic leader to smile charmingly as they force said agenda down our throats.

~~ "Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass." --John Steinbeck ~~

So is Change itself really bad? I certainly do not think it is inherently bad at all. In fact, whether or not people like Change, they must deal with it, since it cannot be avoided.

~~ "Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." --Bertolt Brecht ~~

...and...

~~ "Nothing endures but change." --Heraclitus ~~

...and...

~~ "There are no permanent changes because change itself is permanent." --Ralph L. Woods ~~

...ad nauseum. No, the question is not avoiding Change... the trick is knowing what should be changed, and when. I believe there to be no greater sin than "change for change's sake." Change should be thought of as a very important tool-- like a gun, maybe-- and used when necessary; but never, ever used gratuitously and flippantly, at least where a nation is concerned. Therein lies the main difference between "progressives" and "Conservatives." I cannot imagine anyone saying it better than this:

~~ "The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order." --Alfred North Whitehead ~~

In case you have not been keeping track, we are losing order at an alarming rate. Chaos and crises are swirling all around us as the leftist magicians practice their sleight of hand. They craft plan after plan, all the while telling us to focus not on their actions, but on the horrible, terrible, awful state of the country. This is actually working on many-- who are only too eager to say, "Yes, do something... anything to save us!" It's almost mystical, don't you think?

~~ "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye..." --Corinthians ~~

Change is coming to us now. Certainly not for the first time, and certainly not for the last time. The key difference now seems to be that so many people have been frightened into almost begging for it. There is no universal understanding of the truth of our history. Most Americans do not seem to know that we have weathered bad times many, many times before-- and that we have made some of those times much worse when we tried to "remake" America.

~~ "Never swap horses crossing a stream." --American Proverb ~~

Yes, it seems almost a sure thing that we are destined to relive the ugliness of the Great Depression era-- wherein self-appointed saviors foisted their Utopian vision upon a suffering and pleading populace. Oh, it is so much sweeter when the victim begs for it!

The Utopias failed, though, and most Americans quickly forgot-- or never knew-- that they had been scammed on a historic level. The New Deal and the Great Society did not come close to achieving the heaven-on-Earth that their engineers promised. That is not opinion, by the way. From any objective measurement, the sweeping socio-economic changes that were designed to "fix" poverty and suffering did nothing of the sort. They did manage to clog the gears of the free market, though, and that alone makes them worthwhile to the committed leftist/"progressive," for whom consistency and stability are not desirable attributes for a society.

~~ "Continuity in everything is unpleasant." --Blaise Pascal ~~

In any case, the design of these socialist/collectivist Utopian plans had a fatal flaw that their authors never took into account. They thought (and still think) that they could bring their brightly packaged "Change" and make it take root here. The problem is, the soil in America is not hospitable for that kind of seed. Oh, it will grow for a while; like a weed that grasps at a well-cultivated lawn. It can't sustain itself, though, because both the gardener and the lawn itself eventually beat back its progress.

Collectivism has been a miserable failure everywhere it has been tried. The reason for it is beyond simple, it is fundamental: human beings always look out for Number One, and the human spirit was not made to accept "average" as the thing to strive for.

~~ "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." --Leo Tolstoy ~~

That's the problem, Leo... it is virtually impossible for humans to change their own basic design. Of all systems of government ever devised by man, only the American Republic addresses the truth of human nature. Our Founders knew that self-interest and individual rights had to be respected, if the system was to succeed. They had seen the very worst governments, and they had learned from them. The Founders knew that if allowed, government would always default to tyranny and despotism.

~~ "Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly." --Francis Bacon ~~

People have lived under collectivist systems in the past-- and many do so now-- but there is little success there to brag about. More importantly, without addressing individual rights and self-interest, the systems fail to give the people what they really yearn for. Surely some are satisfied with the mediocrity that comes with collectivism... but suppression of the Self in favor of the Collective is intrinsically alien to the human psyche-- and that is where the wheels always start coming off the train of tyranny.

So, of Change, I would say that we can't expect-- nor should we want-- to avoid it; but we absolutely have to ensure that it is the right kind of Change. Ironically, we must strive to avoid any Change that works against the Self, and instead always seek to change toward the betterment of the Self-- since the Self is the only enduring thing the human race will ever have.

~~ "There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction." --Winston Churchill ~~

Anything we do, then, that takes away from the power of the individual is doomed to failure, because the individual is eternal and:

~~ "All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." --C. S. Lewis ~~

Every American's challenge is to deal with Change effectively. Here is a great beginning strategy: close your eyes, clear your mind, and say the following at least once a day:

~~ "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." --Reinhold Niebuhr ~~

Finally, recognize the truth and be philosophical about it. A sense of humor can always help, too. To wit:

~~ "Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine." --Robert C. Gallagher ~~


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