Random Acts of Writing: The problem with change
By Craig Carter
Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:43 AM PDT
According to most polls, and who am I to have the temerity to question polls, a vast majority of likely voters say the thing they want most is change.
Of course, unless you’re talking about that copper, silver and zinc stuff that rattles in your pocket, change is a hard thing to put your finger on. When we speak of change in the abstract, it’s just great, but when we start getting down to changing specific things, then you have a problem.
For instance, if you ask most folks if they like the fact the country is almost $10 trillion in debt, I don’t think a lot of them would say they think it’s a good thing.
Hence, most folks would say they want that to change forthwith. (And please allow me to apologize for using such a high falutin’ word as forthwith.)
However, if you tell them the only way you’re going to be able to pay down that debt is to increase the source of revenue (raise taxes) and decrease government spending (do away with programs that a lot of folks have become accustomed to), then change isn’t the political cure-all we want to think it is.
This is one of the trillions of areas where I really don’t envy the next president.
Given the current state of things, it’s obvious that change, and a lot of it, is definitely going to be needed.
And whether it’s McCain, Clinton or Obama that takes up occupancy in the White House next January, they’re going to have to change a lot of stuff, and then face the griping and moaning that will definitely ensue because, as I’ve said in earlier columns, people say they want change, but if you really want to hear people gripe and moan a lot, just change stuff.
Still, people say they want change, and this is why I feel particularly sorry for Sen. McCain.
He has the unenviable task of saying he wants to change things while saying he wants to keep doing what his party has done for the past eight years. Only a politician could be given such a challenge, and only a politician would actually try to do such a thing.
However, if you look at what’s going on between senators Obama and Clinton, you’re left to wonder what’s so different about them.
Of course, when you get right down to it, the politicians that advocate real change are the ones that we usually pass off as crackpots. We want change, but not radical change. Which is to say the electorate wants change, but they’d like to respectfully request that you don’t change anything they don’t want changed.
And just what is it that they don’t want changed? Well, that’s where it gets a little dicey.
We want that war thing in Iraq to be solved, but please don’t change it in a way the people in the region resent the change so much they get it into their heads to take their anger with our changes out on us.
Likewise, people say they want that pesky economy thing to be changed, but please don’t change anything that might cause the slightest inconvenience. Because if you change things in a way that causes the slightest inconvenience, be prepared for your political opposition to clamor for (say it with me, boys and girls) change.
Which can only lead us to the conclusion that Americans are spoiled rotten, sissy Mary babies who want everything at once, and when we don’t get it, we whine that we want change, and when the change comes, we whine they changed the wrong things, or the change was made in the wrong way.
I’d change that if I could, but you’d just whine about it, wouldn’t you?
