Principles

My neighbor’s car has a bumper sticker that says, “How’s that whole hopey-changey thing goin’ for ya?”   This moronic expression is not only annoying because it reads like it was meant to be a Sarah Palin quote. It is annoying because I would actually like a whole lot more change, please, and I still hold out some hope that change is possible. It is annoying because my neighbor, people like my neighbor, and the type of politicians that my neighbor supports, are responsible for the slow pace, and in some cases the complete absence, of change. It is annoying because my neighbor seems to think that I – who still have a “Got Hope?” sticker on my truck – might be regretting my earlier support of the principles of change because, in my neighbor’s view, the changes that were proposed to the health care system looked like the dangerous path to socialism. My neighbor is a fool.

What a shame there are so many millions of people just like my neighbor throughout the country. I maintain hope that rational, well-meaning people can overpower the conservative defeatism that is attempting to drag down our efforts to create positive change and to instead mire us in the conservative muck.

Conservatives are opposed to change. That is what the word “conservative” means: people who espouse this philosophy wish to conserve the status quo. It does NOT have anything to do with fiscal responsibility, as was so aptly evidenced by the egregious economic mismanagement of the Bush administration. The result of Republican economic policies: double-digit unemployment.

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