change...

i don't know about you...but every time i hear our politicos proffer the word change as though the echoing effect of that word through the halls of congress would provide the solution to all the world's woes...i get a little annoyed...

call me an old grump and stuck in my ways...but most in my generation will tell you that "change" is what's wrong with the country today and not how we fix the country today...we liked our world just as it was back in the good old days when it was country first...foremost...and forever...when we were a people...not a people divided...

today...it's almost as if we're spending all our precious energy and time looking for things to change...do you sometimes get the feeling that nobody out there is happy with anything?

i find that the word "change" is bandied about somewhat carelessly and with the unproven uncertainty that moving from one thing to another automatically produces something better...personally, i'm pretty much fed up with the would be changers of the world - you know...the ones marching in the streets touting their personal prejudices, or protesting something whilst living in a tree...or starving themselves for a cause...or parading with placards to promote their own myopic agenda, or rioting to draw attention to their perceived sense of disentitlement...yes, you will argue, that's what a free society entitles them to do...but i say we are living in the best place on earth with the best possible form of government...we are a benign and benevolent nation and if there are those who don't know that by now...they should try living someplace else until they get it...

i like to hang out with people who can find things to be happy about...i personally am tired of the disruptive and the disgruntled...and in spite of the rancor some in politics are spewing...nobody in this country is really disenfranchised...there is opportunity for all...if we but take it...

so i'm thinking the only change i'd really like to see is a change back to where we were...we had a pretty good plat map...our forefathers having labored long and hard to give us great guidelines for the future...but all through the course of our growing up as a nation...people have been demanding and creating change...so...little by little, we have found ourselves adrift in a sea of change resulting in a country divided and in want of yet more change...there can be no end to a cycle of this nature...always thinking to make something better, we have...contrarily, contributed to making a lot of things worse...

one area of change that has america at war with itself is the issue of immigration...long ago...theodore roosevelt said "...if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an american and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else...but this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an american, and nothing but an american...there can be no divided allegiance here. any man who says he is an american, but something else also, isn't an american at all. we have room for but one flag, the american flag...we have room for but one language here, the english language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the american people."

now, instead of ths straightforward american stance in keeping with our founding principles, we have, in our ever-benevolent manner, changed our attitude about this and, for the sake of "political correctness", have created a change that is neither financially healthy for our nation, nor politically healthy in terms of our national security. good-hearted intentions maybe, but truly misguided.

now we are so emboldened with the idea that we can effect change, that we've moved on to grander things, like the egotistical idea that we can actually change the climate...naturally...we have taken this idea to its idiotic extremes...i remember watching a show, where a young lady proudly pronounced with the revelatory air of someone who had just discovered a cure for some disease that "if each of us would save only two sheets of paper after opening our christmas presents, we could wrap up manhatten." hmmm...or..."if we saved but two feet of ribbon, we could put a bow around the earth," (now there's a solid concept.) or, changing one light bulb would take 340,000 cars off the road." these are the kinds of ridiculous and illogical extremes that do more damage than good to the sincere idea of educating man to better tend the planet...we have lost our common sense, and that's not a good change...

there are some good things to change: diapers, your mind when you're wrong, large dollar bills, equipment when it no longer works, bad habits, and tires...change for the sake of change...change made by the few for the many...these are not good reasons for change...and i'm not going to change my mind about that...