Restoring the Balance

In my opinion, all politics boils down to two views. There are people who are looking for a better life or are dreaming of a better world. They want things to change. These people are called a lot of things, but their proper name is progressives. They support progress, moving forward.

There are other people who have it pretty good, or they feel they are getting by and want things to stay that way. They want a better world, but they fear a rush to change things will do more harm than good. They fear the life they know will disappear in the rush into the future. Again, these people are called by a lot of names, but their proper name is conservative. They want to conserve the life they have.

I believe both these attitudes are legitimate, and their views should be taken into consideration. Many people are desperate for change, something that will improve their lives. They will agree with any philosophy that helps them improve their lives. Who can blame them? Let’s face it, the most conservative person will support change if it makes their life better. Generally, they aren’t interested in how it is done, as long as it is done. Rushing into change without understanding all of the results can be bad for everyone.

I’ll give you one example of something I believed is being rushed, although I understand the urgency. I am all for electric vehicles, our environment can use the brake. My question is about the infrastructure. Is it ready? In California, they have rolling brown outs every summer, and they are always telling people to help lighten the load on the power grid. At the same time, they are insisting that all vehicles be electric by 2035. To me, this does not make sense. This is where conservatives are needed to slow this effort down. Not stop it but slow it down. Once the infrastructure is ready, dumping the internal combustion engine will be a great step to stabilizing the environment. In California, the conservatives seem to have been silenced, and, I believe, California will pay for that.

Fear of change leads people to resist truly historic and badly needed changes. It will also mess with their belief system. They will easily believe any notion that proves that change is bad. The Civil War was fought because the elimination of slavery would have a great effect on the lives of the people in the south. It was resisted to the point of nearly destroying our country. Yeah, I know some say it was a state’s rights issue. If you read the South Carolina Articles of Succession, you will see that it is clearly written that the issue was slavery. It was the state’s rights versus the right of an individual to be free. In any case, the point is resisting change has been disastrous in the past and it is causing great harm now. The progressive voice int the south at that time was silenced. There was no one to avert the disaster of the Civil War.

We need a balance between constant change and stagnation. We need both voices heard in respectable debate. We must go back to the Ronald Raegan and Tip O’Neil way of debating bitterly but still they remaining good friends. We can do it.