Change

By Jim Thompson 
HCP columnist

I promised a couple of weeks ago I would tackle the subject of “Change.”

Progressive liberals mock conservatives, saying they are unwilling to change. I think the subject of change has to be taken in context — what are we talking about changing?

When it comes to business, I am a rabid enthusiast for change. If we can find a better way to make a product, find new products to make, find a better delivery system for products to consumers, I am all in favor of this.

Unfortunately, the kind of change I favor sometimes causes jobs to be lost. However, I view such change as inevitable (if your company doesn’t think of it, a competitor will) and overall for society, it generally means a higher standard of living.

Now, I’ll suggest, the kind of change progressive liberals often promote is change in government rules and regulations designed to keep private jobs static.

They want to keep the same big factories employing the same number of people doing the same obsolete tasks. This is not what is said, of course. Such regulations are fashioned into trade barriers, for instance. Or bad-mouthing “right to work” states over “closed shop” states. And further disguises come in the form of health, safety or other such concerns real and imagined.

This is not the spirit of America.

This is the spirit of status quo, stagnation, rot. Yes, it is sold as something else – progressive liberalism. Sounds forward-thinking, doesn’t it?

Yet, the real idea is to keep everyone frozen in place, doing exactly what they are doing.

These lies are perpetrated to women in the high sounding talk of “women’s health” and to minorities in talk of “minority rights.”

In reality, these are merely facades for keeping everything just the way it is.

With “women’s health” the idea is keep doing everything the way we have been doing it. Let’s just make sure we have a clean, neat and sanitary way to clean up and hide our dalliances and mistakes.

With minorities, well, all you have to do is look at how conservative minorities are shouted down and/or hid by the mainstream media.

You would think to listen to progressive liberals’ talk that they would be glad for someone to stand up and think for themselves. But no, that is not what they want at all — they don’t want anyone to get out of the “here, let me help you” mode.

For people who become independent and break the shackles of being dependent are dangerous. They just might leave the ranch; stop drinking the Kool-Aid, think of ways to do things for themselves.

The spirit of America is when things don’t work, fix them or move. We are a nation of movers.

It was not so long ago that 20 percent of the population moved every year. Yes, on average the entire country moved every five years.

What did the immigrants that are here without papers do? They decided to pick up themselves and move to a better place — here. But, in two or three generations their children will lose this healthy spirit. They too will become part of the stagnant class.

Being stagnant is deadly. If I lived in an environment and had kids of the age that they might become involved in gangs, I would move. Now. By whatever means possible.

There is no architectural or geographic feature in any city that would persuade me to stay.

There is no job or welfare benefit that would persuade me to stay.

I would move – even if we had to walk – to save the kids from such an environment.

This is just one example of people frozen in place, waiting for progressive liberals to fix the problem. Progressive liberals have had 100 years. What have they fixed so far?

Time to move on, figuratively and physically.

Change. I am all in favor of it in business and enterprise. In the government, so-called change causes real stagnation and lethargy. No country can remain great when it becomes lethargic.

Jim Thompson is a columnist for The Highland County Press.