A thinly veiled lament - "Why can't Obama be our President forever?"
Posted on 09/09/2009 6:49:33 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
What is it about Americans? Change terrifies us. Even little changes. We fought the introduction of ZIP codes. We resisted direct dial telephony. We battled fluoridated water -- some fight still -- as a communist plot.
What's our problem? Just plain crazy? Or are we so self-satisfied, do we really believe our present reality, whatever it happens to be, so wonderful that any conceivable derivation from the status quo would be, by definition, a decline?
Do we really believe that?
We are able to adopt certain new things. Everyone in America picked up a cell phone easily enough. There was no need for a government program. We traded our business suits for cargo shorts. We can change when we want to.
Those last four words seem key: "when we want to." It has to be perceived as a personal decision, not part of some big coordinated sea change. We want business to cheerlead first. We'll snap at the stuff dangled before us by corporations; we'll happily trade our cheap paperbacks for expensive Kindles.
But let the government come up with a plan, let it offer up the most rational improvement -- the metric system -- and we reject it as a one-world conspiracy.
I don't know why Europeans are so much better at change than we are. Maybe all those wars. You're Hungary one day, Yugoslavia the next, Croatia the day after that. Maybe it made them more practical. Print up new stamps and move on. For whatever reason, France -- no stranger to tradition -- could scrap its 350-year-old franc and embrace the euro while we can't even replace dollar bills with sturdier dollar coins.
Part of it is leadership vacuum -- our politicians continually run for re-election, and who wants to risk alienating the generous zinc industry by scrapping the penny? Americans resist change, not because we love the status quo, but because we're terrified that whatever comes next will be worse. That isn't a laudable national quality, but then we didn't invent timidity either. As Hamlet muses, we'd "rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."
And there is a definite cowardly feel to this moment in American history. Serious problems face us, yet the public howl is for inaction.
mailto:nsteinberg@suntimes.com
I know why - the Europeons know that we'll always be there to save their sorry asses when the screw up their "change."
You know you’re in big trouble anytime you have a bunch of corrupt Marxist politicians saying that they want to do something to keep somebody else “honest”.
Nothing more than a lament that the government doesn't have more power. Notice the tired old meme that business is bad and government is good. Our founders didn't think so. That is why they gave us the Constitution to protect us from a government they knew would try to over-reach. We are not a socialist country....yet. Until we are, this author can stick it.
Something isn’t right here. If we were so afraid of change, then how did Obama come to power using it for his platform?!
Comparing resistance to ZIP codes with national health insurance is lunacy. Also, flouridated water might not be a “communist plot” but there are plenty of studies that show it to be less than heathy for you.
I do recall that upset some folks.
Worse, there were people who opposed push button dialing ~ they preferred the sound of that zero clacking through the contacts!
Best this young whippersnapper check with some old-timers before commenting on ancient history FIRST!
Any time a Lib claims a money saving idea, I reach back and check my wallet...
Because they're unarmed.
He gives away his agenda here -- "Government-Run Health care Now!". In that light, "Americans resist change" is a half-truth. Another half-truth came earlier:
It has to be perceived as a personal decision, not part of some big coordinated sea change. We want business to cheerlead first. We'll snap at the stuff dangled before us by corporations...But let the government come up with a plan...(straw man example eliminated)...and we reject it as a one-world conspiracy.
We don't always "snap at the stuff dangled before us by corporations". Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. What we are resisting is government edicts. THAT my man is what this country is about.
When change makes sense - then change will be readily adopted. As mentioned, witness cell phones. When the “cell phone” was about the size of a cinder block, and worked on fitfully if at all, its acceptance was accompanied with a loud THUD.
Now reform of health care,as currently proposed, makes little sense if any at all to the vast majority of Americans, who are perfectly satisfied with the level and quality of care they are now getting, if not the cost.
Solution - pursue means to make the costs more palatable and acceptable to the vast majority of Americans. One of those means includes authorizing the creation of a “medical savings account” to take care of the everyday expenses of medical treatment, and combine this with a “catastrophic care” true insurance policy, that takes care of the big-ticket, traumatic and life-threatening crises that come up from time to time.
This solution does not exist for all. But it would be a step in the direction of taking responsibility for your OWN decisions about health and treatment, and free the medical profession from countless hours consumed in dealing with the bureaucratic paperwork and additional “CYA” medical testing and reactive documentation.
Another part of the solution is a vast reform of the tort law as it applies to medicine, taking the power away from civil juries, and turning it over to a binding adjudication board. Knowledgeable lawyers could still argue the case, but only for a set fee, and not a contingency arrangement.
For those unable to access medical insurance of any kind, there would be, not a “government option”, but a pool placed with reputable insurance companies, much as motor vehicle insurance is placed with a pool for the less affluent of drivers and paid for by either the participants themselves, or an allotted amount paid on their behalf by others.
Like I say - change should make sense.
A thinly veiled lament - "Why can't Obama be our President forever?"
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Winner!
Oh, please. We’ve had forty years of “change”. This guy whines when there’s any opposition to his pet programs. The “change” this time is retrograde: it’s a return to socialist policies that didn’t work in the past.
It will be change for the better.
Eliminate ten Federal Cabinet level positions and all the agencies and departments which they administer.
Will Mr. Steinberg welcome that change?
Ask the tens of millions who died in the twentieth century's European wars how Europe's "willingness to change" worked out for them.
Neil Steinberg is a whiny North Shore drunk who “writes” for an Obama-centric third-rate tabloid in Chicago. Anything this pencil-necked Obama shill writes has no credibility. The alcohol has destroyed any semblance of rationality in the little twerp.
Neil Steinberg is a whiny North Shore drunk who “writes” for an Obama-centric third-rate tabloid in Chicago. Anything this pencil-necked Obama shill writes has no credibility. Alcoholism has destroyed any semblance of rationality in the little twerp.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.