The giveaway regarding presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plans for America was his repeated use of the words “fundamentally transform.”
Some of us instinctively reacted negatively — in fact, with horror — at the thought of fundamentally transforming America.
The “us” are conservatives.
One unbridgeable divide between Left and Right is how each views alternatives to present-day America.
Those on the Left imagine an ideal society that has never existed, and therefore seek to “fundamentally transform” America. When liberals imagine an America fundamentally transformed, they envision it becoming a nearly utopian society in which there is no greed, no racism, no sexism, no inequality, no poverty, and ultimately no unhappiness.
Conservatives, on the other hand, look around at other societies and look at history and are certain that if America were fundamentally transformed, it would become just like those other societies. America would become a society of far less liberty, of ethically and morally inferior citizens, and of much more unhappiness. Moreover, cruelty would increase exponentially around the world.
Conservatives believe that America is an aberration in human history; that, with all the problems that a society made up of flawed human beings will inevitably have, America has been and remains a uniquely decent society. Therefore, conservatives worry that fundamentally transforming America — making America less exceptional — will mean that America gets much worse.
Liberals, on the other hand, worry over the opposite possibility — that America will remain more or less as it is.
Two famous statements encapsulate the operative liberal worldview.
The first was attributed to Robert F. Kennedy by his brother Edward M. Kennedy:
“There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
The other is one of the most popular songs of the last 50 years, John Lennon’s “Imagine”:
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Regarding the Kennedy quote, a conservative would respond something like this:
We conservatives look at America and ask, How did something so decent, so different from other societies, ever get created and last over 200 years? Of course, we always seek to improve it. But more than anything else, we seek to preserve it and its core values. We do not “dream of things that never were.” We dream the same dream as our American forefathers did — to maintain a society committed to the values of E Pluribus Unum, Liberty, and In God We Trust. As for utopian dreams, we believe they are more likely to result in nightmares — horrors that would engulf America and the world if America were to be transformed.
To John Lennon’s song, a conservative would respond:
Lennon’s utopia is our dystopia. A world without God to give people some certitude that all their suffering is not meaningless is a nightmare. A world without religion means a world without any systematic way of ennobling people. A world without countries is a world without the United States of America; a world governed by the ruthless tyrannies and by the morally imbecilic United Nations, where mass murderers sit on its “human rights” councils. A world without heaven or hell is a world without any ultimate justice, where torturers and their victims have identical fates — oblivion. A world without possessions is a world in which some enormous state possesses everything and the individual is reduced to the status of a serf.
Liberals frequently criticize conservatives for fearing change. That is not correct. We fear transforming that which is already good. The moral record of humanity does not fill us with optimism about “fundamentally transforming” something as rare as America. Evil is normal. America is not.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. He may be contacted through his website, dennisprager.com.