Spare change....

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Saturday April 24, 2010 · 6:16 AM PDT

2010/04/24 · 06:16

"Change you can believe in" on education, health, energy, climate change, Iraq, immigration, Wall Street, and Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama ran for president on all of that, he won on it, and now he's trying to get it done.

He hasn't changed. But the country that elected him has. We seem to have lost our collective nerve.

But here's the thing. Whether you thrive on risk or not, whether you approve of Obama or not, whether you love our government or hate it, change is coming. We're already in a global race to lead on energy and other technology. We're already under pressure to produce a highly educated, top-notch workforce, to reduce our spending on everything from health to the military, to increase our exports and pay off some of our debt. Change is coming. We ought to get out ahead of it and try to shape it to our liking.

Nobody likes change, no matter how they voted in 2008. At least not changes in their own lives. Change scares the crap out of people. We love the comfort and security of the same. Think about all the major life changes we go through from childhood through adulthood. From changing from grammar school to high school, from high school to college, to beginning a job, to changing jobs, from being single to being married and on and on, life is really a continual series of changes both great and small.

The reason change unsettles us is because it always contains an element of the unknown. And that's really scary. Those of us who are totally terrified sometimes band to gather to form protective groups like the settlers in the Old West circling the wagons. The modern day version of this is called the Tea Party movement. They are so terrified that they even go so far as to threaten physical violence to those who would force change upon them. And here's the really bizarre thing about change, it's schizophrenic.

The polls are showing that a vast majority of voters want to throw out almost every sitting member of Congress who's up for reelection
. But they only want to throw out someone else's senator or representative. They'll vote to keep theirs. See, they really don't like change.

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