Transformation, Reality, and Dreams.

Joe Biden tweeted Sunday that if he gets elected, his administration “won’t just rebuild this nation — we’ll transform it,”

Seems like I’ve heard this nebulous sort of promise before.  Candidate Obama promised us “hope and change.”  The problem with such a chameleon-like phrase is that it leaves each of us to decide for ourselves what it means. 

Obama’s “hope and change” slogan sounded great.  Was it?  For some perhaps.  For others it meant the rise of identity politics that create more and more discord in our country.  To some it meant continuing to be left jobless and hopeless in the inner cities of America.  For some it meant the rise of the deep state and the ability to weaponize our federal agencies against political opponents.

And who was a part of that “hope and change” administration?  The man who now claims he will transform our country.  The man who spent his life as a political leader apparently making a country that he now suddenly decides must be “transformed.”

Transform it to what?  He says he will not just rebuild.  To rebuild presumes that something was unbuilt that needs to be rebuilt.  In this instance it means that he is with those protestors, progressives, and socialists who would unbuild – destroy – America as we know it so that it can then be rebuilt.  And, in the words of Joe (or his handlers), not just rebuilt, but transformed.  So, it will not be America as we know it.

What will it be?  A dictatorship commanded by those elites or intelligentsia who think they know better than we do what is good for us?  A socialist state which begins with a Utopian sort of dream where everyone will be happy but quickly devolves into horror for all but those in power who, by the way, are rarely the ones who were used to bring the destruction of the old regime about. 

Is this the transformation we are to look forward to with a Biden presidency?  Will he tell us?  Or will he, like Candidate Obama, use some words that have the potential of conjuring up positive visions in the mind of the hearer but which may not be the actual intent of those words at all?

Wake up.  Everyone who fell for the unsubstantiated and dreamlike promise of the Obama-Biden candidacy should see the truth underlying Biden’s campaign promise of “transformation.”  Repeat the words:  fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Do not vote for the unstated destruction, then the rebuilding with transformation unless and until you are absolutely sure what those words mean.  Demand specifics.  What will be destroyed?  What will be rebuilt?  What will be transformed?  And how?

Do not assume you know what those words mean.  And do not assume that even if they do mean what you want them to that the promise is possible:  consider what must be given up to make it possible.  For example, let’s say you believe that transformation means a perfect world in which we all are happy and healthy and have all that we need and want.  The socialist or Utopian dream.  But what would you give up to have that dream?

In Episode 24 of the original Star Trek’s first season, the crew of the Enterprise end up on a planet where everything is perfect – health, happiness, love abound – it seems a true Utopia.  Seems, but is not.  Captain Kirk realizes that things are not as they seem, the crew is under the spell of some strange spores, and that strong emotions will counteract the effect of the spores.  Once everyone is freed from the spores and have left the planet, the following conversation ensues:

Dr. McCoy: Well, that's the second time man's been thrown out of paradise.

Captain Kirk: No, no, Bones, this time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.

In many ways this exemplifies the American spirit, something which needs America in its present (though always improving) form.  The American spirit is not a pretty Utopian creature.  It is the spirit of someone who is not dealt a perfect hand, who has missteps and misfortunes and is sometimes stepped upon, but gets up and moves forward. It is the spirit of someone who dreams beyond what is, who fights and struggles to make things better, always moving up, always improving, never perfect.   It is the spirit of someone who believes that he can, of someone who works hard for what he wants and needs and takes individual responsibility for his successes and his failures.  It is the spirit of someone who is real in a real world, someone who is not content to live statically strolling to the lute.

I can easily equate the spores in this Star Trek episode with the unrealistic dreams purveyed by those who would turn this country to socialism.  Socialism is nothing more than a dream of a perfect world.   Sometimes it is presented with specific images, sometimes with ambiguous words like “hope and change” or “transformation” that suggest your own dreams.  But those dreams are not real.  They are sold by those whose own dreams, not yours, are the goal.

These dreams require that one must give up the American spirit that allows one to be their own individual.  That Utopian dream has only the “music of the lute.”  It denies to us the other passions and emotions that make us human.  It requires us to suppress all that makes us each the individual that we are and instead bow to the behavior, thought, speech, and very being that the Utopian leaders, the spores, mandate.  No drums, just the lute – their lute.  No real emotion, just that which is approved.

Utopia is not freedom.  It is a cage.  And to achieve the socialist dream, to “transform” our current America to something different, relinquishment of individual control is necessary.  The leader of the Utopia will decide what thoughts, words, and, behavior is allowed.  There will be no dissent.  No contrary emotions allowed. 

And, be very clear, the class or identity group that is used to fight for socialism will not be the ruling class of the socialist state.  The workers may have been used by Lenin to destroy the old order and bring his Marxist socialism to power, but the new state was then "rebuilt" from the top down; the workers were not the ones who ruled its brutal Communist state for 75 years.  The workers in Venezuela similarly bought a Utopian dream, but that dream become a nightmare for them once their usefulness to those in power ended.  And, after Obama’s election, the voters who had bought his promise of “hope and change” and given him victory, languished in the same inner cities of crime, unemployment and hopelessness.

The American spirit is sometimes rough and hard and not pretty.  Its music is seldom that of the lute, but more often loud and sometimes discordant.  But it is also full of energy and hope and, perhaps more importantly, it is never static but always growing.   Think hard about whether that is really something that you want to destroy (unbuild), rebuild, and then transform.

We are not just pretty lute players.  We are also drummers and dancers and shouters and singers and inventors.  We don’t all have one idea, but we create new ideas and inspire new and diverse thoughts with our ability to speak and think and behave as the individuals that we are.

The current demonstrations are of course a product of this freedom.  And if they were simply about creating an even better place in which the American spirit can thrive, I would likely support them.  But, they are not; they are about destroying and then rebuilding America into something else, something that it is not.

And I am offended that a presidential candidate would use the already fomented discontent to essentially further urge a destruction of America to be replaced with some sort of unattainable Utopian dream.  A dream that by necessity must destroy the American spirit because individual thought does not work when your goal is to make everyone move in unison to the sound of your lute.  Perfection does not allow for dissent because any dissent is seen as an imperfection.

I am delighted to accept an imperfect world if it means I can be who I am, think what I think, experience all my emotions, and walk in unity with people who are not all like me but are each and everyone their own unique and diverse being.  I do not want that world “transformed.” 

The imperfect democratic republic in which we live is the best place for our full humanity to thrive.  The American spirit and the America in which it lives can and will always find ways to improve itself.  And anyone who believes that it should be destroyed and “transformed” either does not understand who and what this country and its people are or is willing to sacrifice them to achieve their own (not America’s) dream.  Like the crew of Star Trek, we need to banish the effect of the false dream and walk away, “on our own” from Biden and the Left’s “transformation.”