Why the Right Fears Transforming America -- and the Left Seeks It

Why the Right Fears Transforming America -- and the Left Seeks It

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...