Each time I hear the word "change," I grimace with awful memories.
Some of my contemporaries from New York might remember John V. Lindsay's disastrous terms as liberal mayor from 1966-1973.
Like many young, liberal-minded couples of the 1960s, my wife and I looked forward to a "new agenda" promised by the suave, Ivy-educated six-term congressman from the "Silk Stocking" district in Manhattan.
Boy, did we get "change"! New York's first income tax, a substantial rise in corporate and real estate taxes, a loss of more than a half-million jobs as corporations left town, catastrophic social policies encouraging generations to depend on welfare checks, lowered educational standards in the schools, and the fleeing of whites to the suburbs!
John Lindsay's appointees were like him: Well-intentioned Ivy Leaguers with great moral integrity but no spine or savvy for a street fight.
The unions and militant community groups walked all over them. By the time Lindsay left office, the city was bankrupt.
We fled Brooklyn for Long Island after I was mugged in my own neighborhood.
We left behind transit strikes, teachers' strikes, garbage strikes, senior citizens who became captives in their apartments, and generations of welfare recipients.
So to my Democratic friends who clamor for "change," I offer this advice: Be careful of what you wish for--you just might get it!
Alan Branfman
Spotsylvania