Yep, that's the way to do it. Improve, but don't change. WOW!

How do you improve something without changing it. This sounds like conservative republican english to me.

Becker's wimpy approach to government has already given us a spike in crime. Nothing is happening very slowly in Salt Lake city government.

My thoughts have been expressed already: How do you improve something without changing it? If nothing changes, isn't it the same?

This letter was amusing.

There's a difference between changing something and improving it. I think. Isn't there? Rush says change ("Obama") is bad but improvement is good. So there's got to be a difference, right? Right?

Even more amusing is the letter writer is from Sandy! Regardless Becker is doing a great job.

"Improve" -- Take something that's basically good, and make it better.

"Change" -- Decide something's fundamentally broken, tear it down, and build something completely new.

The conservative concept of America is that American civilization is fundamentally good, and that its many flaws are something we can take care of over time. "May God thy gold refine," etc.

The radical leftist concept of America is that it's fundamentally an immoral enterprise, founded on slavery, conquest, and oppression, and the sooner we tear the whole thing down and build something completely new, the better.

re: hey hold on:

Of course there is a difference between changing something and improving something. That wasn't my point. My question was, how can you improve something without changing it? It has to change in order to get better, doesn't it? Doesn't it? If it doesn't change, then it's still the same thing, and therefore there is no improvement, right? Right? You need to read the original letter again. Remember:

"Mayor Becker [is] involved in working to improve the city — and ultimately the state — instead of trying to change them."

If nothing changes, then by definition it can't get better, because it's the same as it was. It's a paradox.

And re: Thomas:

You give grossly flawed definitions. Can't "improve" also mean to take something that is bad, and make it better? And can't "change" mean to take something good and make it better? Oh yes, and you also have grossly flawed definitions of conservative and leftist concepts.

prejudged the man till you've walked in his shoes...

"Hold on" -- What you call "grossly flawed" is what I call "a definition that differs from yours." I understood exactly what the letter writer was trying to express. "Improve" does tend to connote incremental adjustments along a continuum, whereas "change", used in contrast, tends to connote a more drastic break from the status quo.

I don't think it's "grossly flawed" to define American conservatism as preferring refinement of America's founding principles, in contrast to the Leftist (by which I refer to the school of thought that began with the original Left of the French Revolution, progressed through the 1848 European revolutionaries, and ultimately to the twentieth-century socialist experiments) objective of replacing the Founders' project with something fundamentally different.

Now, those definitions of "American conservative" and "radical leftist" aren't synonyms for "Republican" and "Democrat." There are plenty of Republicans who aren't proper conservatives, and there are plenty of Democrats who aren't radical leftists.

Overall crime has gone down in SLC. Crime is going up everywhere else.