Social change and motivations

This was a comment given to one poster from another re: their blog about protesting and trying to create social change. It was most interesting to read in that it pretty much challenged the original blogger about if they really did want social change, political change, or did they really want things to stay the way they are? “Status quo?”
Something that I think complicates this debate is this: While people think we need to do things different ways, we have the same fundamental reason for wanting the change. As an example, I’m thinking about the view that the two political groups have on government spending for social programs. Caveat: this will be a gross generalization, however, the idea behind it is more important than the actual details. Those with a more conservative political stand I think would argue to reduce spending on government programs, and that letting people “sink or swim” would promote self-responsibility, individual accountability, and promote individual donating/spending. The more liberal group would argue that the government should get involved to support when times are tough, and the “mollycoddling” will lead to all the same things. The idea is: we want the same things, we just have different ways of accomplishing it. Unfortunately, we can only choose one, and it will take some time before we can realize if that choice was the correct one.
So we tread cautiously, dear readers, and go on faith.