Aug 10, 2017 2 min read

I very much appreciate the opinions authored by David Ball. In a recent piece about conservative beliefs, he thoughtfully described the values and principles held by conservatives regardless of party affiliation.

On the other hand, a letter to the editor from Don DeAngelis in response to Ball’s column was replete with distortions of fact and derogatory nonsense.

DeAngelis attempts to diminish President Trump’s victory based on popular-vote totals. But we elect a president by the Electoral College results, not by the popular vote or any other measure. The fact that Hillary Clinton received 3 million more votes than Trump is as immaterial as the 60 percent of states and 2,626 counties that Trump won.

Progressives have substituted the original meaning of “promote the general welfare” from one referring to the overall state of well-being of the nation to a modern version of everything being free for everybody. Conservatives without question believe in helping those who have come upon hard times, but not in redistribution of wealth through oppressive taxation or government programs that create dependency over dignity.

Conservatives strongly believe in education, not the indoctrination we see now in practically every institution of learning. And free speech? Ha! We see in the news situations where progressives shut down anyone from a mother worried about what her middle-school child is hearing, to a campus speaker with an opinion that differs from campus orthodoxy and who might challenge students to think.

Lastly, I cannot imagine a greater insult than referring to the long-held beliefs of Christian conservatives, beliefs expressed in the Bible and passed down for centuries, as an expression of bigotry, as DeAngelis implies. What have we come to?

Lucy Shoupp

Venetia