Jul 29, 2017 3 min read

I must congratulate Dave Ball for his July 23 column explaining conservative beliefs, values and principles, without which we would surely be less informed. It was interesting that he chose to set the stage for his lesson by denigrating the administration of President Obama with opinions devoid of facts.

For example, he accuses Obama of having the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression, yet the recovery during the Bush administration was the slowest in terms of job growth, and the 14 million jobs that were added since 2009, under Obama, was “the longest string of consecutive monthly job gains in economic history,” according to the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

He further states that President Trump was elected because people didn’t want Hillary Clinton to be president, yet it is she who won the popular vote. It’s also somewhat laughable that he believes liberals respond to Trump by obstructing rather than thinking and reasoning. I recall that after Obama won his first term, Sen. Mitch McConnell said his responsibility was to do everything in his power to ensure the president didn’t get a second term.

There are three points to be made. First, it appears Ball believes that only those who call themselves conservative hold the values and principles he mentioned. This is nonsense, but it defines the thinking of too many people who are intolerant of those who don’t look, act or think as they do. It is obviously possible for people to believe in the same principles, but differ on how they should be achieved.

Second, by definition a conservative is one who is averse to change and holds to traditional attitudes. However, our society is constantly undergoing change and some traditional values, while sensible at one time, may be less relevant or functional now. With change must come new ways of addressing issues and traditional ways don’t always apply.

Finally, if Ball believes that government intrusion in our lives is a problem and “government dependence creates nothing positive,” he should consider the GI Bill, Medicare, or unemployment benefits, and if he believes in the separation of church and state, then he should be the strongest advocate of eliminating property tax exemptions for religious institutions.

The future of America will not be built on just conservative beliefs but those which are diverse and reasonable.

Bob Willison

Rices Landing