Thank you for running John Balentine’s column. I don’t like it, but sometimes it helps me understand the workings of a conservative’s mind. For example, in Balentine’s recent Christmas tree rant he offers us this insight: “Unlike liberals … who preach that income inequality lowers one’s happiness quotient, conservatives realize that one’s happiness is not tied to income.” Wow.

This Christmas my wife is struggling with advanced breast cancer and while we’ve put up a tree, it’s not our primary focus. Her pain is. At our last trip to the pharmacy to get a prescription that would hopefully relieve her pain we were surprised by the $123 co-pay.

We paid the $123 and my wife has fortunately gained some relief. But I’m willing to wager that coming up with that kind of cash might be a challenge for some, and I know that if we couldn’t have, my wife’s “happiness quotient” would be very, very low and very much tied to our income.

Next time I find myself wondering why conservatives propose policies that seem so downright mean-spirited, I’ll think of Balentine and remember, conservatives aren’t necessarily mean, maybe they just don’t have a clue.

Dwight Ely
Pownal


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