What about conservatives? 

Having read John Donegan's recent epic "Do the right thing" (March 14), I do have to admit that I agree with a lot of what he has to say, which, as a recovering progressive, is a bit painful for me. It does seem that it takes American liberals, especially progressives, an inordinate amount of time to face up to inevitable realities. This, along with their inability to even consider compromise (a bond shared with their right-wing counterparts) has made our road considerably rockier than it needs to be.

It is interesting to note that the author's focus was on social issues, which is not the traditional bailiwick of conservatives, whose traditional attitude toward them is to not give a shit except, of course, to expend any and all efforts to avoid paying for them. For this reason, one can only view the author's effort as a "told ya so" moment. Nevertheless, progressives would do well to learn from this experience, but past experience has shown that they are not any better at learning than they are at compromising.

So, what about the conservatives? Take income inequality for example. Is it not at the root of many pressing social problems and much of the ongoing conflict in the world? And market deregulation, which has given us the savings and loan debacle, the dot-com bust, Enron, the sub-prime mortgage collapse, and the fairly recent banking ballyhoo, along with disgustingly overpaid and psychotic corporate executives, recidivist felonious corporations like Chase and Wells Fargo, and a blathering, suppurating media embodied in the likes of Fox News and MSNBC. Who knows what ill winds are trailing Bitcoin and AI. When is somebody going to do the right thing about all that?

Mark Henry

San Luis Obispo