Some folks get off in proverbially sticking their fingers in other people’s eyes. It’s a peculiar kind of fun to see the responses. It’s sort of like what happens when one drives over an armadillo. If the poor critter isn’t instantly killed but is only mildly wounded, it often leaps high into the air several times. To what purpose I never was quite able to understand.

When I was in college, I took a political philosophy course called “Man and Ideas.” We traced the sources of liberalism, conservatism, utilitarianism, fascism, communism and socialism. We read excerpts from writers like John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx and others. The course was more or less a study in what ideas do or do not underpin modern day American democracy.

All this being said, I have a proposal for Kim McGahey: Rather than tweaking and disparaging those with whom you disagree, why not give your reading audience some insight into what conservatism actually is, what its roots are and how those roots apply today? Does this differ in any way from what has come to be called “Trumpism?” And if so, how?

This way, we’d have a better understanding of from whence you are coming, and you’ll have established your bona fides as a thinker who is able to apply your principles to problems, movements and the directions you would have our society, community and country take.

Your predecessor Morgan Liddick used to attempt to tie his opinions of current problems to what he saw as the Founding Father’s writings. Perhaps you might try to do something similar by tracing your conservative solutions to their origins. It might be more enlightening than casting aspersions. Unless, that is, you more enjoy watching us, your neighborhood armadillos, leaping and jumping about.