In response to John Balentine’s column, “What’s a conservative to do?” in the Jan. 29th issue of The Forecaster, I would like to add a few options.

• How about working with folks who do not agree with you to find solutions to issues that affect the United States and the world? Having been raised with the Aroostook County values of helping your neighbors in their times of need, I thought it was widely shared.

• Break out of only listening to news outlets that reflect your bias. Any serious observer of the state of the planet would be negligent in the formation of their ideas if only considering one viewpoint. That is the process that promotes ignorance and intolerance. The end result being authoritarian governments that persecute the “others” and indoctrinate their citizens.

• Drop the name-calling. I am amused by “the liberal/progressive/socialist ideological adherents.” Those are three different agendas; learn the difference. Does remind me of the good ole Soviet-era terms that they often strung together: “bourgeois/fascist/capitalist.” This approach seems to borrow from the old adage, “If you throw enough cow manure on the barn door, some of it will stick.”

The survival of the planet is not based on competition but on cooperation. It is not a football game in which one side wins and the other loses. It’s about working together across ideological lines to address real issues in this country like the infant and maternity mortality rates, the number of children living in poverty, the number of people incarcerated, all of which are higher per capita in the U.S. than other Western countries. Working across national boundaries to address global issues such as global warming/climate change that is impacting agriculture, increasing sea levels and fueling the refuge/migrant crisis.

Then again, we could just call each other names, look for fault, as well as continue to promote fear and division.

Loren Johnston
Scarborough