We need conservatism with human touch

While conservative writer Walter Williams' columns have included well-made observations on social damage occurring from poorly functioning government programs, his positions are very much to the far right most of the time.

His recent piece "Dangers of government control" is a typical extreme view against government regulation. But, Walter, look at the Glass - Steagall Act. It was designed to prevent monopolistic and compromising practices among financial institutions. It was dispensed with, and thereafter, financial entities merged into huge companies. Greed took over.

The oft-touted concept of self-regulation, with many corporate insiders warning about exuberant promotional schemes, and Bush administration government insiders warning about excesses in marketing of dubious investments, all failed to prevent the crash of 2008 because no one was forced to act. Millions of people lost their homes, businesses failed, and we had a massive economic crash. Now the right-wingers want to gut or dispense with Dodd-Frank, the replacement for Glass-Steagall, and others.

Historically, lack of regular enforcement has also enabled greedy businesses to defile our land, water and air. And lack of enforcement in food supplement and drug industries put us at health and financial risk. Etc, Etc.

On the media, Williams recently had a piece that lumped all the liberal and centrist outlets together under the "liberal" label. Then he showed his colors by proposing the public follow Fox News, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh. That was laughable. There is a lot of good media that strives to present a balanced view, but Fox News is not one of them. Fox is known all over as a very conservative outlet, and the Hannity and Limbaugh radio shows are not even news programs, but opinion shows; far right brainwashers.

I much prefer conservatism with a human touch.

Richard Cichanski

Palatine