Why are conservatives afraid of competition?

What has happened to my state? The state where I was born and still live after 69 years? Where lawmakers now vote for amendments to the Constitution taking away a woman's choice, encouraging the right to have any kind of weapon they want, no matter how dangerous or lethal. Overrule local school boards by proclamation or edict and then pass laws to make sure they don't have future control - and now an attack on the state's institutions of higher learning and tenure.

What is their reasoning here? Do they want to do away with out-of-state tuition payers who subsidize tuitions for Iowa kids? Are they trying to erase history, discourage free thought? Are they so afraid of liberal ideas that they can't allow a debate of ideas in our universities? Isn't the purpose of colleges and universities to ensure progress in sciences, research and knowledge? Or is it to decide where these things stop or how far they can reverse any progress that's already been made.

Let's erase Newton, Einstein, and Hawking - their thinking was too liberal for Iowan's current crop of conservative lawmakers. If so-called conservatism is so wonderful, why in the world are they so fearful of competition?

Randy Berch

Peru