Editor’s Note: We’d love to have multiple conservative columnists next year. In order for that to happen, we need more applicants. For more information e-mail Stefanie Buhrman at [email protected] or visit the newsroom in 102 Hamilton Hall.

Well, this is it. After 82 columns spanning nearly four years of writing for the Daily, this will be my last column. For those of you who happen to be excessively liberal or excessively politically correct, feel free to take a moment here to rejoice.

That being said, I would first like to thank you for reading my columns over the past few years, and I hope you have enjoyed reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

Or, at the very least, I hope that you found them more interesting than whatever professor you were trying to ignore while you opened up a copy of the Daily to distract yourself during class.

I would also like to thank all of you who commented online, wrote letters to the editor, e-mailed me or commented in person. Yes, even you Harry Selby. Receiving your feedback — whether positive or negative — was my favorite part of writing for the Daily. Since the goal of the Iowa State Daily, and particularly the opinion section, is to lead the discussion at Iowa State, there’s nothing like a letter to the editor in response to a column to make columnists feel like they’re doing their job.

Besides thanking my readers, with this final column I would like to make a request and offer some advice that will hopefully sum up most of the previous four years of columns. First, the request:

As I am basically the only conservative writer for the opinion section, and I will be graduating this weekend, we need someone to take my place.

I would hate to see the opinion section be 100 percent liberal next year. Besides, what’s better than getting paid to express your opinions?

Now for the advice. The overwhelming majority of my columns have either been about reducing government intervention — usually from an economic point of view — or about why some group of people should stop getting so worked up over some issue or being so politically correct.

So, in an attempt to summarize all those columns, I give you these words of wisdom:

1. In the words of economist Thomas Sowell, when analyzing a new government policy, always ask the questions, “How much will it cost?” and “Who will be paying for it?”

2. Remember that every time the government tries to change the size of the piece of pie that someone gets, the entire pie gets smaller.

3. Don’t take things too seriously. If you have the choice between being offended and laughing something off, choose the latter.

That being said, thanks again for reading, and I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors.

… Unless they’re liberal endeavors.

Blake Hasenmiller is a senior in industrial engineering and economics from DeWitt.