Countering Common Sense

One of my high school teachers was fond of telling us that common sense was not very common. If it ever was common, it seems to be mostly gone now. Today’s self-anointed pharisees, rather than employ common sense to foster the needs of the people, do everything they can to counter it, mostly for their own needs and agenda, regardless of the negative impacts it may have on society as a whole.

Of course, common sense is tied to logic and, despite Kamala’s obsession with Venn diagrams, many people today are like the person described in C.S. Lewis’s classic, The Screwtape Letters: “Your man is accustomed to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head.” The way the self-anointed get around common sense is to convince themselves that their ideology is better and more important than reality. Again, as Screwtape notes, “Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us.” Now their problem is merely to convince the rest of us, and they do this by obfuscation, misreporting, actually failing to report key information, or outright lying.

And so, we get the twisted excuse from Bill Gates (and other elites) that, because he is such an advocate for green policies, all his private airplane flights are okay. If such lame excuses don’t work, they’ll find some way to blame someone or something else for the failure of their ideology to produce the promised benefits.

We see this kind of argument when it comes to the elite’s mantra of “tax the rich” and make them pay “their fair share.” They claimed Trump’s tax cuts only benefited the rich and would reduce federal receipts. In actuality, receipts from taxes went up as a result of Trump’s tax policy. As for fair share, for decades the percentages have remained fairly constant with the top 10% of earners paying about 90% of the taxes. Similarly, the gap between the rich and the poor always seems to widen during Democrat administrations, with the rich getting richer.

Another case of suppressing common sense is the push toward green energy policies. Almost anyone (with common sense) could see that neither the country nor the technology was ready for a massive leap to green energy while at the same time just dumping existing viable energy sources (e.g., fossil fuels). Common sense tells us that make such a drastic leap into “renewable” energy while, at the same time, drastically cutting development of existing reliable resources would be fraught with danger, especially without having either a viable transition plan or a contingency plan for when things don’t go as expected. Yet, that is what this administration did, blindly cutting off or cutting back on fossil fuels, neglecting to develop nuclear energy plants, and driving people to electric vehicles whose technology is not mature, nor is the grid prepared to support them. At the same time, no plans were made for adverse conditions and so, in Scotland, for example, they are using diesel generators to keep wind turbines warm so they can function in the cold weather; and the turbines don’t make up for the fuel being used.

Supposedly the driver behind “going green” is to save the planet yet obtaining the resources to support electric cars (e.g., batteries) is more destructive to environments than the energy saved. Wind turbines kill thousands of birds (as do solar panels), are reportedly having adverse effects on fishing grounds in offshore installations (and the noise drives fish away), and their materials are neither recyclable nor biodegradable. Manufacturers of electric vehicles warn their owners not to use such amenities as heaters in very cold weather. They also have limited range and have lengthy recharging times. The mantra of buying an electric vehicle to avoid gas prices is also false as the cost to fill up and the cost to recharge are comparable.

And the idea that top-down government planning will be successful is also a denial of common sense. Show me a country that prospered with this philosophy. Soviet Russia was a huge failure. So is China. The way China has advanced of late is by its reacting to market pressures and opportunities. Most of what China produces are things that were invented or developed elsewhere, mostly in the free market innovation once permitted here in the U.S. Their success has been in being able to produce it easier and cheaper. Look what has happened when we tried top-down directed development by pushing such industries as Solyndra, which went bankrupt in less than a year on a government investment of half a billion dollars — taxpayers’ money.

This is not to say that government-funded research is not valuable; it is. However, directing research to support a political position does not work, as opposed to research that would meet some identified need (with a good definition of requirements). Many military research projects have been successful in this way and have actually benefited society in general (think microwave ovens and plastic wrap).

Logic drives common sense and, despite Kamala’s obsession with Venn diagrams, most of the programs of this administration are decidedly illogical. One thing this administration has excelled at, however, is to show the failure of diversity and inclusion when choosing people for important decisions. The only equity of outcomes by selecting a gay transportation secretary, gay black woman for press secretary, and a non-binary activist as a Department of Energy official overseeing spent nuclear material has been abject failure on all counts. Logic would dictate the release of them from their positions and prohibition of federal employment but only one has been fired (and that the least influential of them)

Despite the failure of the woke philosophy in government, the administration continues to push CRT and the woke agenda on the country and, of most concern, the military. It is obvious that this administration sees no value in merit and merit is most important in combat.

Can this situation be reversed? Only by going back to the basics: the basics of the Constitution, the non-politicizing of science (when science becomes political, it ceases to be science), teaching critical thinking, actually teaching rather than grooming and indoctrination, the truth, and dare I say it, returning to God.

Our national motto is “One Nation Under God.” The Declaration of Independence cited God (our Creator) when delineating unalienable rights, and our Pledge of Allegiance also calls out God for our guide. The removal of God and the war against religion, Christianity in particular, has only brought anarchy and unhappiness. Organizations like Pew Research continue to show that religious people are happier and better adjusted than the non-religious. However, since faith might hold an out-of-control government in check, it has to be suppressed and even attacked outright, as was done during the COVID lockdowns when churches were closed while abortion facilities (I refuse to call them clinics as their business is murder rather than healing), bars, and strip clubs remained open.

Seek the truth and you will find God. “For where I found truth, there found I my God, who is truth itself.” St. Augustine, Confessions

Image: RawPixel