"Common Sense - Where Has It Gone?"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Common Sense – Where Has It Gone?”

September 29, 2021

 

“Common sense is seeing things as they are,

and doing things as they ought to be.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

 

Common sense: noun – sound and prudent judgement. Its best antonym: unreasonable – without reason.

 

Common sense is a phrase we all know but rarely practice. So why is it called common? In A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire wrote: “Common sense is not so common.” It does not appear to exist among our cultural and political elite, where reason has given way to ideology. Ralph Waldo Emerson is alleged to have said: “Common Sense is genius dressed in working clothes.” That is, perhaps, what William Buckley meant when he said he would rather be governed by the first four hundred names in the Boston telephone directory than the Harvard faculty? Today, politicians, professors, CEOs, the media and many in the world of entertainment dress more informally, which may be sensible in terms of personal comfort, but a lack of common sense pulsates through their daily activities and commentaries. 

 

Common sense has been banished by the self-righteous. This part of Connecticut is not immune. Last week, in my local paper The Day, appeared an article about the sensible (my word) refusal of Old Lyme’s First Selectman (a Republican) to bring to a vote a resolution proposed by the Democratic Selectwoman which would identify racism as a public health crisis. His refusal was based, first, on the question: What does racism have to do with public health? Secondly, he pointed out such a resolution would imply the town has a race problem. Even the Democratic Selectwoman has said that she does not believe the people in Old Lyme are racist, yet she wants this resolution. Admittedly, the town of 7,000 is estimated to be 97.4% white, but that does not mean the community is racist. Certainly, the Republican First Selectman is not. His daughter is married to a black man whom, with his wife and children, we often see at our beach club. And Old Lyme is among a handful of Connecticut towns that welcome refugees.

 

So, why does she insist on such a resolution? Does she feel pangs of “white” guilt because of who she is and where she lives? Does she believe systemic racism infests Old Lyme? Or does she expect that accusations of racism will help Democrats’ cause? The answer seems obvious. She is motivated by politics and a lack of common sense. Social justice, systemic racism and anthropological-caused climate change are lightning rods, which activate the juices of hypocritical progressives. Common sense be damned.

 

We see this lack of common sense everywhere. Does it make sense to say that the “rich” should pay their “fair share,” and then say you want to reinstate SALT (state and local taxes) deductions, when 95% of the benefit accrues to the top one percent of wage earners? Or is that simply hypocrisy?  Corporations have adopted to this new world by claiming support for all “stakeholders.” It is a feel-good word, but does it say anything new? Years ago, the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) observed: “He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits.” In Iacocca: An Autobiography (1984), Lee Iacocca wrote: “In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, products, profit.” Over four million businesses were created in 2020, with about 600,000 failing. According to the Center for M.I.T. Entrepreneurship, most new businesses are not cash flow positive for 3-5 years. If a business is not profitable, no one is served – not the employees, customers, suppliers, tax agencies or owners. Consider, when the Left decries the inequities of capitalism, the words of Thomas Sowell in Controversial Essays: “No government of the left has done as much for the poor as capitalism has. Even when it comes to the redistribution of income, the left talks the talk, but the free market walks the walk.”

 

Bjorn Lomborg, in a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, wrote that according to a forthcoming Lancet study: “More than 45% of people 16 to 25 in the ten countries surveyed are so worried (about climate change) that it affects their daily life and functioning.” Does that reflect sensible behavior on the part of their teachers? Was it common sense that allowed an uncompromising focus on renewables to cause electricity prices in Connecticut to rise by 14% last June? Regarding the stalled $3.5 trillion spending bill, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) recently tweeted: “Paid leave is infrastructure. Childcare is infrastructure. Caregiving is infrastructure.” Common sense tells us they are not. Bridges, tunnels and roads are infrastructure, not entitlements. Her comments are part of a narrative that lacks reason and truth. It was “virtue-signaling that led to pride flags, gender studies and George Floyd murals in Kabul,” as Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote, when common sense would have had the U.S. maintain Bagram Airfield until the last American, ally, and Afghani who had assisted allied forces had left Afghanistan. Did General Mark A. Milley show common sense when he made those Dr. Strangelove-like calls to General Li Zuocheng? Do calls for defunding the police, despite rising murder rates in inner cities, reflect common sense? What about the discrimination exhibited in schools and colleges in setting different standards for students based on race? Is not that sanctimonious discrimination? Does it make common sense to mandate masks and vaccinations for university students and business employees, yet let in tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, without requiring either masks or vaccines? 

 

It is not as though the U.S. is not faced with real problems, which common sense would address. To name four: Debt and deficits: The ratio of federal debt to GDP is approaching what it was in World War II, and that does not include unfunded liabilities for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. In 1960, mandatory spending (entitlements, like Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid, etc.) accounted for about 25% of the federal budget. Today, that number is close to 70%. Education: We spend more per student than most any other country. Yet, we are failing many, mostly in Democrat-controlled, inner cities. In the 2018 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), which tests 15-year-olds around the world, the United States ranks below the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) average. As well, college costs have become untethered from reality. Families: It is well understood that children raised in two-parent households fare better economically and emotionally. Yet, family formations have been in decline in the U.S. for sixty years. In 1960, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, 73% of children were raised in two-parent households. By 2014, that had declined to 46%. Culture: As a nation, we have descended into a morass of multiculturalism, political correctness and wokeism, which has left us bereft of a national moral compass.

 

Common sense is looking at the world through clear lenses. It sees the world as it is, as Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote, not as one would like it to be. Like classical liberalism, common sense is based on empiricism, experience and research.; it is skeptical of fashion. It recognizes differences in people, not in races. It acknowledges there are two biological genders, not the 57 that OpenLearn suggests. It adheres to the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have done unto you; it is learning right from wrong and practicing the civilities once taught by parents, and in schools, Synagogues and Churches. Common sense allows us to focus on the individual, rather than the collective.

 

Horse sense is a synonym for common sense. The former was once defined by the comedian and actor W.C. Fields: “Horse sense is a thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” Yet we, with people-sense and with government encouragement, bet on everything, from Lotteries to sports to horses – which common sense tells us is a loser’s game and regressive taxation. Common sense, where have you gone? 

"Uncommon Common Sense"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Uncommon Common Sense”

January 19, 2020

“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”

                                                                                                Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

                                                                                                Literary Remains, Volume 1

                                                                                                Edited Henry Nelson Coleridge, 1836

At some point in the mid 1950s I attended a party at Dr. Edwin Land’s summer home in Peterborough, New Hampshire. I was fifteen and Dr. Land’s thirteen-year-old daughter was my girlfriend. I found myself listening to three or four learned men trying to define horse sense. There was no unanimity. Having grown up with horses, I knew they were not the most intelligent of animals, but I also knew they had enough sense to seek shelter when it rained and come to the barn when hungry for grain. They had (and have) common sense. Horse sense and common sense are born of the same mother, though I was too intimidated to say anything 65 years ago. Webster’s agrees. Horse sense is defined: “the ability to make good judgements.” W. C. Fields also agreed, when he said that “horse sense is a thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” Besides providing a horse laugh, there is a lesson in that adage.

Coleridge was right. Wisdom is the exercise of common sense. Wisdom is rare, especially in politicians who choose political correctness (the world as they would like it to be, not as it is), identity politics (segregation over unity), and victimization (the passing of blame rather than the assuming of responsibility). Common sense bases judgements on empirical evidence, on “self-evident truths,” as Robert Curry wrote in his book Reclaiming Common Sense: Finding Truth in a Post-Truth World. Meanwhile, politicians appeal to emotions, not reason, for example getting attendees pumped at rallies, which common sense says is a reason not to allow early voting.

“Facts,” as John Adams is supposed to have said, “are stubborn things.”  Nobody in Washington seems to worry about deficit spending even in a period of economic growth, yet last year’s deficit of just under a trillion dollars is equal to $3,000 per person. The published national debt is an obligation of $80,000 for every man, woman and child in the nation. When one adds in the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security, per person debt rises to $380,000. Facts tell us that our population is aging – that the number of workers is shrinking, while the number of retirees is expanding. Yet, the six candidates for President in last week’s debate in Iowa were interested only in programs that would add to the deficit, add to the national debt and add to unfunded liabilities. Even the Republican Party, the party supposedly of thrift seems to care little about running a fiscally responsible administration. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss: “How did we get so stupid so soon?”

Listening to those candidates in Iowa talk about the economy, one would conclude prospects are grim for lower income folks and depression is around the corner. They claimed things have worsened for lower income workers since Mr. Trump took office. Yet facts tell a different story. Unemployment, at 3.5%, is the lowest in fifty years. Employment for Blacks and Hispanics is the highest on record. Last year, income gains for the bottom tenth of workers rose faster than income gains for the top ten percent – something that never happened during the Obama years. Net worth gains for the bottom half of households have risen 47% since the 2016 election, according to the Wall Street Journal. U.S. GDP, in the first three years of the Trump administration, has risen 30% faster than it did during the last seven years of the Obama administration. And, take the Trump Tax Reform Bill: When Democrats shed crocodile tears over the unfairness of the Bill, were (are) they thinking of the 20% reduction in rates for median households, or were (are) they really concerned that deductions for state and local taxes were limited to $10,000? Keep in mind, for plutocrats in California, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – those making two million dollars – the limit has cost each $100,000 or more. Between Democrats and Republicans debate, whose policies have done more for working people, and which party is appealing to common sense and which to sensibilities, as Jane Austen might have asked?  

Or take the killing of Qassim Soleimani. Here was a man that all facts demonstrated had been implicated in the deaths of thousands of Americans and even more Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Lebanese and even fellow Iranians. Yet, the Left found it more palatable to see him as a martyr, a Martin Luther King, or, at a minimum, an Iranian politician deserving of respect. His death became a rallying point to curb the ability of the American President to respond to imminent, or even not so imminent, threats. And what about the problems of illegal immigration, border walls and sanctuary cities? There are, by some estimates, thirty million illegals in this country. And there are those who do not see this as a problem, financially, socially and culturally? Does it not make sense to control immigration? It is not a question of not wanting immigrants. We need them for the jobs they perform  and for what they offer the Country. We need, in my opinion, more legal immigrants. But should not all of us want to control the process? A wall may not be the only (or even the best) answer, but it won’t increase the flow of illegals. Sanctuary cities break federal law. Would it be okay if a city in Idaho or Texas broke federal laws regarding the carrying of firearms? Or should mayors and governors enforce only those federal laws they like? Should judges be allowed to make laws, or should that be the responsibility of legislatures, or a referendum voted on by the people? Was not our government, a nation of laws, set up on the principle of three independent branches, with clear and distinct responsibilities – a legislature to enact laws, an executive to administer them and a judiciary to interpret them. Each branch serves as a check on the other two. Common sense says that the answers to these questions are not complicated. The problem is, as Will Rogers once said, “Common sense ain’t common.”

But it is in the politicization of our changing climate where common sense is most needed, yet it is where it has been abandoned most ardently. Michael Moore and Al Gore made fortunes predicting catastrophes that never happened. Admittedly, there is a small coterie who do not believe that man has any affect on climate. But man is not the only cause of climate change. Why, for example, did global temperatures decline during the 1940s when the world was engulfed in the spewing of toxic gasses from bombs and vehicles during World War II. (According to a May 2007 edition of NewScientist, global temperatures dropped 0.02 degrees during the decade.) There are millions of people in our ivy-coated universities and colleges who do not seem to understand the power of nature. They appear unaware of the way in which the world has changed over millions of years, of tectonic shifts that have caused continents to shift, mountains to rise and shorelines to move – all long before man began spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Consider the energy produced from volcanoes, like the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington that produced energy equal to 1,600 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Or think of the fact that one average hurricane crossing the Atlantic produces the energy equivalent to approximately half the electrical generating capacity of the planet. Nature is still more powerful than man. Common sense says we shouldn’t live in the path of hurricanes or within the range of volcanoes, yet populations living in coastal areas continue to expand at a rate 50% above the national average. And, we should not forget, technology has improved conditions in the U.S. Since 2005, carbon emissions have fallen 14% while GDP has increased 50%. Why? It had nothing to do with the 2015 Paris Agreement. The reason had to do with technology– fracking and horizontal drilling that allowed cleaner natural gas to replace oil and the capture of carbon emissions from coal plants. Energy from solar and wind will continue, and we should encourage their expansion, but today they contribute less than ten percent of our energy needs.

My point is not to argue that climate change is not real. It is and always has been. Evidence suggests the Earth is in a warming period and storms, it is claimed, are more frequent. It is the politicization of the issue that has put emotion above reason. We should focus on the elimination of pollutants not because that will affect temperatures, but because a cleaner environment is healthier and more pleasant. To believe that man can halt the increase in temperatures or cause the oceans to stop rising is to believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

If the Earth continues to warm, and to the extent natural causes are in part to blame, are we not better off to focus on adaption than seeking blame? The Country, and ultimately the world, will move away from fossil fuels, but the move should not come at the expense of economic growth, as is happening in Europe where they have not only placed their economy at risk but also their security. Energy independence has empowered the U.S., made it safer and allowed us to face global tensions with more confidence. Consider the difference between the U.S. and Europe. With North Sea wells drying up, Europe imports its energy needs from Russia, the Middle East and Africa. Yet, we read that the amount of shale gas in Europe is thought to exceed that in the U.S. As well, they have given up on nuclear power. Is it not realistic to believe that European energy companies would be more environmentally friendly than those in Russia, the Middle East or Africa? It is a lack of common sense that prevents them from tapping their own resources and building nuclear power plants. A lack of energy independence has made Europe hostage to a hostile Russia and a volatile Middle East and Africa. In the meantime, with an aging and shrinking populations, their economies have been anemic since the 2008 credit crisis.

My father used to tell me to never argue with a dope, because a passerby could not distinguish one from the other. Thomas Paine is alleged to have said something similar: “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” Politics is the search for and the exercise of power. As it has descended into a morass of emotionalism and away from reason, it has made our lives increasingly divisive. Our universities should be bastions of search, reason and debate. Instead, they have become advocates for passion and histrionics. The same can be said about our media. The search for truth and sense has been abandoned. “Common sense is not so common,” Voltaire reminded us in his A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary. The responsibility of educators and pundits should be to make common sense more common.