The Death of Common Sense

[Teresa Heilevang]

The Death of Common Sense
By Lori Borgman      http://loriborgman.com/author.html

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Three yards of black fabric enshroud my computer terminal. I am mourning the passing
of an old friend by the name of Common Sense.
His obituary reads as follows:

Common Sense, aka C.S., lived a long life, but died from heart failure at the brink of the
millennium. No one really knows how old he was, his birth records were long ago
entangled in miles and miles of bureaucratic red tape.

Known affectionately to close friends as Horse Sense and Sound Thinking, he selflessly
devoted himself to a life of service in homes, schools, hospitals and offices, helping folks
get jobs done without a lot of fanfare, whooping and hollering. Rules and regulations
and petty, frivolous lawsuits held no power over C.S.

A most reliable sage, he was credited with cultivating the ability to know when to
come in out of the rain, the discovery that the early bird gets the worm and how to
take the bitter with the sweet. C.S. also developed sound financial policies (don't
spend more than you earn), reliable parenting strategies (the adult is in charge,
not the kid) and prudent dietary plans (offset eggs and bacon with a little fiber
and orange juice).

A veteran of the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, the Technological
Revolution and the Smoking Crusades, C.S. survived sundry cultural and educational
trends including disco, the men's movement, body piercing, whole language and
new math.

C.S.'s health began declining in the late 1960s when he became infected with
the If-It-Feels-Good, Do-It virus. In the following decades his waning strength
proved no match for the ravages of overbearing federal and state rules and
regulations and an oppressive tax code. C.S. was sapped of strength and the will
to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, criminals received better
treatment than victims and judges stuck their noses in everything from Boy Scouts
to professional baseball and golf. His deterioration accelerated as schools
implemented zero-tolerance policies. Reports of 6-year-old boys charged with
sexual harassment for kissing classmates, a teen suspended for taking a swig
of Scope mouthwash after lunch, girls suspended for possessing Midol and an
honor student expelled for having a table knife in her school lunch were more
than his heart could endure.

As the end neared, doctors say C.S. drifted in and out of logic but was kept
informed of developments regarding regulations on low-flow toilets and mandatory
air bags. Finally, upon hearing about a government plan to ban inhalers from
14 million asthmatics due to a trace of a pollutant that may be harmful to the
environment, C.S. breathed his last. Services will be at Whispering Pines Cemetery.
C.S. was preceded in death by his wife, Discretion; one daughter, Responsibility;
and one son, Reason. He is survived by two step-brothers, Half-Wit and Dim-Wit.

Memorial Contributions may be sent to the Institute for Rational Thought.
Farewell, Common Sense. May you rest in peace...... Lori Borgman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Isn't that the truth? I 've never heard it said better....
As far as I'm concerned,  Common Sense had a massive stroke the
day we blew the Bay of Pigs fiasco, he fell into a deep coma in the early 1960's and
a deeper catatonic-like coma when the Viet Nam War started and tragically died when
the far left DNCer's and the ACLU decided we were not Politically Correct in our way
of thinking.  Webster defines P.C.: "Conforming to a belief that languages and practices
which could offend sensibilites should be eliminated."  My definition of P.C.: Pure Crap! 
Of course, this is my opinion and I'm sure a few million out in Wonderland agree with me. 
I'm tired of pussy footing around to please the left.  No more P.C. for me!

Now.... you know, lately I find myself recurring gripped by an overwhelming desire to
smack our entire country upside its collective head.

Common sense in this country isn't just dead, it's been cremated and the far left, DNC
and the ACLU are smoking his ashes in their lucky skull bong. There is so little common
sense today that Thomas Paine is spinning over in his grave so rapidly that they are
thinking of hooking him up to a turbine at Boulder Dam to light up the Vegas strip.

You can't get to your doctors office in the morning without colliding with some idiot
who is trying to spawn upstream onto the elevator while everyone else is trying to
get off.

You can't get in your car and not run into another idiot who pulls into the gas station
with his fuel tank on the wrong side and then has to get instructions from a NASA team
at Houston Control to figure out how to maneuver his car so that the tank is on the
correct side.

And you can't open a paper without reading about a mondo idiot who gets hurt or
killed at a railroad crossing because they had to try and beat the train to get home
in time to watch Joan Rivers salute to porcelain clowns on QVC.

Now tell me, what the hell has happened to us? A chalk outline is slowly being
drawn around common sense and most Americans can't even identify the victim.
We've gone from a nation of practical-minded, can-do Johnny-Get-Your-Guns and
Rosie the Riveters to a bunch of sniveling crybabies who can't take it on the chin
without running whining to our lawyers.

We're so bogged down in procedure, we make Bill O'Reilly look like Henry
David Thoreau.... well, almost, anyway.  You couple that with a Blanche DuBois-like
denial of personal responsibility for the pure crap in our lives, and it's no wonder we're
in a malasie that makes a bout of Epstein-Barr seem like a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader
doing the Watusi after four triple lattes with a Dexatrim chaser. 

You know, there's close to a million lawyers in our country, and many of their livelihoods
depend on the fact that we have got no common sense. My theory is that intelligence,
like every other resource on this planet, has a finite amount. And as the population
increases, the intelligence resource is being stretched thinner than the elastic in Oprah's girdle.

For instance, a few years ago some old lady burns herself on a cup of coffee at
McDonald's and sues for three million dollars because it's not her fault.  And she wins. 
She wins!  We have trouble convicting people who actually confess to murder, but
this woman is able to take three mil off of McDodo?  If the judge had any common
sense, the trial should have gone like, "Will the plaintiff please rise?  Yeah, it is your fault. 
You're stupid.  Coffee is supposed to be hot.  Why didn't you blow on it before you
chugged it down like a pledge having his first beer?  Get our of my courtroom, you
stupid, stupid woman and take your pin-striped parasite lawyer with you.  Next case."

Common sense has been defined as the quality of good sense and judgment necessary
to know the simplest of truths.  Well, nowadays simple truths are sighted about as often
as Jon Stewart on the "Beltway Boys."  In the last twenty years we seem to have
completely lost the ability to obey the natural laws around us. We no longer recognize
things that are shockingly wrong anymore.  We can't tell up from down, right from left,
absolutely one hundred percent not guilty from double-murdering scumbag guilty.  And
we are getting stupider.  Are we stupid or were we always this stupid?

I watch these TV evangelists on late-night cable channels and see the stadium full of
people giving hard-earned money away to some chrome-head, sweat-covered,
barking con man dangling eternal salvation in front of these poor bastards like a leash i
n front of a chihuahua with one kidney. Well, I'm just shocked at our lack of our
common sense.  Clearly, this crook couldn't be more full of shit if he were a Porta Potti
at a Garth Brooks concert.  Before you get upset, you know which ones I'm talking
about, people.


Now, to many people the government is the main foundry of not-know-how,
turning the raw ore sent to it by votes and tax dollars into cold-rolled sheets of
incompetence, which are then used in every aspect of our societal infrastructure. 
Reports on reports of subcommittees of commissions create a sea of paper that
could float Rush Limbaugh's butter dish.  All in all, practicality has about as much
chance of being served by the federal government as a loud Texan does by a
french waitperson... sorry, I mean French 'freaking' waiter. 

People, we don't need more government, we don't need more colleges; we need
more schools that teach common sense.  We don't need any more Einsteins who
can tell you the principle of microwave cooking but can't figure out how to plug
one in.  I've always said, "Give someone a fish and they'll eat for a day, teach someone
not to run a bass lure through their testicle and they will be able to fish for the rest
of their life."

Where does common sense come from?  It's slapped into the back of your head by
your mother when you try and touch the hot stove.  It's the Buick crest branded
onto your forehead for all of eternity because you didn't want the seat belt to wrinkle
your new shirt.  Common sense is what gores you in the ass in Pamplona when you
dress up like Little Richard and run screaming in front of the bulls down a street that's
narrower than  Jimmy Carters' mind.  And speaking of Jimmy, believe me, that will be
another story in the future.

And most important, common sense is admitting when you don't have a big closer.
I don't have a big closer....... unless you want to re-read Lori's obit again.  ..... 

[ericire12]

The Death of Common Sense

Oh, thats been dead for a long long time.


R.I.P.

[Hazcat]

M'ette,

Your epistle truly needs to be enshrined in the CS hall of fame!

[Ron J]

Amen. 

This ties in with the CS thread.  It's made the rounds on the net so my apologies if you already have seen it. 


The following is the winning entry from an Annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term. This year’s term was political correctness.  The winner wrote:

Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. 

[CurrieS103]

CS is dead!  Long live CS!

[Sponsor]

[tumblebug]

IT changed it's name to chicken sh*t .

[Bill Stryker]

M'ette,

Great post -- again. Don't be afraid to tell us how you really feel. We love it when you get going strong.

Your screed was even better than Lori's absolutely outstanding obit. 

[tombogan03884]

A truly great read, I'm stealing it for my blog because 3 of the people who read that aren't from this forum.
 (No joke.)

[Neon Knight Anubis]

That was a very good read, I'm sending that one to my folks. Thanks for posting it M'ette!

[Teresa Heilevang]

I'm sure we could fill this forum up with thoughts and actions of "lack of common sense"... but..........................
 there are still struggling families across our great nation that are waiting for a special delivery from the federal government.  They are looking for their promised stimulus rebate check from Uncle Sam. 

And I really do realize that people look at this cash infusion as a welcome and needed "bump"... ............ until you realize that our children will be paying back this money to China (who we borrowed it from) ..over their lifetimes so that we can supposedly jump-start our economy today.

Now you tell me... Does this make any kind of rational sense to you? 
It doesn't to me.

We BORROW all the money from China..to "give"..to the people in the US.
Then for the most part.. all the people will run out and buy "stuff" that the Chinese made and already sold to the US.. in turn stimulating China's market and economy..
 THEN..
we and our children and their children ...for hundreds of years (if the world is still around)  will be paying back all this "free" money and all the interest it has and will accumulate. Not to mention on top of  all the other borrowed and reborrowed moneys that an already debt drowning nation has incurred and buried us under.

Nobody with any business sense runs a company this way. Has the whole world lost their mind?