One of my favorite authors, whom I've quoted before, had an interesting little article one day in the paper. I share it here. The author is Anonymous.
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Mr. Common Sense. Mr. Sense had been with us for many years.
No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm and that life isn't always fair.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not kids, are in charge.)
His health began to rapidly deteriorate when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place.
Reports of a six year old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Mr. Sense declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student; but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Finally, Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, spilled a bit in her lap, and was awarded a huge settlement.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by two stepbrothers; My Rights and Ima Whiner.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on; if not, join the majority - and do nothing.
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Philip K. Howard, a lawyer, wrote a book called The Death of Common Sense, copyright 1994, Random House. Mr. Howard explains how bureaucracy, regulations, government interventions from the New Deal onward have served to destroy common sense decisions in almost every corner of American life.
"But it is a particularly American trait, as we all know, to take an idea and push it as hard as possible. Then we made the switch to an activist government in the New Deal, and then to the modern regulatory state beginning in the 1960s. We did so with the gusto of pioneers blazing through the frontier. A new system of law that was made up of millions of words of new legal dictates, although antithetical to a system of law based on flexible principles, was embraced by us as a symbol of success."
As we see today, special interest groups, whether it be unions, minorities, gays, disabled, elderly - cry for "rights." In general those "rights" are not aimed towards fairness for all, but for special considerations to the detriment of "all."
"Uniformity in the common law, consisting of broad principles like the "reasonable person" standard, generally permits adjustment for the circumstances. This type of uniform principle is almost synonymous with fairness. Uniform application of a detailed rule, on the other hand, will almost always favor one group over another."
Universal requirements under some law leave no room for judgment. It makes sense to insure that modern buildings are handicap accessible. But when older buildings MUST accomodate, it may be financially damaging to the owners who must comply or be fined. There is no judgment.
The EPA has turned environmentalism into a religion and brooks no heretics. Conform to every dictate or suffer the consequences. Suffer anyway. To protect a small fish the Central Valley of California, one of the richest farm areas in the world, which supplied the U.S. and other countries with produce, the EPA has turned it now primarily into a desert wasteland. Farmers are bankrupt. Workers are unemployed. Money that would offer great returns for our nation is gone. The same is true for oil drilling, coal mining, anything that the environmentalists can destroy, they are allowed to do.
Civil Rights, the great focus of which was racial integration, has been co-opted by everyone with a gripe.
"Today the protected classes extend to a majority of all Americans, including white men over forty, short people, the chemically addicted, the left-handed, the obese, members of all religions. Surely there is a scholar somewhere who can tell us how we came to this state of affairs and how the road to civil rights became so crowded."
The author covers so much more. In every corner of our lives we are being denied freedom because of oppressive, unfair laws, and the death of a common sense approach to solving problems that can be solved and ameliorating ones that can not. Uniformity in all things kills the American spirit and the will to make better judgments. FDR, whose policies I don't endorse particularly, had one thing to say that I agree with.
"It is common sense to take a method and try it." However, if it fails, try something else. What we have now has failed miserably.
Philip Howard says, "Conquering human nature was not the idea when our founders devised a new nation around the freedom of each human. Avoiding coercion by making law into a detailed manual only assures another form of coercion.........Curing the injustices of history and circumstance by awarding open-ended rights resurrects the specter of special legal privilege, a stature so inimical to a free society that it causes immediate and lasting discord."
He concludes by noting that energy and resourcefulness, not millions of "legal cubicles," define America's greatness. Judgment and personal conviction need to be important. Relying on ourselves is just -
Common Sense.
10/4/11
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