THE DEATH OF COMMON SENSE

Each day new versions of idiocy assault us from all sides, but most of the odious and nonsensical notions start and end with politicians. Did you know that the word politics is actually a medical term? That’s right – poli, meaning many and tic, meaning blood sucking parasite.
 

DIVERSITY
  
When it comes to this over-worked terminology, politicians act as though they invented the human race, now that they formally recognize that there are people of different stripes who inhabit this world. That is a fine concept if it ended there, but as is typical in political circles, it just escalates. Because few of their ideas are well thought out, their mandates are either too lean or too fat. In this case, instead of leaving the idea of acceptance up to the individual, they demand that the rest of the population goes along with their ideology. Those who object are labelled with all sorts of unsavoury names and, unless you agree to agree with them, you will find yourself on the outskirts of popular opinion—in short, a pariah. 

 

GENDER IDENTITY

It’s become fashionable for progressives to simply change the words of anything they think might carry a hint of objection. The new mantra of governments seems to be: Someone somewhere is bound to object to something sometime. You can just picture them sitting in a room trying to resolve this problem when some bright spark jumps up and says “I know. Let’s just call it something else. Invent a new vocabulary.’’ And, voila, with one stroke of the pen, suddenly people who cross our borders illegally are transformed, no longer deemed to be illegal, but are now irregular immigrants. See how easy that was?

In the last few decades, there’s been a push to homogenize men and women into a generic concoction. Men must now be aware of and show their feminine side. Women must become warriors of one fad or another. Now we’ve added a new ingredient – transgenderism, if there’s such a word. If not, I’m sure there soon will be. Gender specific identifications are outlawed – re-named as some asinine tongue-twisters to satisfy the bleating zealots in our society. Foremen are now forepersons. The terms actor and actress are no longer allowed – everyone must act accordingly and address both male and female performers as ACTORS. 

This trend began with Miss transformed to Ms, but it didn’t end there. Now people who want to transition from male to female and vice versa, insist on being recognized by other weird names such as ze and zir or as they or them. 

It's not the words themselves that are objectionable, as some would have us believe, but the idea that we should be compelled to use them because someone insists on being addressed this way. Politicians would have us believe that transgendered individuals are a large part of the population, but that is simply not the case and there’s no sense in the majority of the population turning their tongues into pretzels in order to accommodate the marginal few. If seems reasonable to assume that if an individual cannot decide which sex he/she is, then it is doubly confusing to everyone else. Taking the time to pronounce the long drawn out LGBTQ is bad enough.  Adding more tongue-twisters to the existing litany of trendy acronyms is even worse.

In many situations, we now have the tail wagging the dog, with the exception ruling the majority. Whatever happened to good manners and trying to fit in? Why make it everyone’s problem to accommodate you just because you’ve declared your particular identity as being acceptable? Tolerance cannot be legislated. When something is outside our comfort zone, we cannot control a visceral reaction. We need a compelling reason to accept it. As long as there are human beings and free will, acceptance is a matter of choice, otherwise we are no more than slaves ruled by  political correctness and/or popular opinion.

We're asked to respect each other’s religious beliefs, but what if you seriously object to what someone’s religious beliefs represent? And what if what someone asks of you is against your own religious or moral convictions? 

Saying you object doesn’t make you wrong; saying they’re right when you believe they’re wrong doesn’t just make you compliant, but a hypocrite. And labelling someone who doesn’t agree with you as homophobic or worse is merely proof of your own intolerance and prejudice.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

We worry about the death of whales while doing little to nothing about the death of human beings, be it from starvation or at the end of a gun or from the barrage of bombs. When we do worry about human beings, the environmental concerns go right out the window. So, which is it? Either you care about the environment – which, note to politicians – also includes the human race, or you don’t. What’s more important – taking care of the global migrant crisis or worrying about climate change or global warming or any of the other labels governments attach to atmospheric shifting? Governments try to tackle both problems and, for the most part, fail at both. To be effective, each problem requires careful planning and the economic resources to implement.

Sadly, we have not put a stop to human tragedy caused by inhumane dictatorships or civil or regional wars. We have not put a stop to poverty and human rights abuses. We have not altered atmospheric conditions to any meaningful degree, but that doesn’t stop governments from continuing to pour money and resources into alternate sources of energy that often cost more than the original source they claim is causing the damage. Once again, many of the solutions they adopt cause more misery to humans and waste money on wonky fixes that are later cancelled at even greater expense. 

Whether you take in 25,000 refugees or 2,000,000, it’s going to have a drastic effect on a country’s resources. Basic human needs alone – food, shelter and clothing all cost money. Add to that security screening, medical expenses, education, language instruction, etc. and the government keeps on giving. Unless the people we accept have useable and marketable skills, we end up with people in limbo—in permanent detention facilities that offer little comfort or hope for the future.

 In short, if we fail to improve the lives of the people we purport to rescue or fail to hit intractable and unenforceable targets of carbon emissions, what are we trying to accomplish? It reminds me of the common mantra “Follow your passion. Do what you love and you’ll never work again.” Fine and good luck if it all works out, but all too often it doesn’t and people eke out a living in jobs that don’t pay enough to cover the bills. These are classic examples of ideology coming smack up against the wall of reality. 

THE ME TOO MOVEMENT

We started down this road with good intentions to protect the innocent, but now we’ve crossed a bridge too far. We’ve gone from protecting victims of sexual assault in the court room to protecting them in every way possible, even when they lie. Once the accusation is out there, there is no taking it back. No matter how innocent the accused is, no matter if that person is cleared of any wrongdoing, the sting and stigma of the accusation will never go away.

 How many lives have been ruined because the accuser is automatically believed before any investigation has taken place? How many lives and careers have been ruined because of being accused? A justice system that allows this type of free pass for those who falsely accuse another is simply a magnet for more false accusations.

I believe we’ve reached that point and the backlash has only just begun. In future, I predict there will be more court cases involving false accusations against prominent individuals than real cases of sexual harassment or assault There is no reason why any man should get away with abusing women or children in any shape or form, but neither should lives and careers be ruined by the hint or suggestion of impropriety, nor should people who level false allegations against someone get a free pass. The only way to stop both of these travesties is for complete honesty and by applying appropriate punishment for either crime.

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

What’s all the fuss about people adopting someone else’s dress style or using expressions commonly used by others outside our own culture or ethnic origin? Does it really matter if a man with Ukrainian heritage decides to wear a kilt on his wedding day? Instead of being insulted, we should be honoured. It's a fact that most Scotsmen only don kilts for special occasions, not as everyday wear. Indian feathers and headdresses? Ditto. They are strictly ceremonial. And when a white person decides to adopt black culture by wearing clothing favoured by blacks and makes up rap lyrics, there’s little fuss made. When he adopts a black face or uses the “n” word, that’s where they draw the line. But the point is that the lines keep shifting and what is offensive to one person might not be to another. So who’s right and who’s wrong and can we not get over the need to constantly place people in categories? Surely an appreciation of another’s culture is the first handshake towards a world of better understanding.

RE-WRITING HISTORY

Sharp on the heels of cultural appropriation is the sudden desire to erase history or at least clean it up to satisfy various cultural sensibilities that are offended or might be by past events. The old adage that we can learn from history in order to prevent past mistakes has been overtaken by a wash and spin cycle of apology for every past sin ever committed. There’s no acknowledgement of cultural differences in past times, of an ever-changing world that changes faster with each new generation, no acknowledgement of human nature or the fact that human beings are by nature multi-faceted and that good and bad exist in the same person. Now, everyone who made an unwise decision or who started out with good intentions is solely to blame when things go wrong. There are no nuances in this new order of things. It’s a black and white world where past mistakes are not tolerated. Better to blot them out and all is forgotten. 

THE TRUMP EFFECT

As much as I’ve tried to avoid talking about or using the word Trump, it is simply unavoidable in the context of common sense. Trump usually makes little sense, but when you try to clarify what he says from day to day, it leads to more confusion.The man is a disruptor and he’s awfully good at it. Throw a few bombs at several different targets on a daily basis and the world suddenly looks chaotic. Whether or not it truly is because of what he says is the real question, because the needle is constantly shifting and what he says does not necessarily translate into what he ends up doing. 

News being what it is in this world of Twitter and Instagram, news agencies are hard pressed to keep up as the needle moves across the page, but before reporting on anything Trump, they would be well advised to take a deep breath before tapping out their stories. What happens in Trump’s world at 8 am can do a 360 degree reversal by 2 pm. What they haven’t cottoned onto is that most of what he says is complete nonsense designed for one purpose: getting a rise out of people, knocking them off their comfortable perch, upsetting the applecart. 

He has been variously described as crazy, delusional, narcissistic, etc. etc. His inconsistent ramblings appear to be the result of a deranged mind, but that’s what he wants you to think. He’s also a chameleon and he can turn on the charm one minute and lash out at the same person the next. He is the quintessential megalomaniac, pumped up with his own importance, riding on the sea of publicity he so badly craves. But I’ve yet to figure out why people with perfectly normal brain function, and yes, I’m talking about other media types and politicians of all stripes, bite every time he tweets or issues one of his many hollow threats. Given that most of these people are blatant liberals, it’s not surprising, but news presented with a sprinkling of hysteria is not news, it’s just a waste of time. Because no sooner have they worked themselves into a lather than he turns around and denies what he said in the first place. 

I’ve worked for people just like Trump, people with huge egos who think that their every word or every command must be responded to, preferably sooner than later. One boss used to leave 5 to 8 messages on my desk and I learned through time to ignore half of them and rank the rest of them in terms of urgency. If Trump has no filter or any concept of rational thought, that doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t employ one. The media, in particular, desperately needs one. They need to learn when to react and when not to, separate the nonsense from the truly significant and stop feeding the monster. Unless he says something that is truly egregious or harmful, such as his truly despicable lack of empathy to the capture, detention and torture of John McCain, stop giving him his 15 minutes of fame. Otherwise, anything meaningful gets lost in a sea of babble that should just be ignored.

Obituary printed in the London Times....... Brilliant!!   Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has 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;  - Life isn't always fair;  - And maybe it was my fault.   Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).   His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-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.   Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.   It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.   Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.   Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.   Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot .  She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.   Common Sense was preceded in death, -by his parents, Truth and Trust, -by his wife, Discretion, -by his daughter, Responsibility, -and by his son, Reason.   He is survived by his 5 stepchildren; - I Know My Rights  - I Want It Now  - Someone Else Is To Blame  - I'm A Victim - Pay me for Doing Nothing   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