Uncommon Common Sense

To reason and to choose are the great intellectual gifts that are supposed to elevate us above the animal kingdom. Failing to implement reason or comprehend that choice leads to consequence has become the worst pandemic in the world...far worse than COVID. That failure has left us living with unprecedented fear, anger, division and tribalism. In my view, the only way we can begin to make a positive move away from such things is to ask basic questions like "Why?" I have so many questions, that I hardly know where to begin. Some of the answers I know. Some, I don't. And some, I can hazzard a pretty good guess. It is vital to our survival as a nation and as a world of nations that we start asking more questions and demanding answers from those who pretend to lead us. Are we sure of their motiviations or are we too lazy to care? Are we ignoring the nagging concerns that come to our minds in exchange for solidarity or political correctness? Are we afraid to ask questions becau...

Outrage, anger, frustration, sorrow, horror, disbelief, shock, shame: it is impossible to know which emotion I feel most strongly right now. Never in my life have I been so ashamed of my country as I am today. We have gone from being the laughing-stock of the world to becoming a pariah and has-been world power lead by a doddering old fool, riddled with dementia who is out of his mind, out of his depth and out of excuses. To be clear, I agree with Mr. Biden that it was time to leave Afghanistan. I agree that we were there too long--aimless and missionless. I agree that we need to get out of the business of nation building or anything like unto it, forever, amen. However, your average 7th grader could have come up with a better exit strategy than the fool in the White House. Biden has double-, triple-, quadrupled-down on the "fact" that he made the right decision. This political decision, poll-driven and optics-motivated is the biggest debacle in the history of the U.S. It make...

Every election is important. This one is off the charts. I cannot lie; I was utterly dismayed by the first Presidential debate. It was ugly and discouraging. The tendency is to blame the candidates, but in truth we are to blame. The fact that we have put ourselves in a position as a nation that we are choosing between two highly inadequate candidates, is our sole responsibility. So, here we are. What do we do now? The choice between these highly flawed candidates is much more clear than one might think. The challenge is seeing through all the smoke and mirrors that is the basis of every political campaign. Aside from the rhetoric and political speech, here are the choices.: 1) The protection of free speech in all its forms: protesting, the press, worship OR use of the cancel culture’s methods to shut down speech, remove differing opinions from college campuses, supporting rioting and looting as a political weapon and shutting down churches in the name of “safety”. 2) The protection of ...

My older brother and I are thirteen months apart. His favorite pastime when we were young was pushing my buttons; I always reacted exactly the way he wanted me to. I cannot count the number of times my mom told me, "If you will stop reacting the way he wants you to, it won't be fun any more and he'll stop doing it." I never could make myself stop reacting and thankfully, we both grew up. Watching the Democrats react to Trump would be hysterically funny if it weren't so blooming dangerous to the future of our country. Trump plays the mainstream media/"moderates"/Democrats/Never-Trumpers like a Stradivarius and they always give him the satisfying hissy fit he wants. Case in point, the postal service and mail-in ballots. Let's talk about the Postal Service and then we'll talk about voting by mail. A) The Postal Service has been losing money like a sieve for decades. Because they are a government-run entity, not a private entity, they lose money with...

 A friend of mine, who has a PhD, posted the following on Facebook last week: "If you have been wondering why posts that share false information about Covid19 keep getting removed - it's because people can literally die because people believe the content of that post. As in dead. So yeah. Thanks tech companies!" After I pulled myself off the floor. We had a discussion on Facebook about his comment. More about this later. This was actually followed by several sleepless nights, when I wondered (again) where our country is headed. Over the last few months, I have watched with anguish as we have, like so many lemmings, allowed our freedom of speech to be curtailed, our businesses to be shuttered, our freedom to worship be eroded and sat idly by while violent marxist thugs have hidden under media cover of "peaceful protests" while destroying city after city. Let us begin with a review of what the first amendment actually says: "Congress shall make no law  respec...

Many of us are turning off the news--despairing at the discouraging headlines. Months of horrifying headlines about COVID 19 and now civil unrest. I have tried to do the same, but have only succeeded in reducing my consumption, not turning it off completely. In the main, it is because I am insanely curious about what is going on around me, but my main motivator at present is my lack of trust, both in the media and in our political "leaders". As Rahm Emanuel famously stated, "Never let a crisis go to waste." Evil people are doing that very thing, today in America. We cannot, we must not ignore it. First, we must clarify some terms. Protesting, is a Constitutional right, ensconced in the very first amendment in the Bill of Rights. I will defend your right to free speech all day, every day, whether I agree with you or not. Criminal activity, however, is not protected speech. When protests descend into looting, vandalism, trespassing, destruction of property, domestic...