Common Bloody Sense

In damn short supply so far this century.

The text below is labelled "source unknown". That may be true, but the text has been around for years and appears on hundreds of sites - for example, http://www.minibite.com/america/obituary.htm - and I see no reason to repeat it here. Thanks for posting this link. If you click on it, you'll see that it's an American right-wing web site, justifying the comment below that this is a right-wing diatribe. All those American flags - it's like a Nuremberg rally translated from German to American and posted on the Internet for dim rednecks to drool over. The link was an arbitrary Google find - that it's such a site is pure coincidence.

"An arbitrary Google find" ... on a page about CommonBloodySense we're given the new millennium equivalent to "just following orders". Ain't life a hoot?!

Today we mourn the passing of an old friend, by the name of CommonSense. Common Sense lived a long life but died in Australia from heart failure on the brink of the new millennium. No-one really knows how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He selflessly devoted his life to service in schools, hospitals, homes, factories helping folks get jobs done without fanfare and foolishness. For decades, petty rules, silly laws, and frivolous lawsuits held no power over Common Sense. He was credited with cultivating such valued lessons as to know 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), reliable parenting strategies (the adults are in charge, not the kids), and it's OK to come in second. A veteran of the Industrial Revolution, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Technological Revolution, Common Sense survived cultural and educational trends including body piercing, whole language, and "new math". But his health declined when he became infected with the "If-it-only-helps-one-person-it's-worth-it" virus.

In recent decades, his waning strength proved no match for the ravages of well-intentioned but overbearing regulations. He watched in pain as good people became ruled by self-seeking lawyers. His health rapidly deteriorated when schools endlessly implemented zero-tolerance policies.

Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate, a teen suspended for taking a swig of mouthwash after lunch, and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student only worsened his condition. It declined even further when schools had to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student but could not inform the parent when a female student was pregnant or wanted an abortion.

Finally, Common Sense lost his will to live as the TenCommandments? became contraband, churches became businesses, criminals received better treatment than victims, and federal judges stuck their noses in everything from the Boy Scouts to professional sports. Finally, when a woman, too stupid to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot and a man to stupid to take off his clothes before ironing them, were awarded huge settlements, Common Sense threw in the towel.

As the end neared, Common Sense drifted in and out of logic but was kept informed of developments regarding questionable regulations such as those for low flow toilets, rocking chairs, and step-ladders.

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.

Source unknown

My common sense tells me that a right-wing diatribe disguised as something everyone naturally agrees with is demagogy.

What exactly about this is so right-wing? In particular, the idea (which someone deleted from the reaction above) that corporations should be able to do whatever they want without government regulation. Also, the amusing notion that the TenCommandments? are now contraband. Actually, the Christ cult has more power than ever. Conservatives and liberals can both lament the loss of simple common sense. The "hot coffee" case is what we're talking about here, not "prayer in school". It's slightly conservative, I suppose, but not so much as to justify your flippant dismissal.

This can be applied to politics but it isn't exclusively about politics; common sense can and should be utilized at all times. It's not really about politics. I think it's about the condoning of stupidity in a world gone mad where you're not allowed to do things the easy way for fear of hurting peoples feelings or breaking rules that cause more trouble than they prevent.

In the UK, they've just introduced a rule that the hot water supply in all new houses is to be built with a maximum temperature gauge after an incident in which a woman burned herself in a bath. Also, in the same week that funding for children�s school transport was cut, the government introduced a scheme (government-funded) where schools can employ a woman to provide head massages and aromatherapy to teaching staff or she can wait in a teacher's house if they are expecting a parcel delivery and while she's there she can bake a cake too! This in the very same week they cut funding for kids' school transport! Common sense is truly dead and gone.

Isn't it funny how we only point out a lack of common sense rather than actually using it in the first place? -- SusannahWilliams?

The false assertion above is that there was a time in the past when "petty rules, silly laws, and frivolous lawsuits held no power over Common Sense". This is a standard myth that has been recycled for thousands of years. Every generation imagines that the preceding generation was in some ways less foolish than theirs (and in other ways more foolish). Common sense is no more dead (or more alive) today than it was in the time of Cicero. Despite the "sapiens" name we foolishly gave ourselves, humans are (and always have been) foolish. -- EricHodges

Claiming CommonSense is like claiming to be doing God's work. It's always relative, but seems "obviously right" to the one claiming it. Genital mutilation is "obviously wrong" right - because who would do something like that to someone else? So Georgia recently outlawed it. . . common sense, right? Except for the case where people *want it done*, and now people who work in piercing are forbidden to do so for their customers. . . Common sense is just another term for "I can't codify it, so I'll pretend it should be obvious to shame those who oppose me" -- LayneThomas

That's one use of the term, but another is the huge body of acquired wisdom that comes from surviving in the same universe. That's the one that poses a significant hurdle to automating communication. You and I have a common sense of how physics works. We know things fall down, we know water sloshes for a little while after you shake a glass but eventually comes to rest, we know if a bird poops on a house it doesn't have to be sitting on that house, etc. We apply our shared understanding of the world to language in ways that are extremely difficult to codify. And while its true that sometimes groups of people behave in ways that are counter to this kind of common sense, it isn't unexpected. -- EH

Things like physics, math, and axiomatic truth can be common sense. To some people, it's "common sense" that the heavier an object is, the faster it falls - never mind that it's wrong, it still "seems right". It's places like that where common sense often fails, especially when dealing with social policy/human nature. Many things we accept as "common sense" like. . . "the war on drugs prevents drug use" have no scientific basis, they are just "common sense" - who would dispute it? Whether it's true or not is irrelevant because by declaring it common sense, all discussion is silenced.

Some of the evidence used above to support the idea that so-called common sense is in decline are exaggerated or distorted.

The "hot coffee" case is dealt with here: http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp Actually, that page mostly deals with other lawsuits, but partway down the page it links to a description of the hot coffee case at http://www.atlanet.org/ConsumerMediaResources/Tier3/press_room/FACTS/frivolous/McdonaldsCoffeecase.aspx (updated link - http://www.atlanet.org/pressroom/facts/frivolous/McdonaldsCoffeecase.aspx)
How is the TenCommandments? "contraband"? We can do whatever we want with the TenCommandments? as private citizens, but the government isn't allowed to use it in a way that implies an establishment of religion. Compare/contrast with nations where "common sense" prevails, such as Iran, where the government can do whatever it wants and the rights of the citizenry are restricted.

++ ...implies an establishment of religion. This is a common misconception. The Constitutional phrasing prevents [the federal] government from establishing "a" religion - i.e. a National religion like England had in 1776. At the time of the Constitution's writing, several states had their own State religion. In fact, Jefferson's letter to the church in Danbury, Connecticut, which used the famous "separation of church and state" phrase, was sent to reassure them that the Feds would not interfere with the practice of their state religion. Thomas Jefferson, himself, as head of Education ordered all schools to use (along with other texts) the Bible and the Watts Hymnal (I'll look up the hymnal's name, I may not have it right). I guess Jefferson just didn't understand the "separation of church and state" concept! -- BrucePennington

Nicely done, but surely you'll forgive me if I choose to accept the U.S. Supreme Court's legally-binding interpretation of the establishment clause instead.

Yes, I don't blame you in doing so. I trusted them for much of my adult life as well, until I started studying issues like this. The Supreme Court followed Jefferson's stand in several rulings up until approx 1948. Since the '60's, the whole "separation" issue has evolved from liberal judges who now follow the philosophy that the Constitution is "a living document that changes with social norms." When our judges, even at the Supreme level, operate in a moral relativistic mode, we have problems. CommonBloodySense is not all that common. John Adams knew this when he said: We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution like a whale goes through a net. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. When the constitution was written, most of society was on the same moral page, so to speak. Today, this is no longer true even for our Supreme court judges. Like Adams warned, when this happens judgements/governmental policy will be determined by personal whim, rather than constitutional principle. -- BrucePennington

Google has much information on the six-year old sexual harassment story and the Boy Scouts legal wranglings. When you have more than a slanted sound bite, these cases don't seem so ridiculous. Well, the six-year old sexual harassment story (for which I can't find any primary sources, but a lot of third hand references) does sound ridiculous, but it also sounds like an isolated, ridiculous incident. Public school officials often make poor decisions, but thanks to the "silly laws" and "frivolous lawsuits", the worst abuses are usually addressed.
Hey, isn't this page waaaay OffTopic? OffTopicIsOkay
Hey, I'm for CommonSense, isn't everyone? It's the Not-In-Common Sense that creates division. Some of the above fits one or the other.

Advocates of CommonBloodySense sometimes encounter ChuangTsesHorse. --