A Call For Common Sense
By Cheryl K. Chumley (08/20/04)
Adherence to this straightforward observation is crucial to our country’s future: “…the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered.”
Such is the wisdom of Thomas Paine, whose thoughts as expressed in Common Sense at the outset of the American Revolution served as basis for the tone of the Declaration of Independence and for the ensuing spirit that was ultimately captured within our U.S. Constitution.
“…the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies; some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine,” Paine continued.
Of the two discourses, the latter most certainly characterizes the state of America, 2004. Gone is the age of reason, where the type of common sense outlined in Paine’s Common Sense held supreme in the decision-making processes of legislation and law, and entered is the time of arrogant intellectualism, where the evil natures and desires of humankind supersede the moral constraints of proper government as set forth in our honorable Constitution. We are now a confused people, incapable of selecting the prescription of cure from the long list of remedies offered by our many political physicians.
Ponder, for example, this scenario – sure to be controversial even in its rhetorical form, as today’s muddled standards for political incorrectness deem the simple asking of such an outrage, indicative of racial thought and tendency.
A newly-hired corporate intern is asked to deliver an important telephone message to Shakira Jones, a public relations officer who, at the time, is enjoying a pre-Christmas celebration in the company’s cafeteria with two dozen fellow employees. Music blares from a rented jukebox to such volume that the intern is unable to make audible her request for identification of Ms. Jones.
Among the sea of white faces, the intern then notices a single black woman seated at the rear table. Time is ticking; the telephone caller needs an immediate response.
The question: Should the intern approach this woman based on reasonable awareness of black society’s usage of exotic-sounding names, or would doing so constitute harmful stereotypical behavior and blatant racism?
As further challenge, change the names of the intended message recipients to Stephen O’Malley or Abu Muhammed, where the intern encounters amidst a roomful of Caucasians, respectively, a lone shocking redhead or a gentleman of seeming Middle Eastern descent.
In a world of common sense, as epitomized by Paine’s call for simplicity in Common Sense, the intern would guiltlessly approach the black woman, the redhead and the Middle Easterner based upon general knowledge of the various ethnic names particular to the various ethnicities.
In a time of complexity, however, as we now face, from such contemplation springs racial profiling laws, the likes of which indubitably hamper our nation’s ability to use rational strategies in its war against terrorism. Witness, for example, the medicines prescribed by this country’s various political doctors that suggest airport searchers must conduct equally vigorous investigations of elderly women carrying knitting needles as for traveling Arabs checking suspicious packages.
But our country’s deviance from simplicity – from common sense and from Common Sense – does not stop with racial profiling.
Indeed, consider this: environmental legislation that reflects concern for, say, plants over the natural rights, needs and desires of humans to freely live, develop and produce; hate crime laws that violate constitutional equal protection clauses and poison the judicial system by requiring both judge and jury to determine the state of a heart; gun regulations that seek to eradicate all ownership and carry rights based on fantasy beliefs that criminals will then relinquish their weapons, too; heavily subsidized education systems with officials who blame funding rather than parental, union or political influences for their students’ failures; escalating federal budgets that politicians seek to balance by inflicting onto the people burdensome taxes and hidden levies, often unconstitutional in creation and almost always dismissive of any notion and possibility of government waste.
Made worse by the infusion of global law into our supposed sovereign government, the present state of needless clutter in these areas is sure to spiral into chaos, as the multitude of political doctors offering anti-American and therefore quack medicines – who come from a range of practices, from special interest groups to the United Nations – confound our senses to such extent as to render us blind to the true remedy.
The cure for these societal and political ills, of course, stems from 1776 and the entreaty of a scholar who found justness began with simplicity.
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