Common Sense v. Uncommon Sense

Common sense is an abstract term that means different things to different people. Thomas Paine wrote the pamphlet "Common Sense' that built the arguments for the American revolution. Thomas Paine (February 9, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was an author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founders of the United States. He had a grammar school education an era in which education was not compulsory. Paine is one of those poeple who had some uncommon sense.

Paine stated that the distinction between kings and subjects was a false one. he also believed:

• It was absurd for an island to rule a continent.
• America was not a "British nation"; it was composed of influences and peoples from all of Europe.
• Even if Britain were the "mother country" of America, that made her actions all the more horrendous, for no mother would harm her children so brutally.
• Being a part of Britain would drag America into unnecessary European wars, and keep it from the international commerce at which America excelled.
• The distance between the two nations made governing the colonies from England unwieldy. If some wrong were to be petitioned to Parliament, it would take a year before the colonies received a response.
• The New World was discovered shortly before the Reformation. The Puritans believed that God wanted to give them a safe haven from the persecution of British rule.
• Britain ruled the colonies for its own benefit, and did not consider the best interests of the colonists in governing them.

The Revolutionary Era was a time when monarchs still believed in the divine right of kings and that Kings had been chosen by God to lead their countries. Imagine a colonist stating that there was no difference between a king and his subject in the 1700s!

Where, of course, has been the common sense of the GOP in the last eight years?  It preferred military force to diplomacy and blundered into Iraq. There are 4,345 US dead as of September 20, 2009. As of April 6, 2009 there were 31,102 wounded in action. Iraqi causlaties vary from 151,000 to more than a million. Five million children in Iraq are orphans which represents half of Iraq's children.. The cost of this war will easily exceed $1 trillion dollars.

Where was the vaulted GOP common sense in Hurricane Katrina? Louisiana is still reeling from that hurricane. Because the GOP prefers to invest the nations blood and treasure into defense, it has neglected the public infrastructure. The flooding of New Orleans was an accident waiting to happen.

And where on God's Green Earth is the GOP common sense in governing the US? The GOP lead the US into a Depression in the 1920s and almost repeated the feat during the Bush administration. Over the years Republicans ignored the lessons of the Great Depression and even tried to deregulate banking of all things.

Does America really want more leaders like Gerge W. Bush and Sarah Palin who are under-educated ideologues? George W. Bush was an underachiever in college and got into Harvard because of special grandfather rule that was instituted the year he applied to school. John McCain finished disgracefully at the bottom one per cent of his class at Annmapolis. Sarah Palin attended five different colleges in six years and left the the University of Hawaii to attend a school in Idaho because she was uncomfortable around Asians.

Rightardia' view is that the US needs its best and brightest running the country. We do think 'business common sense' is a prerequisite for an effective government leader or  administrator. We are opposed to Forest Gump types running the government. We are elated that a young intellectual like Obama is president and running the country. America has high expectations for Obama. We think many of them will be realised with a little patience.

source: Wikipedia

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