COMMON SENSE by Thomas Payne

As I have said in a previous Blog, I really don’t know all the ins and outs of Obamacare, or the government budgeting process, or exactly how bills are passed. I have a life that fills in my time, but these issues are important, and do affect me. So, I do just like I do for things in life like computer repair, plumbing, expressing dog’s anal glands, etc. All of those issues are important in my life, but maybe a bit too complicated for me to really know enough to not to find myself in trouble.  Therefore, I get myself “people” to handle those issues for me.  The same is true for politics. I get people to do the research for me. “people” are the likes of Rush, Hannity. Beck and Levin. Why do I use those folks as my people and not Maddow, Mathews, Schultz or Toure? Because I have listened to all of the above, and the people I have chosen make common sense to me; they describe life the way I have experienced it. The others? Not so much.

I have used the words “common sense,” but sense, as we all know, is anything but “common.” We may even find in our short time here together that some of you won’t agree with what I would call Common Sense (CS), and that is probably why we have such division in this country. Let’s just try out a few things.

Obamacare--We had a health care system that had many flaws that did need to be addressed. Common Sense (CS) tells me the government should have taken each problem area and addressed each individually, but the administration decided to address about every possible issue in the medical world, short of expressing anal glands,  in a seven foot high stack of regulations that CS tells me no one person, nor gaggle of persons, could really understand.  CS tells me that when you introduce 40 million new people into the system with the same number (or less) of doctors, most people would not find that helpful. CS tells me that the way the rate structure is designed will eventually produce a single payer, socialized medical system, just as President Obama has been quoted as wanting (part of “fundamentally transforming the country”).  Once the government has total control of the health system and the money set aside (I’m sure in a lock box like Social Security) for them to distribute, CS tells me here comes the “Death Panels.”  Of course they would not be called that, and will be vehemently denied, but “something” has to say how the health care money will be spent—what criteria will they use?  CS tells me it will be some combination of age and expense. Ninety –five year olds with new pace makers will be a thing of the past, which is OK unless you happen to be a ninety-five year old who needs a pace maker..

Gun Control—CS tells me if laws are passed restricting the amount or types of guns one can have, only those people who obey laws will be affected and they are not the ones we should be worried about.

Global warming—Of course it is/will warm. Then it is/will warm again. The earth’s climate has been changing since the earth was invented. CS tells me that humans contributed to the climate changes, but I’m hard pressed to believe that humans caused climate change which has been going on before humans existed. What caused it before and why is that not the cause of it now?

President Obama— CS tells me a young man with virtually no management experience, other than managing a few members of his Senate staff, (and that was for only about 140 days most of which were spent campaigning), a man with little or no budgeting experience who has spent most of his formative years outside of mainland USA, was, surprisingly, not ready to “supervise” 300 million people with a “budget” in the trillions.  I think I hit that one right on the head.

Negations/Compromise—Republicans would sign a bill putting the government back to work if the administration will agree to delay Obamacare for one year and require Congress and the administration to abide by the same healthcare the peeps are being required to live (and die) by. The President said he would only sign the bill if it were “clean” (no Obamacare attachment). So, if either side gives in the government goes back to work. Neither side gives in. CS tells me both sides therefore are to “blame” for the government not working. Pointing fingers at the “other” side is just for the benefit of the low information voter.

There is a distinct possibility I may be wrong on some of the above issues, but for me they are just common sense conclusions arrived at through my life experiences and reinforced by my people. Since we have not all shared the same experiences, or have the same people, we tend to view things in life through the bottom of different beer mugs. Maybe we can never convince others of the error of their ways, but hopefully we can work on ourselves to better understand how anybody “could ever think that way.”