By Tom Klocek

When I was in high school, one of my teachers liked to say that common sense really wasn’t very common. Still, most people had a sense of reality — men were men, women were women, there was a God, the Constitution enshrined God-given rights due to all Americans, and so on. We said The Pledge of Allegiance every day, some of whose key phrases include “one nation under God” and “indivisible.”

Today, the elite tend to ignore or deny common sense, perhaps because it has “common” in the name and that would be beneath them.

The view from the heights means that their opinions, perspectives, ideology, and so on are so much more important and virtuous than anyone else’s. Never mind that, historically, implementation of such ideology has been more disastrous than beneficial.

But in order to bolster their position, these modern-day pharisees work hard to fight against what they claim to be disinformation by waves of their own disinformation. Through obfuscation, lies, misreporting, or failing to report key information, they confuse the populace in general so that logic is overcome (despite Kamala Harris’s love for Venn diagrams) and people’s innate common sense is suppressed. And then, when the results of their misguided efforts show themselves to be the disaster that common sense would have predicted, they deny culpability or make excuses, such as Bill Gates telling the world that all of his private jet flights are OK because he fights so hard for green policies. And if all of that doesn’t work, they’ll just find some way to imply that it’s someone else’s fault that their claims didn’t work out.

These people exist at all levels. I met a man once who, though Catholic, proudly boasted that he always voted for Democrats despite their avid pro-abortion politics, but then made up for it by donating to pro-life causes or praying in front of abortion clinics. Like the elites and the politicians who boast their devout Catholicism, he could not recognize the dichotomy between these two lines of thought and action. C.S. Lewis aptly described such a situation in his classic The Screwtape Letters, as the demon Screwtape tells his apprentice (Wormwood), “Your man is accustomed to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head.”

Obviously, this condition affects a large portion of the population. We see this in the failure to notice some of the most obvious things. For decades, the Democrats have touted taxing the rich and that the rich should pay their fair share. However, the percentages have remained fairly constant for at least 20 years, with the top 10% of earners paying about 90% of the taxes. Similarly, the gap between the rich and the poor always seems to widen during Democrat administrations. The complaints that the Trump tax cuts would hurt the Treasury proved false — federal revenues increased under the Trump tax cuts. Common sense from almost every economist said that taxes should not be increased during or on the cusp of a recession, yet this administration has raised taxes, all of which end up adversely affecting those with lower income more than the upper-income individuals.

Almost anyone should have been able to see that the country is not ready for a massive shift to green energy. Common sense would dictate that it would be foolish to try to make such a drastic change in energy and energy sources without having a plan. And yet, that is what this administration did. It canceled programs that would maintain current energy sources while not developing new sources and without recognizing that neither the technology, production capability, nor resources were at a stage that a smooth sustainable transition could be made. And there was no contingency plan for unexpected conditions (e.g., winter weather). If I had a subordinate working for me who was as inadequately prepared for effective execution, I would have fired him/her long ago.

Supposedly, the drive toward green energy sources is to “save the planet.” This administration blindly follows the mantra that climate change will destroy the planet despite the fact that the planet’s climate has always changed, and the planet is still here, and life goes on (God is still in charge). And yet pushing the policies they want will actually do more damage to the planet than a sensible, planned transition would with balanced energy sources between fossil fuels, “renewable” energy sources, and nuclear.

We also see this in the effect many of these programs have on the environment, which their implementation is supposed to protect. Countless birds have been killed by windmills and solar panels; fishermen are complaining that their fishing grounds are being adversely affected by these installations; and the materials from which they are made are not recyclable or reusable and add to the landfills. They are of limited effectiveness in cold (especially extreme cold), in some cases requiring fossil fuel generators to provide warming for the turbines or just to support the grid. Manufacturers of electric vehicles caution owners against using their heaters during cold weather.

Nancy Pelosi ruled the House Democrats with an iron fist, often fighting against commonsense legislation because it wasn’t part of the leftist agenda. Consequently, despite periods when they held both legislative houses and the White House, they couldn’t pass immigration reform, nor could they work with Republicans to even enforce existing laws through budgetary and other legislation. As such, for two years we have been invaded by millions of people, many of whom are criminals or potential terrorists and who have no interest in being law-abiding citizens. Human trafficking, murder, violence, increased deadly drug traffic, and destruction of private property have accompanied and characterized this unimpeded assault on our nation and its security.

There’s a lot of common sense spelled out in our Constitution. This document has guided us and provided for the growth and development of a nation that has saved the world from domination by Nazis and communists and other tyrannical bad actors for over two centuries. The most basic commonsense aspect of the Constitution was voiced by Benjamin Franklin when asked what they had accomplished at the convention in Philadelphia: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Because of the failure of public education, too many people do not understand the Electoral College and how it works to protect the interests of all as a bulwark against the tyranny of the mob. The elites on the Left think that they are running a dictatorship, judging by the actions of the president, their total disregard for key aspects of governing, their disregard for the Rule of Law, their neglect of our borders, and ignoring the needs of our nation as a whole.

Many states are trying to protect their borders and citizens, relying on the words of Article I of the Constitution concerning such action: “unless actually invaded or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” However, most of the population is unaware of or does not understand much of the Constitution, especially with the anointed ones’ current advocacy of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to the exclusion of the actual principles and guidelines contained therein.

Racism was on a downward trend in our nation. Opportunities abounded for all, especially after quotas and affirmative action were put aside. African-American employment and income reached record-high levels during the Trump administration. This was a problem for the Left. To reinflame everyone, they claimed systemic racism existed throughout the country and particularly in critical organizations such as the military and police departments. Welcome the “woke” agenda. Even black conservatives were labeled racist and white supremacists. Unfortunately, the tragic George Floyd and Michael Brown incidents only poured gasoline on the flames. Although the police were exonerated in the Michael Brown incident by a black president’s own Justice Department, the death of George Floyd was easily attributed to police abuse despite the contributing issues of Floyd’s mental, physical, and drug-induced condition. The failure of all levels of government to do their jobs, with support from the media, allowed for the destruction of cities, and efforts at sanity and restoration of calm were thwarted.

Thus, it became possible for large portions of the population to buy the argument that the way to fight racism was through racism. Voila! Critical race theory (CRT), a Marxist based, anti-American, anti-family, anti-God system of destruction of democracy and common sense. A government established on the basis of CRT would result in the end of property rights, individual liberties, government by non-elected officials not answerable to the electorate, and, ultimately, communism. Communism in the 20th century killed over 100 million people. But that’s a fact of history often ignored by the Left or not taught in schools.

Another opportunity creating fear in public and coercing them into compromising their God-given rights came with the COVID-19 “pandemic.” Fear was fanned so wildly that a disease that, if caught early and treated quickly, could be defeated was allowed to close churches (while allowing bars and abortion facilities to remain open). The imposition of masking, long proven prior to this as ineffective, ruled the day for two years. And despite current studies that support the uselessness of masking, many locations are actually considering reinstating them for certain groups.

The development of so-called vaccines that have proven to be only marginally effective has further allowed this tyranny to continue. All of this for a disease that has a roughly 99% recovery rate. At the same time, these “scientists” continue to deny the value of acquired immunity or low susceptibility of significant portions of the population in order to force compliance with dictatorial policies on everyone.

Is there a path back to common sense? Whenever situations get so out of hand that mere correction cannot restore teamwork and unity, major sports teams “go back to the basics.” We hope that we don’t have to undergo the wrath of God that was inflicted on the world when He destroyed it by flood and saved Noah to restart humanity (Genesis 6:7-22). Going back to basics would, however, involve bringing God back into our public lives. It would require the schools to teach real history and not the trumped-up revisionist history of such programs as the 1619 Project.

It would also require us to actually teach American history and the Constitution. The warts in our history should not be ignored, but the teaching ought to show how they were overcome, as well as American exceptionalism. Instead of CRT, we should be teaching critical thinking and stop making stupid statements like “mathematics is racist.” This falls into the same category as a woman, selected because of her sex and nominated for the Supreme Court, not being able to identify herself as a woman because she wasn’t a biologist. They should have followed that question by asking her if she identified as an American.

“The sane would do no good if they made themselves mad to help madmen.” —C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce