Common Sense vs. Lack of Same: Some Examples

Let’s start with lack of common sense, since that tends to be more fun, unless it involves taxpayer dollars.

This one has no rational explanation, courtesy of the U.S. State Department.  Thankfully, as far as we know, it doesn’t involve a whole lot of money (compared to everything else the federal government has done since January of 2021).  But it provides us with some absolute nonsense, nonetheless. Your Department of State has given a $20,000 grant to a “cultural center” in the nation of Ecuador for “three workshops, 12 drag queen performances and a two-minute documentary.” You read that correctly.  Taxpayer dollars are funding drag queen performances, theoretically in the name of “diversity and inclusion,” of course.  More precisely, it’s part of State’s “public diplomacy initiative” aimed at among other things ‘advancing our national interests’ while achieving “U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives.”  There’s more D.C. rationale listed, but it makes no more sense than the previous vague claims.  How on this earth will drag queen performances do anything at all to “advance” anything at all, other than to perhaps convince Ecuadorians that these dragsters may be typical Americans, and therefore, best not to bother trekking all the way to our southern border after all!  If that proves to be the case, maybe we didn’t need that border fence after all. Instead just more exported diplomacy-enhancing, national image-recasting drag “ladies.”

Next, absent true interest in voting integrity, the D.C. City Council has voted, unanimously, to give voting rights for local school board and mayoral elections “to foreign nationals, including newly arrived illegal aliens.” The measure now goes to D.C. Democrat mayor who “is expected to sign it.”  How many additional ‘voters’ would that entail?  Oh, about 50,000 foreign nationals & illegal aliens (the latter only if they remain in the city).  We’ll have to see if this passes court review, to be hopefully achieved quickly.  The New York Supreme Court vacated a similar measure by the New York City Council.  If that voting had been allowed there, it would have added almost one-million foreign nationals to their municipal voting rolls!!  These efforts all need to be struck down by courts.  Allowing non-citizens to vote, even in just local elections, dilutes and diminishes the value and participation of true citizen voters.

In Oklahoma, the state there executed this month a prisoner sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of his infant daughter, which he was found to have caused by bending her spine backwards until it broke.  A heinous crime, no question. The lack of common-sense here, by Oklahoma and so many other states, is that this individual was sentenced to death, and it took close to twenty-years to carry it out! That’s twenty-years of feeding, housing, and medically caring for this person, at taxpayer expense.  Yes, there are inevitably numerous appeals over the years (too many appeals and too many years), and that aspect of our justice system likely need examining, although we probably never will.  Yes, the courts are bogged down most of the time with case overload (perhaps not as much in cities with insane no-cash-bail policies!). But we need to set a maximum time for legitimate appeals (to be further certain of guilt or innocence), say five-years, and failing an innocence judgment, the sentence should be carried out.  Both for the sake of taxpayers, and for the justice of the family having lost a loved one to a grievous act of violence.

This next one may not be as much a lack of common sense, as it is being neither fair, right, nor just, for taxpayers. The Department of Defense, now going too ‘woke’ for most of us concerned about the dominant effectiveness of our military, men and women, of courage and commitment, who are intended to, when required, fight and win America’s armed conflicts, and not to be sidetracked by mandated civilian social causes and instruction.  One example of yielding to civilian liberal social and political pressure, is the announcement that the “Pentagon will pay for service members and their dependents to travel to abort their unborn babies,” that is, when such care is not available within the area of a service member’s permanent duty station. Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) responded to the DoD’s announcement without holding back: “Instead of focusing on national security, taking care of our troops, and defending our way of life, the Biden administration is hell-bent on using taxpayer resources to help kill unborn children.” The issue is one of whether U.S. taxpayers should have to pay for a private citizen’s abortion care (military or civilian), although  Medicare & Medicaid may cover depending on circumstance and state.  Medicare will only pay for an abortion if the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, or if the woman’s life is endangered.  Medicaid generally adheres to those same circumstances for coverage.  However, currently 16 U.S. states go beyond those limits and use state funds for Medicaid enrollees.

And now, time for some examples of the rule of common sense. Back in July, the Governor of Delaware signed into law a bill allowing mail-in voting for any reason.  All fine, except for that ‘any reason’ part, which happens to be against the state’s own constitution, one that apparently does list specific instances where a person may be permitted to vote by mail.   So, the new law was challenged immediately in court. And the court there has ruled that Delaware’s Constitution “does not allow mass vote by mail.” “This court ruling illustrates that we are returning our elections to follow constitutional order,” wrote the author of this article, concluding that: “In 2020, elections across the country were operating like the wild west with rules being suspended and last-minute changes.” Hopefully, this Delaware ruling will be a positive sign for lawful election procedures carried out across the nation this November.

Back in August, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey ordered that 122 large metal shipping containers were to be put into place at the state’s border line with Mexico, in order to fill the gap left open, when Mr. Biden ended the Trump plan for a full protective southern border wall. According to CBP agents, those shipping containers, double-stacked, proved to be quite effective in stopping the illegal migrant flow where they were placed. Now the Biden administration, specifically the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation, has said that: “The unauthorized placement of those containers constitutes a violation of federal law and is a trespass against the United States.” Purportedly, some of the containers “are on the edge of an American Indian reservation,” which may be the reason for the federal “trespassing” charge.  The Arizona Governor responded forcefully: “Arizona has had enough. For the last two years, Arizona has made every attempt to work with Washington to address the crisis at our border. Time and time again we’ve stepped in to clean up their mess. Arizonans can’t wait any longer for the federal government to deliver on their delayed promises.” A common sense and very inventive way to effectively plug the gap that remained along the Arizona section of the border. May Governor Ducey continue to push back at the, in this case, pompous order and attitude of this administration that refuses to, not only complete the intended fence, but to do anything significant to stop the southern border illegal immigrant stampede.

And to wrap up this special edition, the words of former acting director of ICE, Tom Homan, during a TV interview, who concluded that, through lack of federal administrative effectiveness and desire to do the right thing (that is, stop the illegal migrant flow), anymore, the Customs & Border Patrol feels “more like a tourism agency (rather) than a law enforcement one.” That is, being forced to simply facilitate the arrival of illegals, and their disbursement within America, as if these hordes were simply visiting tourists, rather than permanent (their intention), uninvited, and very likely soon-to-be-residents. Sad, common sense, analogy, given the reality of our border situation, under this refusing-to-do-what’s-right administration, by failing to enforce our existing immigration laws.

And we’ll leave it, for now, with this very accurate (sadly), common sense, author unknown, definition of socialism: “A socialist is someone who wants everything you have, except your job.”

 

(Drag queens via breitbart.com, Spencer Lindquist, 10-20-22; D.C. foreign nationals voting locally via beitbart.com, John Binder, 10-20-22; Oklahoma prisoner execution via dailymail.com, Sophie Mann, 10-20-22; DoD paying for abortion travel via dailysignal.com, Mary Margaret Olohan, 10-20-22; Delaware election law ruling via frontpagemagazine.com, J. Christian Adams, 10-20-22; Arizona vs. federal government regarding the border gap via justthenews.com, Madeline Hubbard, 10-20-22; CPB as a tourism agency via foxnews.com, Fox TV Interview, 6-25-22).