Common Sense: An Endangered Species?

Perhaps it’s been said before – “common sense isn’t so common anymore.”

Maybe even, at one time, or another, you’ve said as much.

Common sense, of course, is a thought process that implies a.) one is thinking, and b.) one is using process of reasoning.

And, without exception, EVERYONE thinks. Not everyone exercises good judgment.

Some take common sense for granted, while others do not.

Common sense may arise from experience, and/or education, and sometimes, experience is a harsh taskmaster – lessons learned aren’t always learned the easiest, or best way. But, it’s education nevertheless.

Point being, is that when we think, we use our highest and best faculties, which separates us and makes us unique in the animal kingdom.

So let’s quickly talk about common sense and politics – an area in which many seem to disagree, some even vehemently, and unfortunately, sometimes violently.

When we fight, we often “lose our mind,” and are motivated and actuated by feelings… which can often betray us. Yet, even in structured fighting, such as war, we employ our faculties of reason to win the victory. War, its strategies and tactics, is studied, and taught. So that very act itself demonstrates that our thinking faculties are a higher order than feeling.

Note that instead of saying “I think,” many people say, “I feel.”

That, I think, is a mistake to say that one “feels” rather than “thinks” when expressing an opinion, for it – the feeling – is something which rationally, one cannot argue against. Feelings may be pleasant, or unpleasant. And if one feels this way, or that way, it is a merely a feeling – and may be, and often is, fleeting, or passing – it is temporal, and lasts only briefly. Consider the feeling of being sad, bloated, or even gassy.

This too, shall pass.

But let’s not delve too deeply into the matter, not to become too philosophical or analytical, per se, and suffice it to say that we want to share some common sensical thoughts – ones that many, if not most, or, even all, could agree upon – in the realm of politics.

It is, after all, political season, and we human beings are political animals.

Green New Deal? How about Economic Infrastructure New Deal, instead?

Whether one “believes” Climate Change is “real,” or not, is totally a specious argument.

Specious means “superficially plausible, but actually wrong.”

Why is it specious?

Arguing about what causes rain while your roof is leaking is pretty stupid, don’t you think?

And yet, that’s exactly what’s happening.

This map shows federal flood damage claims from 2008 to 2018. Flood risk in many parts of the U.S. is on the rise, in part because climate change is driving more frequent and intense storms, higher seas and extreme rain. Extreme rain in 2013 caused catastrophic flooding in Boulder County, CO, including dangerous flash floods. Similar storms in 2011, 2014 and 2019 flooded much of Holt County, MO. –– Flood Insurance Claims Per 1,000 People, 2010-2018

Some people (Climate Change Science deniers) are arguing about the causes, while the devastation it wreaks continues UNABATED.

Instead, what we NEED TO DO is REBUILD -and- EXPAND our crumbling national Economic Infrastructure to – as much as possible – reduce the influence these events have upon us.

Even BIG INSURANCE companies all agree that the economic losses our nation is suffering CANNOT be sustained without serious lasting damage to our national economy.

The Geneva Association (properly, The “International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics”) is a leading international think tank of the insurance industry, which detects early ideas and emerging debates on political, economic and societal issues concerning the insurance industry.

In November 2018, they published a research paper titled “Global Weather Catastrophes, Trends, Losses, Insurance Costs Source: Managing Physical Climate Risk—Leveraging Innovations in Catastrophe Risk Modelling,” and in it, wrote in part that,

“Over the last three and a half decades, we have observed a trend of rising economic losses from extreme events globally. Between 1980 and 2017, Munich Re’s NatCatSERVICE reported 17,320 disaster loss events. Of those, 91.2% were caused by weather-related extremes (meteorological, hydrological and climatological events), accounting for 49.2% of the total of 1,723,738 lives lost, 79.8% of the total USD 4,615 billion in reported economic losses and 90.1% of total insured losses of USD 1,269 bn.

“In 2017, weather-related extremes accounted for 97% of total reported economic losses and 98.2% of