Make Sense Common Again — By John Reed

Make Sense Common Again
Country folk of a certain age have wonderful phrases about the important things in life. One of my favorites is about someone with no common sense: “they can’t pour piss out of a boot with directions on the heel.”
We don’t need to know how some poor boot became urinal in the first place. Still, that’s an apt description for so many in positions of power these days. A great many of the challenges we face boil down to decisions made by someone, or many, with no common sense. Here are couple of examples:
If I drop a letter off at our local post office, addressed to someone here, it first goes to Jacksonville and then back here. Someone way up the food chain in the postal service either wants to deliberately make things cost more so they can justify hiking stamp prices (again), or they just don’t have any common sense.
A local business has seen their shipping costs quadruple over the last year. Shippers offer plenty of believable excuses: inflation, fuel price hikes, supply chain or labor issues.
Maybe there’s something to those. Here’s another possibility: one large shipment from overseas arrived by ship at the port in Brunswick. Offloaded? Nope. Went to New York. Got loaded on a train. Brought here? Nope. Trained to Jacksonville. Then finally trucked up to the store. Common sense wonders how many union workers in the shipping industry got a cut of that unnecessarily contorted product path.
We can all find national issues that are being handled through idealism instead of pragmatism. Problem is, the vast majority of people don’t have the time, money, or patience to indulge in fantasy. If you look at those who are directing policy these days, take a look at their income statements.
It’s easy to push for electric cars if you can afford to drop $60K on one. It’s easy to yell “defund the police” when you’re hiring private security for yourself. It’s easy to promote open borders when you live in a private gated community…like Martha’s Vineyard.
Before the ink-wasters drop a few thousand words next week, there’s plenty of nonsensical bloviating coming from the far Right as well. Even here at home, common sense doesn’t always rule.
Next time one of our local governmental bodies meet, be sure to keep your boots on.