A reader remarks on my assertion concerning common sense in political communiqués:
I don’t believe there’s any correlation between commonsense and simple at all. I see the usage as a counter to the GOPs well-worn BS memes in the counter direction (it’s too hard, nobody agrees, there’s no sense, freedom baby, guns!, 2nd amendment, many code words for racism, etc.). Americans appear to be stupid mostly — a meme is all they can digest.
However, another long running GOP theme has been the decentralization of power aka the States are the laboratories of democracy, and I think it’s fairly easy to argue that this is similar and associated with my assertion – that there’s a line of thinking that most problems should be solvable at the local level, if indeed they’re problems at all. Join that with the recent Rep. Ryan assertion that experts are unnecessary and that common folks can fix just about anything….
Because we believe that all of us are equal, we believe there is no problem that all of us – working together – cannot solve. We believe every person has a piece of this puzzle, and only when we work together do we get the whole picture.
Finally, a defense of Americans: I think, on average, we’re just too busy:
By the time we’re done with everything else, we’re too exhausted to understand the issues. Which leaves me to wonder if this trend towards over work is on purpose…
