Why is the human race not progressing? Just take a look at any election campaign debate and then try to figure out how far civilization has actually progressed since David kicked the tar out of Goliath. Oh, we’ve come ahead technically and our cars are more comfortable than the oxcarts of old, but we haven’t improved much in the way we treat our fellow mortals or creatures. We have brilliant people, experts in their field – very good at what they do, but don’t ask them to do anything. Our education system is somehow pumping young heads full of the information necessary to become informed in their chosen careers. There should be room in those wee heads for all that learning and some common sense too. Maybe the education system isn’t to blame for this – maybe evolution has shifted into reverse and it’s causing this phenomenon. If so, we may soon find ourselves back in the trees swinging happily by our tails. Common sense is an early casualty of a declining society.
Do you remember when common sense was taken for granted and the lack of it caused you to stop and wonder? Those days are past – you are now used to people making bonehead decisions. Our federal and provincial governments over the years have trained us to accept idiotic schemes as a normal occurrence. They are experts at under whelming us with their knowledge and cunning. Our ancestors would have grabbed their flintlocks the first time the government picked their pockets, but we are now acclimatized to ineptitude and have become too civilized to take the appropriate measures. It’s our common sense that is waning.
We don’t expect much from our respective governments anymore. We now understand that they are not there for us – they are there for themselves. They have a good life with big pay, lots of time off along with great pensions. The sad thing is that we are fine with that. We are so nice that we don’t mind working half of the year for government coffers before we have made a dollar for ourselves. Are we good guys or what? They spend our money like we have an endless supply of it. Governments weren’t always like that. People had enough common sense at one time to yell when politicians took such liberties. They would even go so far as to vote them out of office at the first opportunity.
Money means nothing to our chosen leaders. Of course, if it was their own money they might be more careful. I’ll say it again, the government has no money; it’s our money that they are so free with. They spend money in even numbers, thousands, millions, billions, without a care in the world. For example, they will give a contract usually to some friend of the party for three million dollars. How come the cost of the project is never two million five hundred and seventy thousand, four hundred and thirty-five dollars and twenty-five cents? Someone’s keeping a lot of change here!
The absolute waste of our money doesn’t bother us now that our common sense has been strategically removed. Don’t ask me how we have ended up this way, but I suspect that there is something to my theory on reverse evolution. The fact that some bureaucrats receive a bonus just for showing up at the office should gag most folks in the real world, but it doesn’t. I have worked for companies — I’ll admit it was a while back, that if an employee didn’t show up for work, he’d be fired just to set an example to others. People had much better attendance records back then.
Government leaders try to make up for their lack of common sense by over governing. It starts at the municipal level. They feel that they should hire professional help to inform you that you shouldn’t drill your well in the middle of the septic tank. You may say that you weren’t planning on drilling there in the first place, but save your breath. They handle the puzzle by the over-kill method. They tell you that you must move your well four miles behind your house and enclose it in a cement bunker.
A wise man once told me that he never missed a chance to vote, but he had one iron clad rule. He always voted against whoever happened to be in power. I questioned his theory and his answer was, “I like to throw them out of office before they get too careless with my money.” I remember laughing at him at the time, but I’m not laughing now. That fellow still had some common sense. I guess that was before all of this reverse evolution started. Dale Dawson