Perspectives and politics

Historically, most of what are considered the most influential philosophers of western civilization have skirted around the issue of how, and why, people percieve things the way they do. David Hume probably spends the most time talking about a persons perspectives in his book A Treatise of Human Nature. Hume, preferring to use the word "perception", never went so far as to discuss how a person forms their perceptions of the world around them. (To be clear, the words perception and perspective are synonomous: their difference in meaning is only in dialectic position-the former is third person, the later is first person. For the purpose of this essay I will stray between both words as determined by context). By and large, the rest of the greatest thinkers of western civilization either completely avoided the issue entirely, or creatively tried to ignore it in such a manner that their logic contained serious holes once it was realized what they were trying to avoid...

For as long as I can remember, I have always believed that one of the biggest things which differentiate, and separate, one person, and groups of people, from others is our "perspectives"-our personal "takes" on things; how we "see" things"; the side or positions we take on issues; our point of view; etc. In sum, it is our perspective on things which directly forms the opinions we all develop regarding all issues. The problem with this, in my opinion, is that people have no cognition for why they have the points of view on issues that they have: i.e. they can't explain themselves. When pressed, most people can't actually explain their opinions-regardless of where they are "coming from".
As we have progressed further into the Obama presidency, and America as a whole has become more and more polarized ideologically on all issues, this problem has become more apparent to me-particularly given the fact that the extreme fringes of our political spectrum are in control: Socialists, disguising themselves as Liberals, on the left; and Religious Collectivists, disguising themselves as Conservatives, on the right.

We are lucky in that we live in the greatest country on Earth. We have the right to hold and express any opinion, from any perspective, we wish. But what good are those opinions-our points of view-if you can't explain them? If you can't explain what makes yours more right than anothers?
Liberals, led by their President of "change" claim to be for the working man. They claim to be for helping out the poor; for the betterment of society; for social equality-yet they support programs that are destructive to all those ideals. And when pressed for explanations they fall back on claims of racism and conspiracy theories, and then go on to spin their own words over and over again, in a fruitless effort to confuse those listening.
Conservatives claim to be supportive of Free Market Capitalism and to support the Constitution as it was originally written-which means allowing people the freedom of choice that comes with being an American. But the minute that freedom of choice conflicts with their religious zealousy they forgot what they say; the minute that passing legislation which would bring financial equality to all means a lessening of their financial clout, they suddenly back pedal; the minute that their words means bringing those who they dont like, up to their level, they suddenly change their tune.
Due to the inabilities of both sides to communicate and express themselves logically on all issues, the masses-those vast majority of us in "the middle"-just tune out those in power, because neither makes sense:
How can Mr. Obama, and his political party, stand against immigration legislation in Arizona that does nothing but help enforce the laws regarding the issue found in the Constitution?
How can Republicans be for freedom of choice and personal responsibility, when they rail so hard against issues like abortion and religious freedoms?
How can Democrats be for lowering taxes on the "middle class", when their over all economic policies reduce incomes as a whole, while increasing the welfare state?
How can Republicans claim to be for peace when they are the first to offer our military for "support" for any one who asks for it?...

Using our perspectives to form our opinions is only natural-and fortunately we have a right to do so in America; but what good is doing so if those opinions are going to be illogically based and hypocritical? What good are the opinions of our leaders if even the most simplest of thinkers have no way to rationalize them?

A year of study

It has been almost a year since I last wrote on my blog. My year of absense was intentional and put to good use: in studying philosophy, politics, economics and socio economic theory. I was fortunate in that I had the time to devote to learning more about such 4 intense and complicated subjects so as to provide better content and educated opinions in my writings.
The time has also allowed my passion for expressing and sharing my personal views to come back...

Catching up with the NFL: Do my Lions have some hope?!

Before making any assumptions about the NFL season (and the Detroit Lions) I took the high road this year and waited until after the Thanksgiving games before making any "official" decisions on any one team. Sure, it may be the middle of a week of the NFL schedule, but, considering I'm a Lions fan (yeah, I know, but at least I can admit it) it makes some sense.

Since I have a lot to say about the Lions-and their latest Thanksgiving Day fiasco-I'll get to everything else in the NFL first.

Let's face it-there really isn't very much parody in the NFL this year. Through 10 and a half weeks we have 4 really good football teams: the Patriots (as always this century), the Colts (likewise), the Saints, and the Vi-queens (sorry, I can't help it-they are my most hated team of the NFC North).

On the flip side we have twice as many lousy teams: the Lions (as always in the 21st century), the Buc's (really not surprised), the Rams (ditto on the lack of surprise), the Seahawks (just goes to show you how important depth is in the face of massive injuries), the Redskins (wtf happened here?), the Browns (like my Lions, as expected), the Bills (Owens really proved to be the "missing link" there, hasn't he?) and the Raiders (so much for talent).

The remaining 20 teams are lumped in the middle. the Bengals (!!!?) are the only real surprise of the group-they will most likely end up sweeping their divisional games. The only question left is whether they will get a home play off game because they aren't catching the Colts or the Patriots.

Denver-come on, did we really think Kyle Orton was that good? I didn't, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he proved what he was: a lousy quarterback. If he had a good running back this year, all he would have had to do is "manage" the game, but with no running game defenses can easily confuse him. Therefore, pencil in the Chargers as that divisions winner-again.

Chicago-way to high of expectations by Cutler given they have no other weapons around him and a mediocre offensive line at best; and losing Urlanbacher guaranteed they had no chance of making the playoffs.

The Cardinals are still the Cardinals-great passing game, little running game, but do have an improved D. All in all, they have the luxury of taking advantage of a lousy division.

Green Bay seems to be coming on, but, come on: anyone with my home team on their schedule twice (for now I hope) should have a good chance of making the playoffs.

Nice to see V. Young grow up-but how the Titans could start off 0-6 still baffles me.

The Steelers will have difficulty defending their title given that they will most likely be competing for a wild card slot given the emergence of the Bengals (!!!!?) as their Division's powerhouse.

The rest aren't worthy of conversation-they are what they are-mediocre, at best, football teams.

Now for my Lions…I have a lot to say about my home team.

I'll start with their rookie class of draft picks.

--Matthew Stafford: it took me 4 games before I started to believe in him ,and when he was hurt and Culpepper had to play it became very obvious to me why he won the starting job: Culpepper is done like a Brit cooks their meat. Stafford has already had a game or 2 that he played really well in, and showed us Lion faithful what the future could have in store for us. I only hope that they can keep him up right and healthy.

--Brandon Pettigrew: I hated his pick. How they could draft a TE with the 20th overall pick while having so many needs on defense I'll never know. It took me until their win against the Browns to see why they chose him…From the beginning I liked Pettigrew's ability to pass block, but the perpetual drops were too much for me to say that the was 'worth" the trade for Roy Williams. However, after watching him settle in and finally develop some chemistry with Stafford (they are both rookies after all, and Stafford did miss 3 weeks) I get why they drafted him. And, if the Lions coaching staff can continue to make him an important part of the offense, opponents will have a hard time keeping their safeties back to cover CJ on the deep ball.

--Aaron Brown: late round draft pick with mad speed. When he touches the ball things seem to happen, I only wish they could find ways to use him more right now.

--Louis Delmas: I love this guy. I love him from the beginning. He is the Bob Sanders/Troy Polamalu of the Detroit Lions. The guy loves laying the wood on anyone who comes over the middle of the field. That causes fear in your opponents-something only Barry Sanders ever caused Lions opponents; so, needless to say, that is saying a lot.

--Sammie Hill and DeAndre Levy: Hill isn't a starter. I don't care what the coaching staff "thinks", but he doesn't have the talent. Against the best guards and partial double teams he disappears-there was obviously a reason why he didn't get drafted early; but, this just goes to show you how little talent the Lions have on their D-line: that a mid round draft pick could start for them there. Levy looks to be making Earnie Sims expendable. Levy is great at blitzing and has a nose for the ball. I only hope that if the Lions can trade Sims (I don't know his contract status) they can get something for him. If not, at least they can cut him loose to make room for their high draft pick next year.

--Kevin Smith, Calvin Johnson and Gosder Cherilus: Smith and Johnson have disappointed me this year. CJ seems to all but disappear-this could simply be because the rest of the receiving corp suck major you know what, or because he is not as good as we all thought he was. Either way, I think he needs to step it up. The same goes for Smith-the guy is a work horse, and I love his toughness, but he is not the breakaway running threat that we need at running back. He is an excellent pass catcher, but we need a real runner back there. I mention Cherilus because he was our 1st round draft pick last year and, besides the surprising Manny Ramirez, is our best OL.

Thanksgiving game: How much longer are we Lions fans going to have to put up with lousy Thanksgiving Day performances? I see much hope in the team for the future, but saying this year in and year out is getting old really quick.

Anyways, I have a lot of questions to ask about this game:

To start with: why was Stafford still in that game when it was already a lost cause? I appreciate the guys toughness, but if he is the future of this franchise and you want him to get as much real game experience this year as possible, why would you risk him by playing him-already injured-when the game is already decided?

--What happened to Aaron Brown? The guy was a huge reason for helping Stafford get the win against the Browns but he never got the ball against the Pack. The guy shows great potential and, as I said, things happen when he touches the ball on offense-so why aren't they giving him a bigger role?

--Why don't they blitz Julian Peterson more? The one time they blitzed him all he did get a sack and force a fumble, why can't they do that 5-6 times a game with him from different LB spots throughout the game?

--Could our defensive line be any worse? Good lord! How much time can you give a QB to throw the ball? They are so bad that I think they should play 4 CB's, 2 safeties and 6 LB's-forget putting DL out there: the ones they have are useless. They get no pass rush and me and 5 of my 150lb-when-soaking-wet-with-cloths-on-friends could hold them off long enough for a QB to find an open receiver. Calling them terrible is the understatement of the year.

--Can anyone else besides Pettigrew catch a ball? B. Johnson was supposedly this great addition-a former high draft pick who some say wasn't given a fair chance; but now we know the truth: the guy is lousy. So is Northcutt. It's a shame that 4th rounder Derrick Williams got hurt, otherwise he may be starting in place of either of these 2 lackey's.

OK, I've rambled long enough about my Lions. I see some potential-unfortunately almost all of it is associated with their 09' draft class. I do think that Pettigrew going down in the first series screwed their offense: he is proving to be the real deal now that he has learned to catch a ball from Stafford, and I think that the Lions would have given Green Bay a much better game if he hadn't of gotten hurt as his presence frees up CJ over the top and he is a great blocker. Regardless, injuries are a big part of the NFL, and if you don’t' have depth, then you are effed-just like every one else in the league.

Hopefully the Lions will pull out another win or 2 this year. It's unlikely, but as a Lions fan all I have had for the last decade is hope-which got old 5 years ago-but with some of the pieces they have in place right now, their does look to be a light at the end of our very long and dark tunnel…But, lets be honest-I'm only hoping.

Congrats to Lou Dobbs

Lou Dobbs shocked America last night when he announced that he was leaving CNN because "it has become increasing clear that strong winds of change have become buffeting our country" and, apparently some high up people have convinced him to help construct solutions to these problems…

I have to admit-I'm impressed.

I was never a huge watcher of his show, but, whenever I did catch it, I was always impressed by his lack of partisanship and moderate attitude, while working for what could arguably be called one of the more Democratically and Liberal leaning news organizations of the last 20 years. Dobbs was always level headed and based his arguments firmly around the facts. That he was able to survive, from it's inception, at a news group which showed its bias on a regular basis is testament to a strength of character that I never knew he had-and if I did, I most certainly would have made the effort to watch more of his show.

In parting, Dobbs makes some rather interesting comments about "winds of change", and, though I hate putting intentional spins on things such as this, it makes you wonder what he see's as "winds of change" and what his idea's for bracing us against them. In his parting speech he makes specific mention of the partisanship in D.C., Global Warming/Climate Change, the war in Afghanistan and Health Care…I wish I could say that I had watched enough of his show to know where he stood on these issues, however, seeing the class he portrayed on his way out, and knowing his moderate nature on most issues, I can trust that Dobbs will be, at the very least, logical and reasonable in his approach to helping to seek solutions to these issues. As such, I will be watching closely to see what comes of this…

Till then, I raise my glass to you Lou: I didn't know you well, but, after seeing your parting words, I wish I did….

America sends a message to Obama-but is it the right one?

I think that it is fair to say that a message was sent to the Democratic party and, specifically, Barack Obama in last nights elections: that we will no longer tolerate the huge spending, big government, socialist ideal which he and his party are putting forth as the solution to our nations problems.

Republican governors were elected in New Jersey and Virginia, soundly defeating their Democratic rivals; and in Maine a law that had yet to be enacted giving Gays the right to marry in that state was defeated. These decidedly Conservative results come thanks too a large percentage of Independents turning out to vote, apparently in an effort to show that they don’t believe in the Obama administration’s idea of “change” for our country.

My question is: Is it the “right” message?

This sudden change of ideological direction in these 3 states worries me because our legislative leadership in Washington D.C. has been suffering from the “pong” effect for far too long now: meaning, our national legislative and decision making has been moving from one ideological extreme to the other-a trend that is destroying our nation.

America needs an ideological middle ground leadership to move forward into the future: leaders who will keep their decision making logical and based on the facts at hand; leaders who will leave the social policy to State and local legislation. Leaders who will-dare I say it-be smart with our money; leaders who won’t mortgage our children’s future, and their grandchildren’s future-without even having a real plan to create economic stability for near future-much less the long term one. In sum, we need leadership with not just intelligence and common sense, but also the long range foresight required to put American in a good economic place for the future, and right now, we don’t have any such leader available to us.

What the electorate did yesterday was voice their displeasure at the current leadership by turning to the only other “viable” option available to them: the Republican Party, and, by extension, a Conservative agenda. This, I think, is a knee jerk and premature reaction to the far left, Socialistic Liberal agenda being pushed on us currently by D.C. and the Obama administration-a reaction which I feel is just as bad for the future America.

2 questions that need to be asked-of all issues.

With the nation becoming more and more politically polarized because of the desires and demands of the Liberal movement for more and more Socialist policy by the Obama administration, a realization about people, and how they think, has become apparent to me...

In the world of Journalism there are a set of criteria for which all stories are based; they are 6 questions: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. Two of these represent the most basic of all starts to forming any sort of philosophy and/or opinion about a topic: Why and How.
As I sit back, watch, and sometimes comment, on all that is happening in American politics today thanks to the overt Socialistic policies of the Obama administration, it has become very obvious to me that those who support these policies fail to ask these 2 fundamental questions; it is not just those that support these policies who fail to ask these questions, but those on the other side-that of the so called "Conservative" movement.
It is obvious to me that these 2 questions are never asked due to the proposals put forth by all parties as solutions to the various problems we face in America today.
Take the current health care "crisis" and the solutions for it being proposed as examples.
The current proposals include 2 dominant "solutions": a government "option" and/or a "commission" to establish some form of universal standards for providing health care. Neither of these proposals address what is wrong with our current health care system; such as the outrageous costs of malpractice insurance for doctors and what is termed "preventative" care or medicine. These are just 2 of many things which are responsible for the escalating costs of health care and insurance in our country, and 2 things which no plan currently in front of Congress (that I know of) addresses.
Sure, a current plan does away with insurance companies from declaring people ineligible for preexisting conditions, but it took the nation as a whole to scream about the first bill (known as Obamacare) not covering this very relevant and poor practice on the part of our health insurers. Regardless, demanding that insurers can deny coverage for preexisting conditions and creating a "government health insurance option" will do nothing to control the increasing costs of health care.

In these "solutions" for health care can be easily seen lacking the 2 questions of Why? and How?

If it had been asked, "Why does health care in our country cost so much?"; and the correlary, "Why is the cost of health insurance rising disproportionately to wages and inflation?", real explanations would have been found which would not have included either of the 2 primary "options" for "fixing" this "crisis" that are currently before our Congress.
Further, after asking Why?, our Congressional leaders would have then been able to ask to ask How do we fix it? and would have been able to find concrete solutions to the problems they found once they asked "why'"?

These 2 questions shouldn't just be limited to the current health care debate-they need to be asked of all issues we face, and yet they are not-particularly by those who are on the side of "liberalism". This is obvious to me because if you ask these 2 questions of every issue, they lead to the where the problem originate's, and therefore lead to solutions that fix the problem at its root causes-not in solutions which simply brush over the cause by giving "hand outs" after the effects of the cause have been felt.

Before we can solve anything, we must ask "Why"; that will lead us to "How"; which will lead us to the best solutions for all our country's problems. This is why, I believe, our Federal Government, in particular, always fails to provide any sustainable solutions to our nations problems.
I can only hope that one day this changes, and our national Congressional leaders learn to ask these 2 most important questions of every issue, but given the current political climate and social divisions within our country today, it's hard to see when that day may come.

Is Obama driving a wedge between American's?

This is a question that may shock some-after all Barack Obama has only been our President for 9 months. But given all that has taken place with Tea Party’s, demonstrations at Town Hall meetings, and other “counter” movements to Obama seemingly starting every day, it is one that begs to already be asked: is Obama dividing our nation? Perhaps, even, irreparably?

For many, this is an absolutely ludicrous question to ask of a president whose predecessor was one of the most hated in our history. But an argument could be made the George Bush brought us together as one as a president has never before: early in his first term he did it through the patriotism we all felt following the 9/11 attacks; and from the midway point of his 2^nd term on, he did so through the universal hate and anger we all felt towards a man whose politics and cronyism had made us the global “bad guy”-hated by nearly every nation on Earth.

But, this isn’t about any defense of what George Bush did-there is no defense for him-no this is about Obama, and what he is doing to us now.

Obama’s policies are, without question, Socialist; and to all American’s who have awoken to this, Socialism is not what America represents. And, despite what Liberals and Democrats would like to have the global community think, Socialism is not an ideology supported by most American’s.

The proof of this can be found in Obama’s and Congress’s approval ratings since Obama was elected.

Two weeks after Obama was elected he enjoyed as high as a 76% approval rating in a CNN poll, and Congress a 39% approval rating in a Fox News poll.

Eight and a half months later? Fox News’ most recent poll has Obama’s approval at 49%-the lowest it has been since his election; and Congress? The same day Obama got his lowest approval rating, so did they, with a pathetic 24% of American’s approving of how our Congressional leaders are conducting their jobs.

(The Congressional approval rating is just as important as Obama’s because Congress is currently controlled by the same party that Obama is from, and, as President, Obama is that parties unanimous leader so long as he remains president).

Needless to say, most American’s are not happy-and I am one of them.

We are not happy that Obama has socialized 2 of America’s Big 3 auto’s; we are not happy that as part of his health care reform he is trying to force a government option on us (therefore attempting to Socialize that industry); we are not happy that he has pandered to our enemies and refuses to help the U.N. enforce sanctions against North Korea and Iran; we are unhappy that he is not keeping his word in Afghanistan, and seems ready to allow it to become another “Vietnam”; we are unhappy that he is saddling our children, our children’s children, and their children, with $100’s of thousands of debt each before they are born; we are unhappy that he was awarded something (the Nobel Peace prize) without earning it; we are unhappy that he seems to be tearing apart all that was once great about America and that there are nearly 50% of us out there gullible enough to buy into his rhetoric.

Obama ran on a platform of “Change you can believe in”, but for many of those who voted for him, the platform wasn’t supposed to start with the destruction of all that was American first; that platform wasn’t believed to be capable of dividing America so decisively that people who have never voted before, much less attended at town hall style meeting, appeared at Town Hall meetings all over America to get into the faces of their representatives and demand that they stop Socializing American industries. And, as I see it his ideologies, and his policies, are driving a wedge between all Americans: on one side are those who still believe in the traditional American values of hard work, self reliance and responsibility, and a small Federal Government; and on the other are those who want the easy way out-the way of Big Government intervention and control, the way of a Universal Equality that can only be achieved by Government controls and Dictatorship.

I know which side I stand on, do you?

No "peace" in this years Nobel prize winner

The whole world was shocked last Friday when President Obama was chosen as this year’s Nobel Peace prize winner. Globally the response was overwhelmingly negative in the sense that people failed to understand what he had done exactly to earn the reward. Here in the United States the response was also mostly negative, both for the aforementioned reason and because Obama’s policies and ideologies are seen as being extreme on the “socialistic” side of things.

In explaining the decision, the Nobel Committee which awards the prize said that Obama received the award for what he “represents” and for what his policies could lead too in terms of future world peace. To those of us who believed that the award had to be earned, we also learned that there was president for winning the award without actually earning it or having any relating accomplishments…

As a result of Obama’s “winning” the Nobel peace prize, we have learned 2 important things about the Nobel’s: first, that you don’t have to actually do anything to win one and secondly, if this is how they are going to be awarded they have no meaning what so ever.

It is a thorough joke that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace prize, and the reasoning of the Nobel commission doesn’t fly on me. Barack Obama’s ideologies are not avenues for peace. His ideologies are based on socialistic tendencies which history has proven to us to be “anti” peace. Socialism breeds both corruption and envy, which inevitably leads to conflict and class warfare. Take a look at the history of any society on our planet which was purely socialistic and these truths become evident.

Obama’s ideologies stand for peace? Hardly, and if more proof is needed, look no further than America where we have become more divided than ever before.

The illiterate U.S. Congress

In case you missed it last week, a few stories made news stations which told what many American’s already knew-that members of Congress do not read the legislation they are attempting to make into law.

Where this sudden “enlightenment”, last week, about members of Congress not actually reading the bills they are supposed to sign into law came from I don’t know, but it can perhaps be traced back to an interview conducted last Friday with Senator Thomas Carper, a Democrat out of Delaware.

In this interview, Carper states that, in commission, bills are written in “plain English” (i.e. laymen’s terms), but when they come up for vote they are written in “legislative language. Amongst his many comments while discussing what is apparently health care legislation, he goes on to say that he understood little to nothing of the verbiage of the bill as it was written for law, and believes that no one else could understand it either. He also implies that he doesn’t believe anyone who says they can understand these bills-as they are written before Congress-is lying to themselves and anyone who asks them directly. In case you don’t believe me, you can find the portion of the interview which I reference here: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/10/02/democrat-sen-tom-carper-read-the-bill-are-you-kidding-me/.

Of course, this begs me to ask a lot of questions such as Why are our members of Congress not able understand “legislative language”? Isn’t this the job we have hired them for?; and How do they expect anyone to be able to obey, follow and enforce a law which they themselves do not understand?; or If legislative language is so hard to understand, why are bills written in it to begin with?

Further, if our Congress is writing legislation in a manner which they can’t understand themselves, then isn’t it a natural assumption that these people aren’t qualified to do the job we have hired them for and, even more importantly, fail to understand the job which they are supposed to do?; and Why aren’t they simply written in the “plain English” under which they are originally written in while in committee?

(This last question could possibly be answered by saying “it’s for legal purposes and enforcement”, to which I would say bull shit: If there is a law that says “you can’t pee on the side of a public building”, there are no legal or enforcement justifications for why those 10 simple words are rewritten into 30 confusing ones for the adoption of the law. In fact, the only reason I can think of is that legislatures intentionally write these laws so that the vast majority of people cannot understand them. Why this would be, I can only suppose and form conjecture on, but seeing as how there is no other logical reason for our national, state and local laws to be written in such a confusing manner, I am left with no other explanation than that it is done intentionally so that government corruption can always exist in a manner which is hard at best, and impossible at worst, to discover and eliminate).

Of all the questions I could pose, the most troubling to me is assumption to be drawn about our elected officials’ ability to do their job. It’s a serious assumption that deserves to be addressed: if Congress doesn’t even understand these bills as they are written, how can we assume that they even understand the basic requirements of their job?

One thing that must be clarified is that this isn’t restricted to just those members of Congress who are Democrats; it is obvious that Republicans (and the lone Independent) have this problem too-otherwise, why would we have proposed legislation like H.R. 3200 (i.e. Obamacare) proposed by John Dingle of Michigan make it out of a bipartisan committee?

As it just so happens, unlike most-including, apparently, our members of Congress-I can understand “legislative language”, this of course doesn’t help those who can’t because even in the effort of explaining these pieces of legislation to people, important aspects of them are lost; and despite those earlier posed questions this all leads to the most important ones of all: How is it that we, the American public, the ones who are supposed to live and conform to these various laws and legislative members; how is it that we have not only allowed ourselves to elect Representatives and Senators who fail to understand the laws they have written but also allowed so many of them to stay in office for so many years?

Logic vs. Common Sense

Logic[1]: 1. the scientific study of the principles of reasoning, especially of the method and validity of deductive reasoning; 2. valid reasoning; 3. A particular system or method of reasoning.

Common Sense[2]: beliefs that people in common would agree on; that which they "sense" as their common natural understanding and used to refer to beliefs or proposition that most people would consider “prudent” and “of sound judgment” without relying on knowledge relating to the object or topic in question, but based upon knowledge that can be seen as “common”.

Those who know me well know that much of the political and social philosophies I believe in are derived from conclusions I have reached through my use of logic. Throughout much of my life, when I have been asked about my use of logic to draw the political and social conclusions which I do, I have been challenged that “that’s just common sense”, to which I am forced to reply that, “if it is, then why isn’t (it) accepted as such?”.

To me, as a student of logic, the differences between logic and common sense are obvious, but as I learned recently from a friend they are seen as one and the same by most people. This same friend challenged me to explain the difference between the 2…He asked and so he shall receive. I hope the following helps himself and others learn to not only recognize the differences between the 2, but to understand just how much it takes to establish theories and solutions by one, and to simply use the other when it’s appropriate…

The definitions at the top of this discourse lay bare the basic difference between the 2: one requires education (of some kind), the other does not; however the differences go much deeper than just this simple difference.

In the case of Common Sense, it is both regional and cultural and many times can be based on a person’s field of mastery. For example, to the tribal huntsmen in Africa, it is “common sense” to never leave your home with out your preferred method of hunting or protection; in an industrialized nation with police forces to protect us (in general), it is common sense to never leave home with out a means of communication (as in your cell phone); to the parent whose child breaks their arm, it is common sense to first call your spouse (or your child’s other parent) before heading off to the hospital; to the doctor uncle who was watching over his nephew or niece, it would be common sense to first exam the arm before contacting their parents and headed off to the doctor.

In each of these examples, and any others I could come up with, the “common” theme to the reactions of each situations is what would be considered as being natural to the person or people involved: To someone who has drove a car for 10 or more years, its natural to check around you before proceeding with a turn; to the new driver on the road they have to remind themselves, or be reminded by others, to look before turning.

In the case of the Logic, there is little that is “natural” or “common”.

Logic is-as the book definition says-something of a science. It’s the deduction of a solution relative to the facts and knowledge at hand; it is a distinct process that requires conscience thought and effort. It’s use and application can be most easily defined and found in the mathematical formula’s many learn in algebra, geometry, calculus and the various sciences of physics and astronomy. (This is not to say that “learning” Logic makes one use it all the time, just that its use can be found there. Using and applying it to everyday and theoretical situations is another thing entirely).

In the above driver analogy Logic would tell both the experienced and inexperienced driver to look before turning because you can (as opposed to “may”) be hit by another car if you did not do so.

Like common sense, Logic is situational; unlike common sense, Logic can be applied to every situation-Common Sense is specific, Logic is not.

It can be said that there are components of common sense to logic, but most times, there is no “common sense” to logic. As example, the common sense of a drug dealer going to pick up his supply of drugs: it is common sense to be “packing” a weapon of some kind when doing so for protection; logic would say that you shouldn’t be a “drug dealer” to begin with because the potential risks are not worth the potential rewards.

There was a time when I really did believe that to be “logical” was “natural”, but as I have gotten older, I have learned that this is not the case at all. In fact, the ability to use logic, much less master it in any way, is a rather unique and rare gift: unique because most people lack the patience to think things through before acting; rare because, even those who know of logic-and/or are practiced in it use-fail to use it regularly.

Therefore, it can be said that perhaps the biggest difference between Common Sense and Logic isn’t the thought processes or knowledge involved, but the simplicity in acknowledging that one is “common” and the other is not.

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[1] Take from Riverside Webster’s II Dictionary.

[2] Taken from Wikipedia and edited and paraphrased for content by myself.