Where has all the common sense gone?

    Does common sense and logical thinking evaporate? Sublimate? Hibernate? If not, why is it so hard to find these days? And while we're out with our flashlights in the night looking for common sense maybe we can locate that elusive critter called dialogue and civil discussion. Heck, I'd settle for any discussion, civil or otherwise. Do we take our positions so personally that we can't risk actually listening to the other side? Or have we prejudged the "other side" so negatively that we can't even stand to hear it?
    Newsflash. There are thoughtful, compassionate individuals who don't think "gun free" schools is the way to go in a country saturated with guns. Not offering an opinion on gun ownership here, just making an observation. We surround celebrities, public servants, politicians of every stripe with people trained in the use of firearms to protect their subjects from harm. Somehow, we have decided a cool-looking international symbol printed on a sign at the entrance of our children's schools is supposed to protect them. How could any gun-inflicted harm come to our children with such a solid line of defense right there at the school's entrance? If I may say, it doesn't seem to be working too well so far.
    Given the reality that gun confiscation would be messy at best and against our Constitution , and would take years to try to enforce, (likely with little success), it does not offer us an effective solution to this rising problem. Left-leaning ideological thinkers pretending to state their more conservative counterpart's positions by these vague and far reaching "silly" statements isn't exactly interpretable as offering a meaningful solution either. It seems like with such an important subject we need to have a discussion, not a verbal bumper sticker convention.
    By the way, if our children are the priority of our society (as they should be), maybe we should consider another shot at prohibition since drunk driving is one of the leading causes of death among young children. And don't forget that swimming pools claim far more innocent children's lives than guns. Guns are very powerful and need to be handled with the respect they deserve but honestly, fatal accidents involving guns are rare and these school shootings are not revealing a gun problem, they are revealing a society and culture problem.
    "There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws; or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality."
                                                          Alexis de Tocqueville

TRUMP APPEAL

    One of my recent endeavors has been to try to understand the attraction between ostensibly conservative leaders and Donald Trump. The journey continues. It is easy to see the general attractiveness of a successful business man, (that would be wildly successful), who is willing to jump into the political arena to try and influence a "come-back" of sorts for our floundering country. In fact, if he were sitting in the room here with me I would shake his hand and offer a sincere "Thank You". A man who could buy several islands to retire to and just take life easy is opening himself up to the slime and mire of the American political system. I think this is commendable and is very much worth noting. My frustration is not in the person of Donald Trump, though he has shown an unfortunate bent toward political games, but with the endless line of alleged conservative leaders who have endorsed him. Those who I had understood to be intensely interested in furthering conservative principles and policies. Are they all just hoping he will turn out to be a conservative? Are they hoping he can be steered in a conservative direction once he is president? Is he the Republicans' version of the empty suit? (Just add your hopes and dreams to this suit and stir) There are unflattering comparisons to be made with Barack Obama if you consider the fact that Trump has promised to change the State-based nominating process to be more fair. Which I guess means he would give the front runner even more of an advantage than he has enjoyed. 
    There is not a solid conservative record in his past nor are his vague, redundant and sometimes contradictory comments easily interpreted in a conservative light. In fact, he seems to have thought little about important issues and seems, too, to be lacking a principled anchor to which he is committed. He constantly bemoans the primary process as unfair and weighted against him all the while amassing a delegate count that exceeds the percentage of the popular vote he is getting. He's counting on us all forgetting that this all started with 16 candidates and has left many an establishment, and outsider, in the dust. I will vote for Donald Trump if he is the Republican nominee. But if he wants me to be a Trump supporter now he needs to debate Ted Cruz one-on-one so I can compare policy concerns as expressed by both candidates.
For now, as a conservative, I have no choice but to vote for Ted Cruz.

SHREWDNESS EXAMINED

    It has been a mystery to me for some time how the word shrewdness has been used to disguise deceit and dishonesty; how a politician using misleading statements and mischaracterizations of his opponents positions can, in victory, be called a shrewd politician. This is a lying and intentionally misleading politician, not a shrewd one.
    We have a global political ideology at work which is quite comfortable in the Liberal wing of our two-party system. U.S. policy and global initiatives are both drawing on the myth of "global warming" or "global climate change" or whatever they decide to call it tomorrow. How very shrewd of them to take a fact of physics, (climate is always, has always, and will always be changing), and fuel a world-changing movement from it. Call it shrewd if you want, I call it utterly reprehensible. There are many factors contributing to the fall of this great nation but the incredible transfer of power from the people to the government is no more obviously represented than in the "environmental" movement. Animated by a religious fervor that rivals John Brown's they seek to influence the whole world under the banner of compassion while leaving whole countries in ruin in their wake. Their action will bring whole economies to a grinding halt while they are busy re-distributing the collected wealth of individuals to those they deem more worthy or more in need. So they will be undermining the very system of economics that could lift people out of their situations and distributing the diminishing wealth to places of their choosing. Problem is, the whole world will be worse off when the dust clears. But, they will be in charge, and that is, after all, what they really want. How very shrewd of them.

Third party humor or, do you have decaf?

All right then, listen good 'cause I need to go do the family budget for the week and I have a limited amount of time to spend on this subject. While I prefer to directly inject humour into my postings I will be looking to an external entity for it's input today. I'm not the greatest teacher so it will require a little extra effort from you to make this work. You see, my teaching method is to stand at the end of the forested path yelling, "I'm over here".

Whereas a good teacher will come meet you where you are and show you how they got there. So sue me.
The starting place today will be a statement pertaining to economics that I hope we can agree on. If not, your path to "over here" will be a different one, though still attainable. Providing a product does not result in a purchase. Seems simple enough to me, what do you think? Can we start there together? If I build 2000 gizmos that there is no demand for, my inventory will likely stay at 2000 for quite some time. Meaning, I will not need to buy parts from my vendors to build said gizmos, meaning those vendor businesses will suffer equal to the proportion of their dependence on my need for their parts. This is a very direct relationship. I don't sell gizmos, they don't make parts for me. If I am their only customer, their fate is mine and so on. Further, if there is a demand for gizmos, and there are 10 different manufacturers of these items, then the flow of money to purchase materials, make parts, assemble parts into gizmos, etc. all moves on smoothly and effectively.
Now then. Jim and Jill Fredrickson are planning a gizmo purchase in 6 months when their old gizmo will be completely worn out. At the time of their decision, there are 10 companies making gizmos. 6 months later there are 8. Is it logical to suppose that they will not purchase their new gizmo because there are now only 8 companies making them? If so, then my fiction has no valid point in reality. However, I believe, Jim and Jill will simply buy from one of the 8 companies still in business, don't you? And if there are now 8 companies building gizmos providing for the demand, there will be no fewer jobs in the material supply stage, the parts vendor stage, or the assembly stage for the gizmos to be produced. It's all driven by the demand. Whether there are 10 companies, or 2 companies, the demand is what determines the need for jobs in the companies, not the companies themselves.
So, how can Mr. Obama, claim to have saved all these jobs by bailing out GM and Chrysler? The only real difference would be that people would be buying cars from different companies, requiring these other companies to hire more workers and order more materials and parts from their vendors, who would in turn be required, to hire more workers to supply the companies with what they needed. When the dust cleared, we would be left with more efficient companies and more affordable vehicles, not to mention less debt for us, and our children to be burdened with. My argument is, any jobs that cannot support themselves, that is to say, any empoyee providing a service to their employer, that is not equalled by what that employer can then extract from the value of it's product, is an overpaid employee. Other wise the whole system comes down and the company goes bankrupt. Oh, wait a minute.