Paineless Common Sense

Rant time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

(A) long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises a formidable outcry in deference to custom. (Emphasis in original)

That idea, which is the opening thought in the preface to Thomas Paine's work, appeared in 1776, but it is the backbone of a serious problem we face today. And though I suspect that similar problems have occurred in the past, we have brought them to a point far advanced from any previous occasions.

The work was Common Sense, in which he presented arguments concerning the justification for the secession of the American colonies. He was an Englishman but it was obvious to him that a separate nation had formed. He didn't view it as an extreme idea, only one that was fully justified by the circumstances he discussed. It was common sense.

Sadly, common sense isn't so common. We are ruled by precedents we don't understand, formulated by people we don't know, and enforced by others whom we never authorized to do so. We have created a class of people trained to use what was written to justify whatever is advantageous. It works for them because they're the ones who do the writing. But they move on and leave their handiwork for future generations. They leave it for us.

Paine's work, and that of numerous others, provided the rationale for the American Revolution, the historical event upon which our society is based. We are ruled by a Constitution that delineated our form of government, and, subsequently, was the basis for many others around the world. We depend on law and on the precedents set before in order to determine what is acceptable behavior. That is the way it was in ancient days, and that has been the more recent procedure as well. Religious law and secular law follow the same pattern. Both are capable of change, but sometimes the change is slow. So there are times when we're left with rules that were thought to be sensible at one time but aren't. But they're on the books. (Some of the most ludicrous examples can be found in American law, and secular law is the focus of this discussion.) For example

In Montana, it is illegal for married women to go fishing alone on Sundays, and illegal for unmarried women to fish alone at all.

New Yorkers cannot dissolve a marriage for irreconcilable differences, unless they both agree to it.

And in Arizona, donkeys cannot sleep in bathtubs.

Laws like that are simply silly, and we can laugh at them without any great concern that they'll be enforced. And most of them are specific enough, and useless enough, that their repeal wouldn't be opposed by any sensible individual. They arose as the result of individual episodes, and were forgotten and left in place.

Unfortunately, however, we have other rules that limit us more, and that are unlikely to go away, and we need ways to deal with them. We don't understand them all – often by intent (Nancy Pelosi's comment about HR 3962, The “Affordable Care Act,” however that comment was meant, exemplify the concern: “But we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in it....” It is especially interesting to consider the fact that the statute contains 363,086 word while the US Constitution, including all 27 amendments, has 7,591.) Our laws are not known by the vast majority of our citizens, nor would they be acceptable if voters could understand them and their implications. (For example, environmental impact laws make it possible to block projects – irrespective of their merits – and they are often employed for that purpose by those who oppose the projects for whatever reasons.)

It's worth remembering what James Madison wrote

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. (Federalist 62)

Long and unreadable statutes can, in addition, be used to camouflage the benefits they provide for those who support their authors' campaigns. Our representatives have no interest in our awareness of the favors they are doing for the lobbyists, and for the industries that will pay them to be lobbyists in the future. Their “support” of our needs takes the form of legislation to bring projects – often unnecessary projects – to their districts to use as propaganda for the next election. And once they're on the books, people forget about them and don't protest them. They exist, they control, and have the superficial appearance of being right.

Those considerations, however, only illustrate the visible problems. In the words of Al Jolson, “You ain't heard nothing yet.” The invisible ones, and the ones that make common sense entirely unnecessary, pose a different kind of problem. They are the rules and regulations that govern our lives. They are the ones we don't know and, hence, never consider. We never think them wrong. And, as Thomas Paine pointed out, (A) long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises a formidable outcry in deference to custom.

Continued next week.



December 14, 2016