Where’s The Common Sense???

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

I’ve been under the weather for a few days, still not quite up to snuff, but it surely didn’t take much to get me growling with anger again …

Elon-Musk-1Elon Musk is an engineer, industrial designer and technology entrepreneur. He is a citizen of South Africa, the United States (where he has lived most of his life and currently resides), and Canada. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer/designer of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc., and other lesser-known companies.  He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World’s Most Powerful People, and was ranked joint-first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019. As of May 2020, he has a net worth of $36.5 billion and is listed by Forbes as the 31st-richest person in the world. He is the longest tenured CEO of any automotive manufacturer globally.

Now let me tell you a few more things about Elon Musk.  He is a spoiled brat, a fool, and he doesn’t care if you or I live or die … all he cares about is making more and more and more money.  All of the above accolades do not impress me after his behaviour of this past week.

Mr. Musk has a Tesla manufacturing company located in Fremont, California.  In March, under shutdown orders due to the wildfire spread of the coronavirus, California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered all non-essential businesses, which included auto manufacturers, to close temporarily.  Those orders still remain in most counties, but Mr. Musk, having decided that since he is such a wealthy and important man, first threatened to relocate his plant to another state.  He filed a suit against Alameda County where his factory is located. When that little temper tantrum got him nowhere, he defied the law and opened his plant in Fremont anyway.

Since January, Mr. Musk has pooh-poohed the idea that the coronavirus was anything more than the common cold, citing “research” that said there would be no new cases by the end of April.  Well, we can see how well that worked out, when we have 85,000+ deaths in the United States alone, with over 1,000 deaths per day.  Musk is willing to risk the lives of his employees, their families, and anyone else they might come into contact with … just so that he can make more electric cars that, frankly, right now nobody has any interest in buying.

In a recent phone call, Musk called the stay-at-home orders “fascist”, saying …

“They’re breaking people’s freedoms in ways that are wrong and are not why people came here or built this country.”

Trump, of course, had to get in on the act, tweeting, “California should let Tesla & @elonmusk open the plant, NOW. It can be done Fast & Safely!”  And just what does HE know???  He is largely responsible for some of those 85,000+ lives that we’ve already lost!

For the time being, Musk seems to have won the battle, but perhaps not the war.  Country officials implemented strict safety regulations for the plant and if any are not followed, they are prepared to force Musk to shut it down.  Personally, I think he is evil, a spoiled brat, and wish we could send him back to South Africa where he was born, for if the making of a damn car is more important than human lives, then he is the exact sort of inhumane jackass that we do not need in this country.

My friend Brian, aka Equinoxio21 on WordPress, made a comment today that I think covers most everything I write about lately: “Common sense has just been listed on the WWF list of endangered species …”

The latest in the demise of common sense annals in the U.S. …

The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton (a republican, of course) moved to enforce restrictions on mail-in ballots, insisting that people who fear getting infected with the coronavirus must still vote in person.  Paxton asked the Texas Supreme Court to order election officials in five Democratic-led counties to follow state law on mail-in ballots. Mr. Paxton argued that Texas law requires in-person voting.  Perhaps Mr. Paxton has not heard that in Wisconsin last month, 67 people caught the coronavirus after being forced to vote in person?  Oh … and speaking of Wisconsin …

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the extension of a stay-at-home order by Governor Tony Evers, siding with Republicans in one of most high-profile challenges of its kind to the emergency authority of a statewide official during the coronavirus pandemic.  Governor Evers had extended the prohibition on most travel and operations of nonessential businesses until May 26.  Less than two more weeks.

There have been legal challenges to stay-at-home orders in Michigan, California, Kentucky and Illinois, but none of those were successful in persuading a court to fully strike down the order, as the plaintiffs in the Wisconsin case were.

And what would a circus of fools be without the biggest fool of them all?

Donald Trump pushed Wednesday to reopen the country’s schools and criticized the testimony delivered on Tuesday by Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, who had cautioned the Senate about the unknown effects that the coronavirus has on children.  Said Trump …

“I was surprised by his answer. To me it’s not an acceptable answer, especially when it comes to schools.”

Translation: “I don’t care if your kids die … kids don’t support the economy and I want businesses back up and running.  Open the schools so parents can go back to work and get the economy back on its feet before election day so I can take credit and win the election.”

Perhaps he fails to realize that the coronavirus is non-partisan and will kill as many republicans as democrats.  And perhaps he doesn’t realize that no parent who loses a child due to his lack of due diligence and stewardship will ever vote for him.  And perhaps he fails to realize that the majority of people in this nation aren’t going to go rushing out and spend money on things we’ve managed just fine without for two months now.  I’m in no hurry to go out to restaurants or shops, nor is anyone I’ve talked to lately.  Capitalism only works if people buy the stuff that producers produce.

That’s all I’ve got time for tonight … I’m sure I’ll be back later today with something else.  Keep safe out there, remember your hand sanitizer and … your common sense!

43 thoughts on “Where’s The Common Sense???”

  1. Thank you for sharing!!.. for people like Musk, Trump, etc. that which matters most to them is their image and their wealth.. they are self-centered and use to getting what they want, caring little for anyone else…
    As the saying goes “out of sight, out of mind” as long as the virus doesn’t affect them they are going to continue their ways, however, should they get sick, be assured they will be the first ones into the lifeboats… 🙂
    They are part of the” roof” and until the “foundation” makes its voice heard, nothing will change… 🙂

    “There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.” – Douglas H. Everett

    Liked by 1 person

      • “No road is too long for him who advances slowly and does not hurry, and no attainment is beyond his reach who equips himself with patience to achieve it.” Jean de La Bruyere

        Liked by 1 person

          • Well, being a mom I am sure you have patience, but sometimes, in the heat and excitement of battle, we forget… 🙂

            Take care, stay safe and hope all your tomorrows are filled with happiness…. 🙂

            Liked by 1 person

            • A mom, grandmother, and great-grandmother, as it were! I’ve lots of experience in the patience department. I find, though, that it’s much easier to have patience with loved ones than with the idiocy of the general public. Thanks Dutch … you take care also!

              Like

              • Well, you just continue to do what you do and do well, let your fingers do the walking (typing/writing) and your heart do the talking… 🙂

                “The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.” Frederick Buechner

                Liked by 1 person

  3. Jill, there sure are a lot of words here in the comments section. Briefly, we just need to be judicious and smart about how we reopen things. I worry more about the folks who feel invincible and are endangering others with their behaviors. Singapore left things open, but they did several things we did not. First and foremost, they told people the truth, very unlike the US president who missed a chance to lead from the outset. Second, they harped on social distancing, testing and contact tracking. Third, since they were told the truth, people bought into doing what is needed.

    The US is being laughed at around the globe for its failures. I must confess, it will get worse again before it gets better. What I also see is many people acting smarter than some leaders.

    By the way, Elon Musk has done some good things on improving battery storage to fight climate change, but he has a large ego that gets him into trouble, as well. Keith

    Like

    • I think most people feel the same, and I’ve just finished writing the scenario that I believe will ensue if they re-open businesses now, with few customers and fewer employees. Sigh. Ignorance … it may be bliss to the ignorant, but to the rest of us it’s a nightmare.

      Liked by 1 person

    • IMHO when society reopens, there will be two class of ppl. The young would most certainly take chances and go out, live their lives and patronize businesses, clubs, bars etc. The elderly will more than likely be isolated and homebound for the near future. It is imperative for the younger generation to take care of our elders, and provide company, affection, emotional support in addition to the day to day needs.
      Who knows how long this pandemic will last, until a vaccine is developed or herd immunity achieved.

      Like

  6. by the way, wordpress needs to create a pissed off button to accompany the like button or at least an angry button so I’d have something to press that’s appropriate to how I feel about some of the more recent posts.

    Liked by 3 people

  7. I am so sick and tired, fed up, and apalled at people conflating the notion of wanting to reopen the country to being a heartless bastard who just wants more and more people to die.
    You can make the pathetic flimsy argument that no one can make a living if their dead but that neglects to acknowledge the fact that if you’re locked in your house like a damn animal, and a small business owner who can’t feed his family, and I know that’s not what this post was about, but we’re talking about principles, not specific cases, then what’s the point of being alive if your government won’t allow you to live?
    The human condition has a deep need to be free, to do what he or she wants to do, to dream, to imagine, to create.
    I notice the reprehensible, immoral governors who are mandating that people stay sheltered in place, are themselves not struggling to put food on the table, they don’t have to worry about making the next house payment, and neither does mr. musk. The different between the psychopathic parasitic politicians who are trampling our constitutional rights, whose salaries we the extorted tax cattle are paying and Mr. musk, is that he wants to open his plant to ensure that his employees do have jobs, can pay their rent or make their house payments and feed their families, all of which are essential last time I checked.
    I guess democrats don’t give a damn if children die of starvation as long as they’re not immigrants at the border used for convenient photo ops which further their pathetic political careers.
    This post has made me so damn angry that I can’t even type straight.
    what the hell is the point of staying alive if your own government will not allow you to live.
    Answer me that question using logic and strong argumentation if
    you can.
    Oh and by the way, I don’t believe for a second that over 80000 people have died from coronavirus. Do you happen to personally know anyone or have a friend who knows anyone who has struggled with this virus? I do have friends who know people who have died or have friends who have struggled with this terrible virus but just because I am infuriated with the political response to this catastrophy does not mean that I don’t have sympathy for the people who have suffered loss.
    I just don’t believe the numbers.
    If democrats could have their way, they’d keep us all locked up until November 3rd.
    I hope people remember the tyranical moves of their local officials and vote them all out come the next election.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Have you read at all about the percentage of sick people in the meat markets which Trump was so insistent should open again.Like Elon Musk he’s prepared to pit people’s lives at risk for selfish reasons. Nobody denies that the small business owner is struggling but that could be due to the fact that the latest relief package wasn’t enough since such a large amount had to be paid out (again) to big business.
      Now I’m getting off point. You talk about all these political prisoners jailed in their own homes waiting to get out to create and to work. That ignores all the others who aren’t screaming for freedom yet because they listen to Dr Fauci and accept his word as the leading expert on these diseases in the Country..There are also a number of Governors who follow the same advice and attempt to keep people alive.by applying the lockdown. At the moment it seems to be pretty much a straight fight between Republicans who are being agitated to want to restart work and Democrats who mainly want to hang on to their lives and families.The Democrats have a new care package to put before Congress this week mainly aimed at those struggling to eat and pay rent, and the small businessman.
      That you don’t believe the number of dead doesn’t make the figures wrong if anything they’re less than they should be as they haven’t counted people who died at home.Trump would like those figures to be much less as they reflect on his management of this disaster.
      Democrats aren’t the ones who want everyone away until Nov 3rd.as that gives the Republicans more time to Gerrymander and deny people the chance to vote.I hope people all remember the moves of tyrannical officials to force them back into the eye of Covid 19 despite medical opinion who want to do it in small stages.
      Your comment about Democrats not giving a damn about children dying unless they;re not immigrants at the border in Republican cages I treat with the contempt it deserves.

      Liked by 4 people

      • Asking if I’ve heard about the people at meat packing plants dying, how could I not know about that?

        that comment is met with the contempt that it deserves as well.

        The one thing that I do agree with you on is that the corporations should not have gotten a dime of funds from the federal government. I have no sympathies for their struggles because they don’t really have any.

        I grow weary every single day fighting with people about all of this crap, everyone has their own opinion and no one is ever willing to budge form the talking points that they elect to believe, there’s too much damn tribalism on the internet.

        I am about to pull the plug on the majority of it. Good-bye.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Jill, if it was all about money for him which you so contemptuously claim, why did he say that he would be on the assembly line with the workers and allow himself to get arrested instead of his employees?

        Liked by 1 person

      • I did not know this until I looked it up. This does need to be explained now by the dems.

        The CARES Act was drafted and introduced by Democrats a full year before the pandemic.

        This needs to be explained.

        Look up HR.748 on http://Congress.gov go to the “actions” tab, and choose “all actions.”

        If there’s a reasonable explanation, fine. But someone had best say.

        (Introduced 01/24/2019)

        Like

      • and how about this, look it up.

        “Dr. Fauci said Trump’s administration would face a pandemic.

        He said it in January 2017.

        Days BEFORE the inauguration.

        Why oh why are so few putting the pieces together? Is it not ODD that the Dems seemed to be ready w/bills & plans almost immediately after bad models came?”

        Liked by 1 person

        • The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (H.R. 748),[1] also known as the CARES Act,[2] is a law meant to address the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In its original form, it was introduced in the United States Congress as H.R. 748 (Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act of 2019) by Joe Courtney (D-CT) on January 24, 2019[a] although the bill was amended before it was passed.The bill was created because of warnings of the likelihood of a disaster by Dr Fauci.

          The original bill proposal included $500 billion in direct payments to Americans, $208 billion in loans to major industry, and $300 billion in Small Business Administration loans.[3][4] As a result of bipartisan negotiations, the bill grew to $2 trillion in the version unanimously passed by the Senate on March 25, 2020.[5][6] The next day, it was passed in the House via voice vote and signed into law by President of the United States Donald Trump on March 27.

          Unprecedented in size and scope,[5] the legislation was the largest-ever economic stimulus package in U.S. history,[7] amounting to 10% of total U.S. gross domestic product.[8] The bill was much larger than the $831 billion stimulus act passed in 2009 as part of the response to the Great Recession.[8] The Congressional Budget Office estimated it would add $1.8 trillion to the deficits over the 2020–2030 period, with nearly all the impact in 2020 and 2021.[9]

          The bill is referred to by lawmakers as “Phase 3” of Congress’s coronavirus response.[10][11] The first phase “was an $8.3 billion bill spurring coronavirus vaccine research and development” (the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020), which was signed into law on March 6, 2020. The second phase was “an approximately $104 billion package largely focused on paid sick leave and unemployment benefits for workers and families” (the Families First Coronavirus Response Act), which had been enacted March 18, 2020.[10

          Liked by 1 person

          • I saw some additional information after I had made this post.

            It’s still curious to me that dr. fausie made a prediction of a pandemic. One has to wonder about that.

            Liked by 1 person

            • Scott, the experts were predicting a pandemic back in the 2000s, hence the reason for the Obama administration to go to the trouble of putting together a guide for dealing with it, and establishing a Pandemic Team. Trump shredded the guide and fired the pandemic team. This was never a matter of “if”, but only a matter of “when”.

              Like

        • @Scott, you ask “Dr. Fauci said Trump’s administration would face a pandemic. He said it in January 2017.
          Days BEFORE the inauguration.”

          From Newsweek:
          Because Dr. Fauci, who has become something of a pseudo-celebrity, public health superhero to many has a somewhat questionable connection to this shady pandemic risk. It turns out that Dr. Fauci funneled $3.7 million dollars of US taxpayer money to the Wuhan lab beginning in 2014.

          https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741

          Like

  9. He’s not an engineer, his degree is in physics.

    He’s just a guy who had inherited money to throw around, struck gold with an app (Paypal) he’d thrown money at, and turned out to be pretty good at conning people into thinking he was a genius.

    It’s not super complicated.

    I’d never listen to this hole-o-arse’s advice on anything of importance, certainly not our pandemic policy, and neither should anyone else.

    Liked by 3 people

    • In this country today, one doesn’t need to be a genius … only either have money, or have a knack for making money, for money is of far more value to the fools in this country than intelligence. For example, just look at the ‘person’ sitting in the Oval Office!

      Liked by 1 person

  10. Policy is not driven by common sense which is dressed up as we follow the science. Unfortunately the science behind the decisions is kept secret in countries like America and the UK. That’s because they are only selectively listening to advice when it fits with their view of the world. Now the talk is that our countries leaders are fighting an heroic war with this virus. To question the leaders is traitorous. Unfortunately like all wars, the people who suffer are the less week off, the average person. Rather than throw them into trenches this time they pack them into buses, schools, workplaces.

    Liked by 3 people

    • You speak the truth, my friend. Our country’s leaders are NOT fighting a war with this virus … WE THE PEOPLE are the ones fighting the war! We are the ones who have lost our incomes, who are confined to our homes, who cannot see our loved ones, and who are getting sick and dying by the thousands every single day! The leaders still dine on steak and lobster, still have their families by their sides every night, and have not had to sacrifice a damn thing! Just like any other ‘war’ … put the leaders in the trenches. They want the economy opened up, then let them go run the stores and restaurants, exposing themselves to sickness and death. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Your country and mine currently have no real leaders. We have arrogant, greedy toadies who are getting wealthy off of our lives. So much for democratic principles.

      Liked by 4 people

      • You say we are the ones confined to our homes as though it’s imprisonment, who cannot see our loved ones and who are dying by the thousands every single day.I would have expected those who stay in their homes as per Dr Fauci are the ones who are staying alive.
        As with everything else i’s only part of the leaders who are concentrating on the economy and only for one particular purpose, to brag about doing it at the election.
        Cwtch

        Liked by 2 people

        • No, that was not what I meant. I meant that when those at the top make the decisions and proclaim themselves ‘wartime presidents’, it is we who are forced to go out and fight the battles, risking and often losing our lives. Yes, home confinement and being kept from loved ones is a horrible thing that has a toll all its own … look at recent suicide rates … but it is a necessary evil and it was not that I was addressing, but rather the fact that, as with any ‘war’, the leaders sit safely in their ivory towers and send the rest of us out to die. Sorry if I didn’t state it clearly.
          Cwtch

          Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.