Monday, July 30, 2012
by Burt Prelutsky
If you’re one of those people who hadn’t even known that commonsense was ailing, I can imagine how shocked you must be to hear that it has passed away. On the other hand, unless you’ve been living in a cave, I can’t imagine how you missed the news.
For example, were you unaware that the massacres at Fort Hood, the Columbine high school and the movie complex in Aurora, Colorado, all took place at gun-free locations? And are you unaware that Chicago and Washington, D.C., two places that always rank near the top when it comes to gun-related murders, are among the two cities with the strictest gun control laws in the nation?
In spite of all that evidence, idiots on the Left, such as Michael Bloomberg and Dianne Feinstein, constantly insist that if only there were more and more laws on the books, if only there were more places where guns were banned and if only the NRA would disappear, the only gunshots we’d ever hear would be on TV crime shows.
If you’re looking for additional signs that commonsense has kicked the bucket, consider the penalties that the NCAA has leveled against Penn State. The NCAA, which consistently gives the U.N., the Olympic Committee and the NAACP, a run for their money when it comes to competing for the title as the most useless and most corrupt organization in the world, has truly outdone itself this time.
In a nation that often sees child molesters, rapists and murderers, let off with a slap on the wrist, the NCAA has fined the university $60,000,000, banned their football team from four years of bowl games, reduced their number of athletic scholarships from 25 to 15 and voided 14 seasons of football victories.
Frankly, I have no idea what that last one even means. Are they suggesting that the achievements of Penn State players are stricken from the record books? Could it mean that teams that lost to Penn State’s Nittany Lions 42-0 or 63-14 now get to brag that they actually won those games?
The facts are that Jerry Sandusky is a monster and is now going to spend the rest of his life in jail, where, unfortunately, he will not be gnawed on by rats. Joe Paterno, who, like most college coaches, students, administrators and alumni, thought winning football games was the most important thing on earth, is dead. And good riddance to that miserable excuse for a human being.
But, that being said, the two people who most deserved to be punished have received their just deserts. Once Penn State had Paterno’s statue removed, that should have been the end of it. Instead, the NCAA, which is well aware that every successful college sports program is the result of coaches and recruiters bending and breaking the rules, committed an infraction that, if committed during a game, would call for a penalty flag; namely, piling on.
The irony of Paterno’s statue is that it showed him with his index finger poised in the air. All things considered, it would have been more appropriate if it shown him with the finger next to it raised.
If you’re looking for more examples proving the demise of commonsense, you merely have to start paying attention to the presidential campaign. Day after day, you have Obama berating Romney because he’s rich and therefore out of touch. In the meantime, Obama flies from one city to another on the presidential jet, rides around in limos and gives speeches to people who have plunked down $35,000 to hear him bloviate about wealthy people who aren’t paying their fair share of income taxes.
To be fair, he says very much the same thing when addressing blacks, Hispanics and college students; those, in other words, who often don’t pay a plugged nickel to the IRS.
He is the same fellow who complains that a dozen years ago, Romney invested private funds in companies that out-sourced jobs, in spite of the fact that he named GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head up his Jobs Council after Immelt had out-sourced thousands of jobs to GE plants in Europe, and after he, himself, had out-sourced billions of American tax dollars to companies around the world.
As if all that weren’t enough to suggest that Obama is such a confirmed hypocrite that after he leaves the White House in January, he could no doubt get a gig working for the NCAA, he has the gall to complain that Romney hasn’t disclosed his income taxes for the past 40 years or so. Keep in mind this is the same knucklehead who has kept his own birth certificate, passport, visa, college application, medical records and academic transcript, along with Michelle’s master’s thesis, under lock and key. Oddly enough, that just happens to be the opposite of what he’s done when it comes to national security documents. Somehow those keep winding up on the front page of the New York Times.
Clearly, if Obama went to the London Olympics, he’d be the odds-on favorite to bring home the gold in the always popular Chutzpah competition.
In spite of all the laughs I have at his expense, there is a part of me that can’t help pitying the president. After all, if the poor guy’s re-elected, he will be inheriting the worst economy since the Great Depression.
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.
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