“Common Sense”: The Moron’s Panic Room (a short op-ed on conversation)

Are you having trouble selling stupid ideas to people by using the words “constitution” and “founding fathers” in rapid and pointless repetition? Do you encounter difficulty at convincing those around you of the impending communist plots at work to kill grandma? Does it seem sometimes as though all those smarty pants with their educations and their critical thinking skills just can’t stop oppressing you with valid argument and credentials?

Have no fear…for now there is common sense! Thats right, common sense! With “common sense” you can make any one dimensional logical fallacy into your own common knowledge, just by dropping the words in periodically throughout a discussion.

“Well I have a degree and years of experience in the field and frankly, I think you’re just wrong.” “Well fuk dat, I’m gonna go to college one day and I’ve got common sense!”

Or,

“GAO reports show that the program is working rather effectively with limited amounts of waste since the new oversight reform measures have gone into effect. So why do you think government needs to be eliminated?” “Cuz they’re lying. Its so obvious. Its common sense.”

Common sense might just very well be most overplayed, poorly used term in modern conversation.

Beyond the pedestrian applications of ending every persuasive sentence with “it’s just common sense,” there is a far more sinister use in play which is eroding the value of basic human intellect. This is, what I have affectionately come to call, the moron’s panic room. The Moron’s Panic Room is a safe and inscrutable place tucked somewhere in the moron’s mind just between “the Jews did it” and “Ron Paul for President.”

This “panic room” as I call it serves as the self defeating cheat code for political enthusiasts who talk before they bother learning. Whenever backed into a corner about their credentials, knowledge base or intellect, they are able to whip out “common sense” and regardless of whether or not it applies, provides them with a further level of self delusion with which to continue pretending that an absence of an education and an opinion is equal to an informed and enlightened perspective.