Experts not Common Sense are Failing America - Granite Grok

Experts not Common Sense are Failing America

Public Trust

Experts not common sense are failing America today. That seems to be the lesson of 2020. We have had a summer of protests and rioting. Radical activists are demanding defunding of police. Some of our crime experts are in concurrence.

Leftist city governments ignore public warnings. They are moving to diminish their police presence. We are seeing a sharp rise in crime where defunding occurs. Local officials are ignoring looting and arson.

When you call 911 in a large American city, there is no guarantee of an answer. Promptness is what you then pray for. Departments send what they have remaining available. The result is gun sales are soaring.

People who were in opposition to weapons ownership before are afraid to remain without arms. Self-protection outweighs abstract ideology. Even those opposing the use of firearms are grasping the 2020 reality.

A majority of black Americans favor maintaining or increasing police presence. City officials who support cutting back on law enforcement carry unrealistic expectations. They expect their own homes and property to have constant policing. The same is often true of activist elites living far from the inner city.

Fires

Large swaths of the American West are now charred by out of control wildfires. Some governors and many federal bureaucrats blame the conflagrations on climate change. Those actually living in areas historically vulnerable to wildfires know the truth. The droughts of 2013-2015 killed or dried out millions of acres of trees and vegetation.

Most of these trees were never removed by authorities. They now predictably provide the fuel for the current wildfires. Veteran forest managers have been proverbial voices in the wilderness. They warned of ignoring dead trees.

Forest managers warn of limiting the sort of domestic animal grazing reducing dead brush and dry foliage. They warn of forbidding timber companies from harvesting decaying timber. They warn of preventing periodic controlled burns. Forest managers told us these things together are a prescription for the disasters we are seeing.

They knew what was coming. They understood we were asking for the clouding in the Western skies with fires, smoke, and air pollution. Pragmatic people once understood tens of millions of dead trees should not be left alone. Mulch for premodern ecosystems is a dream.

In today’s world, the dried-up vegetation serves as natural napalm. It enables traditional fall wildfires to become conflagrations consuming homes, property, and people.

Can you hear me now?

Today our scientific expertise offers ever-changing, inconsistent, and occasionally absurd advice. This requires people to turn to their own instincts. Innate common sense may protect them and their livelihoods. It certainly is working better than the whimsy of political ideology. Experts, not common sense are failing America.

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