Common Sense

A succinct definition of Common Sense seems difficult to state. The issue might be semantics. Even CoPilot AI struggles: “The shared, experience-based judgment people rely on to handle ordinary situations without needing specialized knowledge.” Merriam-Webster isn’t much better: “Sound and prudent judgement based on a simple perception of the situation or facts”. Now, with each word’s meaning defined, I’ll give it a try:

Snark Alert: When an Assault Weapon Isn’t an Assault Weapon

The anti-2nd Amendment left insists that all assault weapons be banned from private use. Their logic is that as instruments of war, their only valid use is in the hands of government employees to surrender to Afghan savages, or suppress civil resistance (per Joe Biden). Of course they’ll make an exception for Karmelo Anthony.

Your Great-Grandfather Would Think You’re Rich

America is about to turn 250 years old, yet many of us live with less gratitude than our great-grandparents who had far less. The average American enjoys comforts that kings, presidents, and industrial tycoons could only dream of—instant communication, modern medicine, air conditioning, safe food, and access to nearly all human knowledge from a device in their pocket. Yet we often act as though we are the most deprived generation in history. This article examines the extraordinary inheritance we’ve received from those who built America, the dangers of historical amnesia, and why our descendants may care less about our complaints than what we chose to build, preserve, and pass on. Before we criticize the nation our forefathers handed us, perhaps we should ask a more uncomfortable question: Are we proving worthy of the gift they left behind?

Live Not By Lies: The Gulag Lesson America Forgot

“Socialism does not collapse because it runs out of money. It collapses because it runs out of truth. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn understood this better than almost anyone alive. The Soviet Union was not held together by productivity, innovation, or freedom. It was held together by fear and a mountain of compulsory lies. Citizens learned to repeat obvious nonsense simply to survive. Newspapers reported record harvests while shelves sat empty. The state called itself a workers’ paradise while millions disappeared into camps. As the Bible warns in The Bible, Satan is ‘the father of lies,’ and every authoritarian system follows the same blueprint: suppress truth, punish dissent, and force the population to publicly kneel before fiction. The gulag was not the beginning of the process. It was the final invoice.”

The American Awakening

My grandfather fought in World War II. My father served in Vietnam. My wife and I both deployed to Iraq. Three generations answered the nation’s call, each believing that sacrifice served a greater purpose. But after Vietnam, 9/11, Iraq, Wall Street, and COVID, millions of Americans are asking a question more dangerous than any enemy abroad: Have we been lied to? That question marks the beginning of the American Awakening—a rediscovery that we are more than consumers and collections of atoms. We are moral and spiritual beings, and once a people remember that truth matters and rights come from God rather than government, they become very difficult to manipulate.

Velvet Chains, Filtered Reality: Freedom with Guardrails

Elections still happen. Parties still act like it’s a steel-cage match. But on the fundamentals—the wiring of the economy, the growth of the administrative state, the handshake between government and corporate power—the menu is pre-selected. You’re not choosing dinner; you’re choosing the garnish. The work of Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page (2014) didn’t need conspiracy theories to make the point: policy outcomes tend to track the preferences of economic elites far more than average voters. Translation: your vote counts; your leverage doesn’t.

Full Stomachs, Empty Souls: Why Comfort Breeds Chaos

There’s a lie we like to tell ourselves somewhere between a full fridge and a stable Wi-Fi signal: once things get good enough, we’ll finally calm down. No more chaos. No more fighting. No more drama. Just peace, progress, and maybe a backyard smoker that never runs out of propane.

Hard Times, Soft People, and the Lie We Tell Ourselves

The now-famous line popularized by G. Michael Hopf—“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times”—isn’t just internet wisdom wrapped in a motivational poster. It’s a stripped-down field manual for understanding why civilizations rise, peak, wobble, and then fall flat on their face.

Two Wings, One Bird: How We Traded a Republic for a Revenue Machine

We like to pretend we live in a fierce two-party system. Red vs. blue. Left vs. right. Cable news gladiators screaming like it’s the Super Bowl of righteousness. But step back far enough and the illusion fades. What you actually see is one bird with two wings—and that bird doesn’t care about your values, your vote, or your virtue. It worships one thing: money.

From Wolf to Weapon System: How Man Engineered the Dog After the Reset

Forget the timeline arguments for a minute. Set aside the academic cage match over dates, carbon curves, and who’s got the better spreadsheet of ancient dust. Start instead with something far more obvious—there was a world before everything went sideways, and there was a world after.