Common Sense and Reason Again

By John Bassett Mccleary

COMMON SENSE AND REASON AGAIN: The continued existence of every man, woman, child and family pet balances on what I am writing here and how it is received. In this book my audience is literally everybody in America and accordingly. the whole world. 

Many of the things I discuss in this

• Language: English
• Publisher: Slow Limbo Publishing
• Release date: Aug 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9780966868753

Book preview

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COMMON SENSE AND REASON AGAIN

John Bassett McCleary follows a long-time family characteristic of upending the status quo. His grandfather, James Madison Bassett, was the driving force in exposing the corporate fraud of one of the Big Four" railroad barons, Collis P. Huntington. And John’s father, W. K. Bassett, initiated the field workers union in Hawaii,providing protection and benefits for the laborers against the fruit canning company owners. John has led the effort of multiple generations to question authority and persons in power.

"McCleary’s writings continue a journalistic tradition, for he is the heir to a family of penmen titans—owners, publishers, editors, reporters for the publications The Golden Era, Oakland Tribune, Los Angeles Herald, Oakland Enquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Pacific Commercial Advertiser, the Honolulu Times, Boston Herald, Providence Bulletin, the magazine Controversy, Pacific Weekly and the Carmel Cymbal."

Douglas Schmitz

Author, historian, Bassett family biographer

COMMON SENSE and REASON AGAIN

Comments On The Flaws of Our

Government and Society in General

With Concise Remarks on

Capitalism and Religion

written by

John Bassett McCleary

edited by

Joan Jeffers McCleary

Slow Limbo Publishing

ISBN: 0-9668687-3-9

Copyright © 2020 John Bassett McCleary

Copyright © 2003/2019 John Bassett McCleary

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except brief excerpts for the purpose of review, without written permission of the author and publisher.

Other books by John Bassett McCleary

The People’s Book

Celestial Arts, 1972

Monterey Peninsula People

ISBN 0-9668687-0-6

Slow Limbo Productions, 1998

The Hippie Dictionary

ISBN 1-58008-355-2

Ten Speed Press, Crown Press/Random House, 2002 revised 2004

Mother’s Heart, Father’s Mind

ISBN 0-9668687-4-6

For more information about this book or John McCleary’s other works, please see: hippiedictionary.com or commonsenseagain.net

Common Sense and Reason Again is the second book in The Hippie Trilogy:

The Hippie Dictionary

Common Sense and Reason Again

Mother’s Heart, Father’s Mind

Dedicated To

The people who have spoken out unheard.

Those who are afraid to speak out.

And to

John and Richard Miller, who spoke out all their lives

and demanded to be heard;

you know which Millers you are among all the Millers!

With guidance from Thomas Paine

Introduction—Thomas Paine

Common Sense [1776]

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.

Introduction

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question, (and in matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry,) and as the king of England hath undertaken in his own right, to support the parliament in what he calls theirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpations of either.

In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise and the worthy need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious or unfriendly, will cease of themselves, unless too much pains is bestowed upon their conversion.

The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which, their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure, is the …

Author [Thomas Paine}

Philadelphia, Feb. 14, 1776.

Introduction—John McCleary

Common Sense and Reason Again [2020]

There are immoral minorities, but no immoral majorities. Most people are moral and that is why democracy is the best form of government. In order to save our world, we must, at times, be disturbingly frank, painfully truthful.

I want to focus on the male ego, greed and insecurity. These are the reasons for most of the world’s problems.

Our world can be a family, a tribe, town, state or country and then our planet. And our family, tribe, town, state, country and world are not, personally, ours alone. There are other family members and other occupants of our world. We are all just in these groups and places for a while with others. Your country is other peoples’ world, other peoples’ family. If you think you are the center of the universe, you are not alone; everyone thinks they are the center of everything. It is only the greedy and arrogant who make a big deal out of it. In order to be a good family member, you must respect the other family members in our world.

Patriotism, nationalism and ethnic pride are important to give us a foundation in our history, but global democracy exists to prepare for and insure for our good future. If you have no living family, children or spouse, you might, I say, might, have a justification for not caring about our environment, peace and freedom, after you die, but I am sure you will not be going to heaven, nirvana or Club Med wherever you think death should take you.

Don’t confuse the difference between a revolutionary war and a war of economics and expansion. Don’t confuse the difference between a weapon of defense and a weapon of aggression and expansion.

In 1776, Thomas Paine’s little book, Common Sense, helped usher in a totally new form of government, a democratic and representational form of government whereby the common people were given the opportunity to speak their mind by voting for a representative who would gather with other representatives from the other Colonies to propose, hash out, vote and agree on the laws to govern the then 13 states of the United States of America. His little book was the catalyst that bound together the Colonists of America in 1776 and gave them a voice to speak out against the tyranny of English rule. It was the start of a revolution.

The tyrants that Thomas Paine wrote against were put aside. We gained our independence and started a great nation. In the process, our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights were written.

These documents are arguably the greatest pronouncements for the freedom of mankind ever created. It is obvious also that they were written by people of great intellectual capacity.

Now my small book is here to tell you the tyrants have returned. With new faces and in new guises, the people who chased us from the Old Country and hounded us in the New World have re-emerged. All the advantages our Founding Fathers created for the huddled masses longing to be free have been slowly wiped away or watered down by the wealthy elite and their political friends.

We colonists were all aliens and the Native Americans could call us illegal aliens, but we came to save our lives and make a new life just as other new aliens do today. To treat new aliens as criminals is hypocrisy of the worst kind; sending people away, back to where they came from to endure poverty and death is immoral, and especially if you are doing it for your own financial gain. Do you have Native American blood in your body, or is it just upon your hands?

If the native population of North America in the 17th century had been able to kick us back into the sea, the world would be a different place. But I am not here to speculate; I am here to promote a benevolent future. Our dreams shouldn’t be of a tragic past; we should be dreaming of a beautiful future.

I believe, as a majority of the thinking people in this country do, that the United States of America is in big trouble today. The main problem is capitalism and conservative ideology stealing away the American dream from the majority of citizens. And the second problem is failure of the silent majority to recognize the crimes of capitalists. I am equating capitalism to what we, in 1776, were fighting against, the King and the feudal system of England.

The worst problem in the United States of America today is neither crime, poverty, illegal aliens, nor terrorism. It is corporate greed and excesses and the ignorance that allows it to exist.

A large portion of our population believes that intellectual exploration is somehow dangerous or sinful. They have been convinced of this by a small, wealthy ruling class of people in this country who have a lot to lose if the majority population ever figures out what is really causing the troubles in this world. And yet the human brain is what made humans the strong and vital species we are. Without intellectual exploration the saber-toothed tigers and mastodons would rule the world today.

It was the feudal system, not religion, that forced most American colonists and immigrants to leave the old countries. You know, the feudal system where a few people owned everything and the rest of us were indentured to them to work, to make money, so we could give the money back to them for our necessities and rent! It is a well-organized and subtle form of slavery.

Does that sound like capitalism to you? Yes, because capitalism is the new feudal system!

This little book contains suggestions on how to bring back the American dream. Many of these ideas are revolutionary in the way that Thomas Jefferson meant it to be, meaning that they are non-violent, yet unconventional and ground-breaking. A true and righteous revolution is an uprising of the majority of people to equalize happiness and prosperity. Revolution does not have to be painful and violent.

Because of my life, where I’ve been and what I’ve done, I have an opinion on many things! But I have facts and truth to support what I say. Don’t knee-jerk a rebuttal, please read and think; it may be important for our continued existence.

Herein you will also find suggestions about how to fix the mess in which we find our democracy. If you do not read this book, then you will have no basis on which to agree or disagree with me, for there are many totally unique concepts and viewpoints within. Everyone has room to learn, even you, even me.

Lying is more time-consuming than the truth!

Lying is more destructive than the truth!

Lying gives you only a small amount of solution or satisfaction, and then a world of hurt!

The truth will give you a lifetime of solutions and satisfaction!

I try to date when I wrote things. I will at times use a date stamp on some of these ideas and writings that look like this 2003/2020, designating when I first wrote them and when I edited them for this publication. I may also emphasize some things I think important with boldface type or italic! And I like poetic quotes.

Also, I have several friends, family members, alter egos and created personalities whom I quote or use to illustrate what I am saying. They are Dudley Griffin, JOB, Jesus, and Ug, Mug and Thug. Dudley Griffin and JOB are still alive and feeding me insights today. Ug, Mug and Thug are fictitious people from 400,000 years ago. Ug is a female, Mug and Thug are males.

In this book—Issues to be discussed:

Tax Structure: the old taxation without representation adding the question of taxation without benefits, which is the growing problem today.

Advertising Industries: false representation of products.

Monopoly: the temptation to steal from the public if you own a whole industry.

Planned Obsolescence: using poor quality workmanship and materials in order to sell more products at higher profits.

Saving the Planet: poor government and industry conservation and preservation policies.

Stock Market: the possibility of phasing out the market or at least ending the Ponzi scheme aspect of it.

Military and War: the possibility of scaling down our military and rethinking the value of war to the citizens of the world.

Representational Form of Government: consider phasing it out, yet keeping democracy, of course, by instituting retinal scanning electronic voting for all issues that concern you. OVE: One Vote Everyone.

Without Thomas Paine’s political intellectual exploration, our country and its democracy and freedom would never exist. I am hoping that this little re-creation and homage to his book will help preserve democracy and freedom for future generations.

What I will be doing is preaching, educating, advocating and condemning. And I swear on my mother’s righteousness and beauty that everything I write is the truth as far as I could research it.

All of these things are connected by one emotion of the human being-- self preservation.

All of these things are connected by one element of human nature-- the male ego!

Government

Democracy

Voting

Representational Form of Government

Tax Structure

Capitalism

Free Enterprise

Advertising Industry

Planned Obsolescence

Monopoly

Stock Market

I am just here to help cure ignorance.

Author.

Monterey, California, April 18, 2020.

Voices of common sense

Freedom of speech does not give you the freedom to lie. JBMc 9.13.09

You can’t exercise common sense unless you have the common knowledge.

Dudley Griffin 5.10.10

The history of man is not a blueprint for mankind’s evolution; it is a list of our mistakes. JBMc 9.13.13

Diplomacy is the only thing that separates us humans from being wild animals trying to eat each other! JBMc 10.30.17

If journalists published only what people approved of, there would be very little printed.

Paraphrased from Benjamin Franklin

"Those who will not allow peaceful revolution

are making violent revolution inevitable."

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Find out who the liars are and banish them; find the thieves and banish them; the greedy, banish them also, ‘cause if you don’t, you and all of the good people will suffer forever!

Dudley Griffin, 11.5.18

We are now dealing with things that are not written down anywhere. JBMc 2003

We are now dealing with things that are written down here only. JBMc 2020

Conservatives, fundamentalist religious people, you want to control everybody else’s life because you don’t have any control of your life. JOB 4/20/2020

People of power and influence, please don’t mistreat us, the people, because we might then have to rebel. We don’t want to rebel, it is not in our nature to be nasty, like your nature is to mistreat us.

Dudley Griffin 1/8/2020

People of power, read history to find out what will happen if you continue to mistreat us. Even Caesar, King George III, Napoleon and Hitler found out… too late!

Dudley Griffin 1/8/2020

"God, you have several choices:

You can let us go on and kill ourselves!

You can let us go on struggling day to day to physically and emotionally live in this chaos! Or you can let us reach our potential and become perfect!"

JOB, 4/5/20

Mankind, you have several possible choices: You can let us go on and kill ourselves! You can continue to struggle day to day to physically and emotionally survive! Or you can get together with your brothers and sisters to strive to reach your potential and become perfect!

JOB, 4/5/20

Pride is the first sin because it begets all others. JBMc 2/1/2

In the eyes of God, nonviolence raises you above those people of violence!

JOB, as told to him by God

I introduce to you three people from prehistory who have been recreated and reborn over and over from then until now: Ug, Mug and Thug,

Ug was driven to save the world.

Mug was driven to get by in the world.

Thug was driven to own the world.

Come on people of the United States, we can do it; we are the melting pot of people, the conglomeration of the whole world. If we demand cooperation among the people of this world we can change all our lives to be a cooperative effort. We can create a perfect world, in spite of the greedy and egotistic selfish few. It is only 1% that we have to put in their place, so that the world will work.

Working people don’t always know who pays their salaries, it is not the companies they work for that do so, it is the other people, like themselves, who buy the food and products who really pay for everything.

We have too many disreputable big box stores, to many car manufactures, too many air carriers, too many gas companies. What we don’t have is enough reputable schools, hospitals, or home town stores. Let’s stop worrying about the corporations’ survival or the rich peoples net quarter bottom line and start worrying about the real people and their future and the future of their children.

This coronavirus has shown people for who and what the really are! Some people are worried about the death and the human suffering brought about by the virus, and some are worried about the capitalist world and not being able to buy a new Porsche later this year.

COMMON SENSE AND REASON AGAIN

Chapter 1—The Argument Against Kings And Capitalism

Our Founding Fathers chose democracy and free enterprise (not capitalism) to be the political and economic foundation for this country. They did so as a deterrent against discontent and rebellion of the masses, and because they knew it was for The People, the most people. They knew, maybe only instinctively, that if the people are given the ability to form their own destiny, they will be happy and not need to revolt violently.

As you know, if you read our history, the word and the activity capitalism has been around only two hundred years, whereas this country has been here for 244 years. Capitalism is the new feudal system, the same feudal system most of us left the old country to get away from! Some left for religious purposes, but most left for economic freedom.

In much of Europe in 1776, most everything was owned by a small percentage of the population: royalty, major and minor nobility, landed gentry and The Church. It was much the same in 1620 when the Pilgrims came to America.

The Pilgrims came on the first boat, The Mayflower, in 1620 for freedom of religion, free land and opportunity, and the feudal lords sent their accountants and lawyers on the second boat, The Fortune, one year later. The feudal lords have been trying to take everything back ever since. Capitalism is against anything free.

Communism, socialism, free-enterprise and capitalism are the four primary economic terms we us for the spectrum of our world economies. I am a free-enterprise socialist, not a capitalist or communist. I believe that free enterprise, combined with a social safety net system, is the perfect majority-satisfying democratic economy. I have lived in villages in Greece with that same economy, and my ancestors lived in villages here in America with that as the basic economy.

Nobody ever died of starvation or neglect in a tribal village. Most families and small towns are communes. Socialism is a democratic form of economy. It is congenial, and you can be sure that many more people will be happy in a democratic form of economy. Greedy people don’t agree with majority happiness.

Many social systems were created at the beginning of our democracy. Benjamin Franklin devised the free fire department and free library systems. Thomas Jefferson thought higher education should be offered to deserving people without money in their family. These two men are still today considered two of the most intelligent people in mankind’s history. They knew that educating the masses was good for the people and the nation.

What’s wrong with socialism? Are you ashamed of being nice to people in need? Every village or small town in the world runs on a socialistic morality. Are we going to let greedy people destroy mankind for the sake of their egos? Yes, ego that is one of the major flaws of mankind. Ego elevates self, developing into selfishness and then greed.

We, as a democracy, should not have capitalism as our economic foundation. It is a shaky platform for the workingman and not a level playing field for anyone, except those people who already have wealth.

Without dictators messing it up, communism would be socialism and free enterprise together.

Socialism is a democratic economic system!

Free Enterprise is a democratic economic system!

Fascisms is a dictatorial economic system!

Capitalism is a dictatorial economic system!

A free enterprise and socialist economy allows everyone capable of competing to do so, and it supplies a safety net for those who cannot. Without a safety net, many people will slip into poverty, which is bad for society. A poor man is capable of desperate actions; it may even be said he is required and destined to steal for the survival of his family and self. A healthy society is one where everyone is content with his or her life and opportunities.

Competition is good for development of the mind and body. If it is done with love and rationality it will advance you and society into a good future. If it is done with greed and hate it will destroy our world.

Socialism is, if you know your Bible, the actual Christian way. Christ tended to the poor, aged and sick. Now we just put people who can’t compete in dog-eat-dog capitalism into the modern poor house; prisons or institutions.

I believe in a rational economic food chain, like the animal and natural kingdom’s food chain. Human economic sustenance should start from the bottom. All nutrition in the animal kingdom travels up from the smallest creatures through the chain until it eventually reaches the top predators. Actually, it flows best when it flows both ways. The large die and feed the small, and the small feed the large again. Everyone touches the food and/or money. This makes for a happier society, everyone receiving the food they need. It’s natural, it’s democratic, it’s socialistic and it is the opposite of trickle-down.

I realize that this book contains new ways to look at things we already thought we knew as factual and established. Don’t just close your mind to new things because they are different; look at their value in this changing world. We must learn new social and economical actions just as we have learned how to deal with the computer, cell phones and virtual reality.

To save our country’s integrity and validity as a democracy, there are several things that we as voters must do.

Lobby for politicians and vote for candidates who would be open minded to:

Reinstitute monopoly and usury laws.

Scrap the trickle-down economy, it doesn’t work for anyone except the rich.

Stop tax breaks for advertising, and increase breaks for real R&D into areas of quality and conservation.

The government should offer carbon credits and give tax breaks for keeping people employed. Government should reward good behavior, not bad.

Censure and scale back the stock market. The stock market should give new and good companies a chance to research and develop new products to benefit and advance mankind and our environment.

Control election contributions to make us a democracy again.

Get rid of the electoral collage to make us a democracy again.

We need intellectuals making our fiscal and economic decisions, not MBAs and lawyers. Intellectuals and academics make decisions based on facts gleaned from research and study and will most likely make non-personal and non-partisan decisions regardless of who benefits. No one who will disproportionately benefit from a political decision on economics should have a say in the laws. Let’s have women making decisions for women. Wow, that would be unique!

The one thing that makes us human beings is our society. If we do not fit in or add something to society, then we are an outcast, and if we are an outcast then we fail as a human being.

Governments are not really our society; they are just representative of society. People are society.

As our Founding Fathers showed us, it is possible to be a revolutionary and still be a valuable member of society. If the government does not add to the welfare of society, then it should be changed, as Jefferson wrote.

When the King was in power, he kept a tight reign on those who opposed him. When they came to power, they, of course, would do the same to him.

Again:

Those who will not allow peaceful revolution are making violent revolution inevitable.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Although it has not been publicized widely or spoken of much, one of the underlying reasons for our Founding Fathers choosing a democracy for the government of the United States was that it is a benevolent pacifier for the masses. All other forms of government are dictatorial or autocratic, and they eventually ferment revolution, unrest and social and economic upheaval.

The difference between a government and a totalitarian dictatorship is that a dictatorship deals with dissent; a true government listens to it.

On July 9, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read to General Washington’s Army of the Continent on the commons in New York City. That day, common mankind learned that freedom was its birthright.

Chapter 2—The Personality of America

Democracy means freedom.

America has two personalities. It is democratic, tolerant, peace-loving and generous. It is also self-centered, arrogant, violent and greedy.

Which of these two would you like to be known as? Which of these two do you think is better for America?

Our founding fathers were by far the most insightful government leaders this world has ever known. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are the best foundations for a peaceful, and profitable population on this earth. But we are not following the leadership of great men right now.

The formative idea of democracy is that whatever is best for the majority of the people will be better for everyone in the long run. Greedy people say, To hell with that! I’m getting everything I want, and let everyone else suffer the consequences. That is poor fiscal planning for this country and the world.

That mentality was perhaps acceptable when we lived in a kill-or-be-killed jungle. Now cooperation among people is the more responsible and more profitable path.

Most people are trying to improve themselves economically. To do so, they might start by improving themselves socially.

The Perfection Chart

Learn to like people.

Learn the work ethic.

Learn to be tolerant of all others.

Achieve a reasonable economic stability.

Maintain a sexual control.

Find some sort of spirituality.

Achieve a giving spirit.

Achieve a volunteer attitude.

Chapter 3—Government

Until the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the United States of America were written, all other governments before were created as ways to control people and resources under the power of a few leaders or kings. The idea of American Democracy was a unique and inspired concept.

Giving the populace control over their own lives and a role in their own governing was genius, not merely as a benevolent concept, but as a practical solution to the continual conflicts and wars that had raged for millennia over man’s basic desire to be free. Here was the true answer to human rebellion. Give mankind no reason to rebel. Give