Common Sense, a "To Do" List for America Today

By James Babcock

Based on recent Gallup polls of public opinion, a citizen tackles a baker’s dozen of America’s major problems that are susceptible to common sense solutions by legislation or the ballot box. Chapter topics include poor leadership, climate change, the deficit, fragile banking, bailouts, healthcare, the drug war, gun control, immigration, racism, education, poverty, and national security. The polls change, but the problems remain. In the concluding chapter, entitled “Can It Be Done?, the author renders a judgment about whether Americans can meet the challenge of dealing with these major issues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Babcock
• Release date: Feb 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005174019

James Babcock

Following three years in the Navy and forty years in international and domestic banking, Babcock took up a second career as a writer and composer. His plots draw on his travels abroad and experiences in foreign exchange trading, bank operations, lending, trust services, auditing, and bank management. Active in community work, he served as a university rector, symphony president, and chairman of economic development organizations. He holds degrees from Princeton and the Wharton School. In addition to his novels and short stories, his creative work includes books of humor and games and a number of pieces for violin and piano. He resides with his family in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Book preview

COMMON SENSE

A TO DO LIST FOR AMERICA TODAY

We have left undone those things which

we ought to have done,

And we have done those things which

we ought not to have done.

—The Book of Common Prayer

James F. Babcock

Copyright © 2022 by James F. Babcock

rights reserved

Smashwords Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IntroductionThe Polls

Chapter1Poor Leadership

Chapter2Climate Change

Chapter3 The Deficit

Chapter4Fragile Banking

Chapter5Bailouts

Chapter6Healthcare

Chapter7The War on Drugs

Chapter8Gun Control

Chapter9Immigration

Chapter 10 Racism

Chapter 11Education

Chapter 12National Security

Chapter 13Poverty

Conclusion Can It Be Done?

Appendix

About the Author

More Books by James Babcock

Introduction

In early 1776, although a revolutionary war was already underway between England and its American colonies, many Americans still hoped for a peaceful settlement that would reconcile the mother country and her overseas citizens. But talk of independence was also much in the air. Helping to crystalize that sentiment throughout the otherwise divided thirteen colonies, a pamphlet entitled Common Sense became the publishing sensation of the era by providing a rationale for abandoning the British monarchy and joining together the Atlantic colonies in an independent federal republic. Thomas Paine's widely disseminated pamphlet articulated the case in clear and rousing language. Of course, King George III's stubbornness and the depredations of his soldiers helped no end. Six months later, after the failure of colonial attempts at reconciliation, the deed was done.

Today America stands in need of another dose of Common Sense. Not about the form of government, which was Paine's main thesis, but about a number of critical public issues where the government, mostly at the federal level, is bumbling, confused, wasteful, or gridlocked. This book examines some of the most important of these issues. It is titled Common Sense because I cannot write as an expert on any of these difficult issues but only from the perspective of an interested and hopeful citizen. I also believe that when doctrinaire considerations are set aside and the main facts in each case are outlined, reasonable citizens and their leaders will choose to also set aside special interests or purely selfish considerations and finally do the right thing, or at least an approximation.

In that sense, this survey is little concerned with ideology and much concerned with pragmatism. The central question is, What works? It is possible to ask this question, despite ideological differences between the major political parties, because their debates may be loud and bitter but in fact both of our mainstream parties and their supporters subscribe to basic American values. Indeed, often what divides them is only a matter of emphasis, as in How much? or When? or This before that! rather than Never! Never! Never! A wise history professor once observed that a major difference between American political debates and those of the French is that Americans may argue over money or the best way to accomplish a goal but the vast majority of Americans accept their form of government as established by the Constitution over 200 years ago, whereas the French, from the Revolution of 1789 to at least the mid-twentieth century, argued over whether their government should be a monarchy or a republic. The field of our debates is much narrower.

With this observation in mind, one can hope that when a strong majority of thinking Americans recognizes there is a problem, they can