Common Sense Doesn't Scale Well
One thing that those who like to talk about "common sense solutions" often don't seem to grasp is that some things don't scale well. You can't drive a semi rig the same way you would a motorcycle; if you try, you'll either roll over the semi going around a curve, or take a curve on a motorcycle so slowly that you'll be plowed into by someone in a car who didn't see you.
Nobody who has managed in both a small, independently owned store, and a major retail chain with hundreds of stores and thousands of employees, will try to manage both of them the same way. In a small store, you know all the employees as people, and can tailor how you treat them appropriately. In the major chain, in order to have any control at all, you have to put out rules that apply to all, and make sure the store and regional managers apply the rules consistently.
And yet, some politicians say it's "common sense" to try to manage a nation of 300 million people in 130 million households as if we were an average family with children. You can't spank Arizona and send it to bed without supper, no matter how mean it was to baby Juanita. You can't tell Michigan to buckle down on homework and quit daydreaming about the days when you didn't have to study because everyone could get a job in the car factories.
This, in part, is why I've begun to suspect that "common sense" means "what you'd think, if you never went to school, and never worked in any job that required you to observe and think."
Nobody who has managed in both a small, independently owned store, and a major retail chain with hundreds of stores and thousands of employees, will try to manage both of them the same way. In a small store, you know all the employees as people, and can tailor how you treat them appropriately. In the major chain, in order to have any control at all, you have to put out rules that apply to all, and make sure the store and regional managers apply the rules consistently.
And yet, some politicians say it's "common sense" to try to manage a nation of 300 million people in 130 million households as if we were an average family with children. You can't spank Arizona and send it to bed without supper, no matter how mean it was to baby Juanita. You can't tell Michigan to buckle down on homework and quit daydreaming about the days when you didn't have to study because everyone could get a job in the car factories.
This, in part, is why I've begun to suspect that "common sense" means "what you'd think, if you never went to school, and never worked in any job that required you to observe and think."