Where Did Common Sense Go?

Sometimes you have to wonder about people. You read a story in the paper, or watch the news reports, and you shake your head in disbelief at what some fool did. You ask yourself how someone could make such an idiotic choice when the results of the given situation should be obvious.
Here is my for instance: Recently a man was killed while attempting to steal copper from a utility substation. A Jourdanton man was killed early Friday after he was shocked by 69,000 volts of electricity as officials said he was stealing copper wire from an Atascosa County substation. Officials said they think was standing atop one of the substation transformers, cutting off one of the wires, when the electricity arced toward him. Because of the amount of power in the transformer, he wouldn’t necessarily have had to come into contact with the grounded metal to be electrocuted. With a voltage that high, “it reaches out to you.”
Heck, what is 69,000 volts anyway? Those “High Voltage”, “Electrical Hazard”, and “Danger-Do Not Enter” signs are just there to keep the undetermined out are they not? My Liberal friends would suggest we need to figure out how society failed this man so that others won’t attempt similar actions. Guess what? I found over 38,000 reports when checking on Google for the most recent. I guess this is just one criminal who won’t be turning to a life of Labor.
Why didn’t he use just a little common sense? I mean if 120 volts is bad for you, then the 13,800 or 69,000 KVA may do a little more damage. But, we know the problem is running rampant. Watch “COPS” for half an hour, or “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” We hear about these Mental Giants listening to Phil Williams give us his stupid criminals updates. We laugh; we judge them in a small way and think to ourselves “Well, at least I haven’t done anything that stupid.” I am going to admit up front, that on rare occasion in the past I have done things a certified idiot wouldn’t do on a bad day. We all have. Those choices are few and far between however, and (so far) none have been caught by a video camera.
There isn’t a week that goes by that a coworker laments the stupidity of some recent decision made by management, or another worker, or some relative on that other side of the family. We wonder “what were they thinking?” Most of the time they weren’t. I thought for a long time it might be limited to lower and mid level management in corporations, but I have been proved wrong again and again. I rationalized it by saying that its rampant among leftist liberal wackos, but not so common among my conservative brethren. Finally I admitted that individuals are extremely intelligent, but people can be amazingly stupid.
A few years ago when I first considered running for county office I looked at the commission landscape and saw it filled with mostly Republicans. I assumed (wrongly) that the cinch of the Bible belt and support of local churches would ensure strong conservative oversight of social and fiscal programs. Spend taxpayer money like it was your own, and you’ll soon realize how much you can do without and still be happy and comfortable.

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Your local paper online, has two mentions of Sen. Bunning today, but no explanation of why he is taking this fiscal stance. Sen. Bunning is doing what he is doing in effort to reign in wild spending. If these road projects are the most important issues in the U.S., then our congress men and women should have no problem finding $10 billion in waste to pay for the work. Instead the DT and Obama believe your kids should get the $10 billion bill. As long as theys is gettin’ theirs - some don’t care who pays or when.

Bunning also wants Geithner fired along with Bernanke. I think to his credit.

Can a party member, either side, please explain how being a Democrat or Republican is relevant to the duties of any elected offices in Blount County government?