Common sense

25/11/24

Common sense is an imaginary line that the intelligence of the individual traces through space and time and that it should not be exceededIt is possible to cross it only in exceptional cases.

Usually it is a very fast, precise, decisive gesture, which only apparently seems to be done by instinct, by impulse: it is not so. A person with common sense "travels" at a reasonable speed, favorable to reasoning, better. But he knows how to accelerate, if the context requires it.

Here it is: "the context". It is a variable, or rather, perhaps it is the Variable of Variables. Winning a challenge is often, if not always, a matter of correctly assessing the context and adapting one’s capabilities to the level of the challenge, or threat, whatever it may be.

In the case of nations governed by chosen, elected people, it is believed and hoped that they are endowed with common sense, first of all (since Western ones are elective democracies this is, or would be, the minimum requirement required).

Now: Is it common sense, I ask, to keep soldiers without clear rules of engagement, without adequate armament for a possible counterattack, with practically no air cover and, above all, with the contradictory task of separating two of the most aggressive and ruthless contenders in this part of the world, essentially with words?

Was it common sense not to consider the possibility that a nuclear superpower, at a certain point, decides to close the game using the atomic weapons at its disposal?

In this regard, I would like to recall that Nixon imposed to tell Le Duc To, to Kissinger, during the negotiations in Paris to agree on the US withdrawal, that if they had pushed the rope too far, trying to humiliate America, and therefore him, that at a certain point he would have given the order to use tactical nuclear weapons on North Vietnam. Possibly also on the Chinese border.
I can't say if it was "common sense", but Le Duc To (and therefore Ho Chi Min, and therefore the Chinese, as well as the Soviets) signed the withdrawal in the manner and time proposed by Kissinger.

That this would end up like this in Ukraine was a historical possibility, as well as a logical one. It was enough to think.

Yet: Is it common sense, on the part of the Police Force, on political orders, to fight with students and members every other day, with truncheons, shields, helmets, tear gas... and then let the Emergency Rooms be destroyed, for a failed exam, or maybe for fashion, I would even say, every other weekend, without lifting a finger? It was the same in Britain a few years ago. Then some minister got the idea of ​​sending paramedics from the paratroopers, the Royal Marines, the Gurkas, and even the SAS, to practice in the trauma wards of hospitals on Saturday nights. Who knows how... the trend of beating doctors and nurses ended!

Is it common sense to leave teachers and school administrators defenseless because of a bad grade or a disciplinary sanction? Maybe, we could send some lagoon soldiers, San Marco, grenadiers, bersaglieres... to look some students in the face, and their parents... who knows.

In short, and this is the vexed question: Is Italy or is it not a country inhabited, governed, and inspired by "common sense"?

Wishes.

Andrea Sapori

Photo: Ministry of Defense