.

Killing Common Sense

The savagery of leftist rage
__is getting more intense.
There’s no rest from the war they wage
__upon our common sense.
The brave who voice their doubts out loud
__are always shouted down.
They’re cornered by the blue-haired crowd,
__then driven out of town.

Young brains are washed, and hair gets dyed
__at university.
Where they’re taught we must sub-divide
__to get more unity.
The content of our character
__is now irrelevant.
Instead, they judge in ways that were
__once deemed malevolent.

They’ve also learned police cause less,
__not more security.
Defunding cops means we’ll possess
__a safe society.
They’ve learned another cause of crime
__is that we filled each jail.
We must release those doing time,
__and bring in cashless bail.

They like to chant ad nauseam,
__“Strength from Diversity.”
So migrants by the millions come,
__unscreened for quality.
Our country is the most diverse
__and gets more so each day.
But somehow things worked in reverse,
__our strength has ebbed away.

They’ve learned that women can be men
__and vice versa too.
Biology is useless when
__truth is what’s true for you.
Young brains that grow and change nonstop,
__must be relied upon
to choose which body parts to chop
__and which parts should stay on.

All leftists love to congregate
__where bad ideas breed.
Their concepts quickly propagate
__once they have been degreed.
The source of all this craziness
__is university.
No wonder all the leftists stress
__that college should be free.

.

.

Warren Bonham is a private equity investor who lives in Southlake, Texas.

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23 Responses

  1. Philip L Flott

    Warren: a perfect delineation of our so many troubles. ThANKS FOR PUTTING PEN TO PAPER (AS IT WERE).

    Reply
  2. Phil S. Rogers

    Right on target this mourning. “Our strength has ebbed away,” so sad and very, very, true. Thank you Warren.

    Reply
    • Warren Bonham

      The World Happiness Report ranked very un-diverse countries from Scandinavia as the 3 happiest countries in the world last year. China is one of the least diverse countries in the world. Their economy has significantly outgrown ours over the past 30 years. I’m not sure what our single-minded focus on diversity has gained us. It doesn’t feel like we’re getting stronger.

      Reply
  3. Mark Stellinga

    Nothin’ but bulls-eyes here, Warren, have you ever thought about running for office? You and I would get along quite well, my friend…

    Reply
    • Warren Bonham

      Having common sense has historically been a disqualifier for public office holders but I agree that it would be great to see more people break that pattern.

      Reply
      • Mark Stellinga

        Me too, but don’t hold your breath! 🙂 BTW – Very often, I, too, am a ‘fourteener’, as Joe puts it, which, for me, is a bit less constraining than typical “Formal” poetry. After 61 years of penning verse in metered rhyme, I’ve got a ton of ’em…keep up the good work.

  4. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Warren, that is a great presentation of collegiate millennials and how to ruin open minds at the university level by filling them with liberal indoctrination. It is as if many university campuses have become Russian labor camps with daily instruction in perverse values. Excellent and well written.

    Reply
    • Warren Bonham

      College is becoming a gold-plated Gulag where teaching young people how to think long since stopped being important.

      Reply
  5. Russel Winick

    You’ve nailed quite a bit here Warren, with fine meter and rhyme. Excellent work!

    Reply
    • Warren Bonham

      I’m glad the meter and rhyme didn’t seem forced and that the message still came through.

      Reply
  6. Joseph S. Salemi

    This meter (sometimes called “fourteeners) is perfect for exposition and argumentation. Bonham’s poem is an excellent example of how it can describe and explicate. Very good work, sir!

    One typo — in the first line of section 4, the Latin phrase should be ad nauseam, with an /a/ in the last syllable. Also, it might be better to put the entire Latin phrase into italics.

    Reply
    • Warren Bonham

      I always learn something new on this site. My college education clearly let me down – I’ve been spelling that phrase wrong for decades.

      Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Thank you, Jospeh, for your comment on fourteen meters being “forteeners.” I tend to write in that meter a lot of the time but did not know what to call it. Now that I know it has a name, I am more comfortable writing that way.

      Reply
  8. Margaret Coats

    Warren, what you say is too accurate about too many institutions. The situation has degenerated from teaching silly courses to judging in ways once deemed malevolent. There are a few places where real education is still provided, and a few teachers in bad schools who do their best despite fellow faculty members. In fact, it is those better schools and teachers who ought to pay attention to a poem like yours–to see the reputation they have acquired. The good they do is absolutely essential, but they need to see the ridicule they are held in, simply as part of the current disaster. They and we must be more emphatic about the value of culture, which is quickly lost without genuine education.

    Reply
    • Warren Bonham

      You make a very good point. It’s easy to paint with too broad a brush but the pendulum needs to start swinging in the opposite direction. I’m glad I’m not a teacher. The good ones are in a very difficult position.

      Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Thanks, Warren, and I agree entirely on the need for change, which is even more desperate now than when my children went to college. Parents and students themselves bear some responsibility. You have rightly pointed to the expense. My husband and I did careful research to make sure tuition fees might be worth it at about 20 institutions in the US (mostly small and all private). That was enough to give the children a choice–but students then need to exercise discernment about courses they choose, and to work hard because education is not a matter of the teacher simply pouring in the information. This is part of growing up. It was tough; they needed encouragement from us, but they also got tips from student friends and found good guidance from sympathetic staff and faculty at two very different institutions. One was newly founded to address current problems; another was 150 years old but on the right track thanks to reformers among faculty and alumni.

      Reply
  10. Cynthia Erlandson

    Excellently expressed! Of course — we must “subdivide to get more unity”! Why didn’t we see that before?

    Reply
  11. Joshua C. Frank

    Well done! It’s all true. Though the university isn’t the only source of leftism; rather, all our institutions, without exception, are aggressively pushing leftism.

    Any parent who sends his children to college in this day and age is severely misguided at best.

    Reply

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