Rudyard Kipling wrote “Gods of the Copybook Headings” over 100 years ago. Copybooks were writing aids that had common sense sayings on the heading of each page which the students were expected to copy multiple times down the page in order to practice handwriting. Thus, they would learn two things at once.
The gist of the poem is that progressives found “common sense” to be trite and unnecessary, but the “Gods of the Copybook Headings” would relentlessly prove them wrong.
One particular verse related to this thread:
“When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promiced perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘Stick to the Devil you know.’
I memorized the poem in fifth grade. I would suggest that you can look it up on the web.
Too much common sense in those verses. LOL!