You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analagous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and verb and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.

In times of crisis human beings don't have it in them to be rational.

Anyway, whacking a surly bartender ain't much of a crime.

Americans don't want cowboys to be gay.

-she remembered them kindly, for there was a sweetness in boys that didn't last long, once they became men.

Incompetents invariably make trouble for people other than themselves.

Members of the Academy are mostly urban people. We are an urban nation. We are not a rural nation. It's not easy even to get a rural story made.