"The U.S. government is set to offer an online emotional rescue kit! "
So states Drudge on a developing story. Apparently, this emotional kit is to help people deal with the stress of the financial crisis. Isn't this kind of like an abusive spouse providing you with tips on how to cope with his or her abuse? As Libertarian Harry Browne once said, "Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, "See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk."
Update: Fausta's Blog: The government is not here to help.
Update: Fausta's Blog: The government is not here to help.
posted by Helen at 6:12 AM
55 Comments:
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? That may be unknowable but we are sure now that it takes 500 souls to pull off a trip to London to visit the Queen by President Obama. Arrrgghhh - I am stressed, quick find me that website!
Collectivists, socialists, statists.
Screw that, they're commies.
If you look hard at it, they expect more out of others not "like them" than than do out of themselves. Give me mine, and I'll take yours.
Does anyone on this planet actually think Obama could run General Motors? AIG? We already know the government can't run Fannie and Freddie.
You can't use that title without writing the prescription, doctor.
Tut, tut.
Let's sue the government for emotional distress. Of course, that would probably be counter-productive considering where they get their money...
Next week our beloved federal government will be passing out soma.
Words of wisdom:
Is there nothing I can say
Nothing I can do
To change your mind
Im so in love with you
Youre too deep in
You cant get out
Youre just a poor girl in a rich mans house
Yeah, baby, Im crying over you
Dont you know promises were never made to keep?
Just like the night, dissolve in sleep
Ill be your savior, steadfast and true
Ill come to your emotional rescue
Ill come to your emotional rescue
Yeah, the other night, crying
Crying baby, yeah Im crying
Yeah Im like a child baby
Im like a child baby
Child yeah, Im like a child, like a child
Like a child
You think youre one of a special breed
You think that youre his pet pekinese
Ill be your savior, steadfast and true
Ill come to your emotional rescue
Ill come to your emotional rescue
I was dreaming last night
Last night I was dreaming
How youd be mine, but I was crying
Like a child, yeah, I was crying
Crying like a child
You will be mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, all mine
You could be mine, could be mine
Be mine, all mine
I come to you, so silent in the night
So stealthy, so animal quiet
Ill be your savior, steadfast and true
Ill come to your emotional rescue
Ill come to your emotional rescue
Yeah, you should be mine, mine, whew
Yes, you could be mine
Tonight and every night
I will be your knight in shining armour
Coming to your emotional rescue
You will be mine, you will be mine, all mine
You will be mine, you will be mine, all mine
I will be your knight in shining armour
Riding across the desert with a fine arab charger
Somehow, I do not think that Mick was interested in this young lady's emotions either. But I love the line about promises. To him that has ears, let him hear.
Trey
@Obama
I'll never be
Your beast of burden
J. Galt with apologies to M. Jagger
Emotional Rescue?
The only thing that could emotionally rescue me is if every Government official involved with this economic mess immediately resigned and committed Seppuku.
That would of course never happen because those clowns in Washington wouldn't know honor if it hit them in the face. Heck, I'd even settle for just a resignation!
Alas, one can dream.
Interesting. You seem to imply that the website in question advises people to turn to the government in times of crisis or stress. In fact, it suggests turning to friends, family, and spiritual leaders.
To mock those ideas certainly represents a stark turnaround from the "compassionate conservatism" we've heard so much about.
@Roman Wolf : "Heck, I'd even settle for just a resignation! "
Not me - I want seppuku.
@Fundamentally - you first, compadre. Compassion can be defined as putting all liberals out of their mental misery as quickly as possible.
By the way, Helen, the post right below this one suggests, quite rightly, that depression and anger in a time of stress can turn tragic if no assistance is sought or received, and that in extreme cases, failure to address such emotional difficulties may even result in mass murder.
It's puzzling, then, that you would proceed to scoff at a website that offers exactly the kind of resources that might be helpful in such a situation. Since you've just acknowledged that lives are at stake, I should think you'd applaud the availability of this information, even if you're unimpressed by its source.
Uncle Ken---mass murder is funny? After what just happened in Carthage?
How's that kool-aid, fundamentally?
Fundamentally --
You purposely miss the point, m'thinks. The jab is the WH is putting up a site to 'help' those they are in the process of crippling. Much like DADvocate implied, they destroy the economy and offer soma suggestions for their own actions as if they care.
By all means, if you are having problems, rely on friends, family and even professionals. But, you don't need the gov to tell you that as if you're an idiot child and by no means believe the gov gives a crap beyond appearance.
@Fundamentally: "Uncle Ken---mass murder is funny? After what just happened in Carthage?"
Who said anything about mass murder? I'm just encouraging you to commit seppuku.
Oligonicella: Nah, I got the point just fine. But since it was the Bush administration who presided over all but the last 8 weeks of the economic crisis, and since the latest polls show that Americans are vastly MORE optimistic than they've been for several years, it's an odd and angry sort of denial that would lead you to cast Obama in the role of the abuser.
Regarding "not giving a crap beyond appearance," surely no president in recent memory has perfected this art as skillfully as George W. Bush. Katrina, anyone?
I'd guess some people were more optimistic right after the election, but now? Please direct me to those polls. Who, in their right mind (!), is optimistic right now?
Perhaps, we should require them to watch this short film by Yukio Mishima. Seppuku at its best.
Here you go, Vicki.
I'm fascinated by the general interest in seppuku here, but I wonder if you all realize that one of its most common applications was in the aftermath of a humiliating defeat. If we were really following the code of bushido (heh!), it would be the Republicans who were due for some harakiri in the aftermath of November's elections. Wishing that upon any of you, though, would be pretty childish.
So you would rather kill us with 1000 inane posts?
Trey
TMink---hilarious!
Thanks for your input today, mary. Missed ya! Mean it!
"...In fact, it suggests turning to friends, family, and spiritual leaders."
You mean taxpayers spent how many millions on this new website only to be told to look elsewhere for solace? What a rip! I want my Xanax!
Fundamentally -
But since it was the Bush administration who presided over all but the last 8 weeks of the economic crisis...
How convenient to forget that it's Congress that makes budget and the banks were forced to make bad loans. By the way, in the last three months, the Dem houses and Pres have worked to triple the debt eight years took to make.
latest polls
Show me polls not from ABC. Rather, someone neutral.
Regarding "not giving a crap beyond appearance," surely no president in recent memory has perfected this art as skillfully as George W. Bush. Katrina, anyone?
Ah, that old canard. The Feds were prohibited by law from interfering with LAs internal affairs. He called and offered, but Blanco and Nagin refused. Blanco also neglected to include costal areas in her initial requests for aid.
President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency in selected regions of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi on Saturday, the 27th, two days before the hurricane made landfall.
On Sunday, August 28, President Bush spoke with Governor Blanco to encourage her to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.
Blame for the disaster in NO lies squarely with Blanco and Nagin, but that wouldn't make Bush look bad, would it?
Oligonicella---sorry, but anyone who thinks that ABC leans left and that Bush wasn't even minimally responsible for the catastrophe in New Orleans (he was The Decider, remember??) isn't operating rationally, I'm afraid.
Memory refresher:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11627394/
Fundamentally --
Ah, drop into ad hominem, nice. Minimally, sure, very minimally. All government responded less than stellar. You, however, were intimating he was not giving a crap beyond appearance when reality is he was urging Blanco to do something and it was she who refused. You know, turned back the Walmart trucks with supplies and such. Like Nagin insisting on high quality buses instead of using the hundreds of school buses that drowned. That kind of incompetence.
And yes, ABC and NBC lean left. You may be afraid all you want.
Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
And don't let the door hit your chicken ass on the way out.
Trey
Hopefully success for the plan.
Cheers,
Perniagaan Internet | Rahsia Internet | Cari Duit Diinternet | Pemasaran Internet | Cari Duit Online
"the mob moves into the neighborhood, breaks lots of windows, and then fixes them up"
I'd almost agree with that analogy, except I don't see much fixing going on.
It's more as if the mob moved in, committed wholesale carnage, and then sent in teams of grief counselors.
It would be funny if they didn't take themselves so seriously!
A European point of view, people need the social safety net, rather than sympathy. Comforting words do not fill empty stomach.
@ Godless Finn "people need the social safety net, rather than sympathy. Comforting words do not fill empty stomach."
Samurai swords do.
To Godless Finn:
And somebody has to pay for that social safety net. And since it is the government who is providing the net, the payers are being forced to open their wallets and give their money to others, effectively at the point of a governmental gun.
If person A thinks that person B should have a social safety net, then person A should pay for it, not force person C to pay for it.
As has been proven elsewhere and stated in this blog, conservative right wing types give more money to charitable organizations than those of lefty persuasion.
People to the left of center believe higher taxes should be paid by all. As far as I know, our government allows the taxpayer to give more than the current laws demand. So I honestly don't understand why these individuals aren't giving the government all they can spare, if this is what they truly believe. What are they waiting for?
I support a safety net for those who have truly fallen. People lounging in the net need to be bounced out.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those
who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
Smart man, that Jefferson fellow. Did he every finally move on up to the East side?
Trey
In Finland, we have social security. It is not charity, it is a right, based on the law. But every country can make its own decisions. I wish you all the best.
It may be a right by law. But don't say it's not a charity.
@ Godless Finn: "we have social security. It is not charity, it is a right, based on the law."
@ Mike WIlson: "It may be a right by law. But don't say it's not a charity."
Rights may be defined as those inherent privileges or entitlements, conveyed either naturally (or by God, if you are not in Finland), which DO NOT impinge on others. Thus I have the right to speak freely, you have the right not to listen. Similarly my right to wave my arms freely ends one inch from your nose.
Social Security may be the law, but it is not a right. It consists of stealing a portion of one man's life and labors to give to another, by force. We abhor slavery, forcing one man to give his life in the service of another. Why then do we tolerate income transfer payments by force?
The redistribution of wealth, by a government backed by violence (try not paying your taxes and see who comes to the door) is a form of enslavement - yet many feel this is somehow OK.
I don't.
'Charity" is the VOLUNTARY transfer of wealth. Nothing atall to do with government. Only a wealthy man can be charitable. The government, having no monies of it's own, cannot be charitable by definition.
Godless Finn, I checked on the Finnish social security system, and one of the things I appreciated is that it has limits and exclusions. You have to work for so long before you get unemployment, you may only get assistance for two years, there is means testing for scholarships, that sort of thing.
Limited assistance for people that need it is not a problem for us. Millions of able bodied people living off our taxes is a problem for us.
And please do not think you have to stop posting. Your posts are interesting and you express yourself well, I hope you stay. We try to be respectful to people with differing opinions who state them so well, you will be welcome here.
Trey
Workers pay for their own social security, I mean the unemployment insurance, sick insurance etc. This package is known as social security. Sure, it has limitations, because of common resources can not be used recklessly.
To Godless Finn:
"...because of [course] common resources can not be used recklessly."
Who gets to decide what is "reckless", the people paying for the benefits or the people receiving them? It should be obvious that the two groups will have different definitions. Can you see where this is going or do I have to explain it in detail?
And what better way to promote the message of wellness than to name it
www.samhsa.gov/economy/
"I say, my love, feeling down? Why don't you just trot on over to samshagoveconmy and get yourself fixed up?"
I meant the restrictions that you must be employed in the minimum time before you can receive benefits. In addition, there is also a limitation on how long you get these benefits.
Melchior Palyi, in "Compulsory Medical Care and The Welfare State"(1949):
"The ill-famed Dr. [Robert] Ley, boss of the Nazi labor front, did not fail to see that the social insurance system could be used for Nazi politics as a means of popular demagoguery; as a bastion of bureaucratic power; as an instrument of regimentation, and as a reservoir from which to draw jobs for political favorites and loanable funds for rearmament."
Now, before someone goes haywire about the word "Nazi", this example isn't me saying "Nazis had nationalized healthcare therefore it's bad". No, I'm merely pointing out that when you so eagerly surrender your money to the government(for any purpose) those funds can be easily misused. It's far harder to misuse the individual's own funds because you must first confiscate it in some way.
Further, many of these systems(American Social Security being the most noticeable) are mere Ponzi schemes with governmental backing. Basically, the early recipients received benefits but put no money into the system. Instead, the government merely taxes current workers to fund current retirees. Now here in the United States, that ratio is one retiree to three workers(at least to my knowledge).
This system would be all fine and dandy IF the western world had a growth rate to replace it's workers, but it doesn't. Most places in the west have negative population growth. The United States barely breaks even. Your country, Mr. Fin, is in worse straights. And lets not forget that the old are living for a longer time.
Therefore, something will have to give in these systems. Either taxes will have to be increased(indefinitely and continuously), benefits would have to be cut(such as rationing in healthcare), or you'll have to change eligibility requirements(such as age with government pension benefits). Of course the system could run a deficit as well.
Ergo, through this reasoning, I've concluded that socialism(especially universal healthcare and social security) is dangerous for a nation's long term security. It causes civil unrest that is in turn used by political opportunists. And political opportunists rarely help a nation(the American Revolution being a rare exception to the rule).
Let's end this with a quote from one of the first Fascist Dictators, Benito Mussolini, "Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail." and merely exists to bring about worship of the State as the absolute authority.
Oh that is rich Roman Wolf. Who better than Mussolini to elucidate the finer points of Socialism? Socialism/Communism was a response to the excesses of the Tsar and the captains of the guilded age. While the Russian aristocracy was no more deserving of death than the French aristos, they should have seen this coming.
CubicZirconiaJim,
Hate to inform you but Fascist governments such as Nazi Germany were Socialist governments. No, the Nazis did not misname their party the National Socialist Party.
In practice, the only difference between the Nazis and the Soviets are their theoretical goals. National Socialism, as the name implies is everything for the State. In Marxism, the goal is a society with no state.
However, one of Marx's laughable mistakes is the belief that a state will ever willingly allow itself to disappear. No, a state by definition typically seeks to increase it's own power.
This is why, in practice, the Soviets and the Nazis were little different in how their States acted.
Your grasp of history and social orders is, shall I say, very creative. By that logic, modern day Israel is a socialist state. Afghanistan is a veritable worker's paradise too, as evidenced by the huge influx of Mexican citizens looking to get on the bandwagon. Hell, this must mean that following imperial England's lead, the United States of America was a stealth socialist state from it's inception. We were actually trying to impose better workplace conditions on the natives right?!?
Roman wrote: "Now, before someone goes haywire about the word "Nazi","
Too late as I can see. Roman, the left does not allow anyone but them to use the words "Nazi" or "racist" or "fascist." They have reserved the use of those words for themselves to lie about ideas they disagree with.
I learned this over at John Scalzi's blog. People were complaining that our current President was not doing things fast enough. I stated that I appreciated that he was not moving faster, saying that Hitler went through Europe fast and things did not turn out so well. Like you, I stated the obvious, that I was not comparing the President to Hitler, I was instead contrasting him.
It made no difference, I had used the word that I am forbidden to use and even Scalzi, a writer of considerable talent, got on me.
Now you are getting razzed by some guy who calls himself a chunk of plastic masquerading as a diamond. What's in a name? Sometimes everything you need to know.
Carry on.
Trey
I understand Trey.
But you have to remember that I'm still a bit young and stupid. I still think these people are willing to be open minded to better models of looking at history(or politics).
But alas, I know you're right. If a person shows no inclination towards learning and only offers weak attacks in turn(offering no real retort of their own) they'll never listen to reason.
It's sad and I pity them. I ironically think they can still be saved by there own silly selves. But I know you're right, Trey.
Roman,
Wow. You just hit my brother... I mean the nail on the head. I stuggle all of the time with discussing reason with him, and what I get are usually week attacks or ad hominem attacks on me in return. He is a film school graduate, living in LA. Still unemployed well into his thirties.
Family won't enable him, but we do try to offer advise or help when he calls home trying to get sympathy. But he rarely ever takes it. He believes Obama is the savior and that it's government's job to take care of the people. Figures, because he'll never take care of himself.
He refuses to learn new things. I've read some great books and send them to him telling him that there is some really valuable stuff in there. He doesn't read them.
I send him links that explain politics and history. He doesn't read them. He resists making any attempt at all to learn something new if it means he's going to have to give up the populist outrage against BushCo, the neocons, the fascist, religious right wing, Rush, and in general, "the man who is keeping him down".
In a lot of cases, watching somebody fail because of their own ignorance as then bring failure upon themselves is just something you shake your head at and move on. It's really tough when it's your brother that you love and want to help... but I can make myself crazy by continually trying to help only to get the same results of him getting annoyed with me because I don't know what I'm talking about and accusing me of being a "Rush-worshipping, neocon, fascist just like the rest of them". His justification for thinking he's right is that his friends all agree. I don't even listen to Rush, but in his mind, the facts don't matter. It's what he feeeeeeels.
Roman, thanks for that. I have to print your succinct explanation and tape it to my monitor so that I can read it before I reply to my brother anymore.
Roman, young, sure, stupid, hardly.
Sorry if I came across as preachy. Not my intention.
Trey
You didn't Trey. You were merely correct.
And stupid was the incorrect word to use as well(I've been under some stress, a number of papers due as well as having to get my third molars removed), I'm just inexperienced in comparison to most the people I talk to, I'm well aware of that and I don't want to come off as having undue pride.
In fact, inexperience is the reason why I typically don't post in the men's rights posts that Dr. Helen does. After all, most of you have seen it all. I've only had a chance to see very little of the war against men. Though I know only too well that it exists, considering I have to hear the screeches about "the evil patriarchy" daily in most my classes.
It really wears on one's mind.
It does wear on us, but we are guys. We can do suffer anything for the right reasons. Guys in West Virginia go into the coal mines knowing it will kill them eventually, but they do it to support their families.
We are a tough bunch when we set our mind to it!
Rock on pal.
Trey
I am not interested in peeing contests over 'wisdom' I am gently reminding you, brothers and sisters, that Capitalism (worldwide) is breathing it's last. The HMS Titanic is a good analogy. Deemed unsinkable and arrogantly engaged with a race with another cruise line while in dangerous waters made the disaster inevitable.
Nature was the great equalizer. The rich middle and poor were in the same sinking tub. What good was the millions in holdings to the upper crust at that moment? Just proves that the myth of ownership is little more than a shell game. We don't even 'own' our human bodies...they are on loan.
The USSR and its satellite system had to implode...and they did. Good thing except that the Russian mafia took over for a long while. This was hailed as a victory for Capitalism. Definitely a premature ejaculation. Democracy might survive if, indeed, some humans survive our own poisoning of the ecosystem. Some human scale and sustainable form of trade and entrepeneurial activity as well. What fills the void; the ashes of these outdated and irrelevant ideologies, will be far removed from either. But that requires thinking outside the Dabney Taggart boxcar.
Whether I love, hate, or am indifferent to the dominant social order is immaterial. It (casino Capitalism) is dying folks and (news flash) good riddance. A cursory examination of meat-space confirms this. For those who have eyes, let them see.
cubic.....naa.
Opportunity should be equal, even guaranteed as a social construct. This nation at least attempts that. Outcome can't be guaranteed. As a matter of fact, it isn't as far as I can tell.
But anyway, what is your personal vision? How would you like things to be? I'm serious, not being a wise guy. Honestly, because I don't understand why and how someone would want to live under socialism, or about any other type government aside from a republic.
Levin's book finally arrived so I've been reading that the past couple nights. No pictures though, damn it.
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