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"Happiness should be a top government priority, expert says"

Wait, I thought that proper food socialization and nutritional enforcement was the “top government priority.” Seriously. You government types need to pull your czars together and figure out some sort of centralized hierarchy. LAT:

Someday in the not-too-distant future, the U.S. departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor could be joined be a new executive branch entity: The Department of Happiness.

That’s right. There’s a growing movement among economists and other researchers to make the psychological well-being of citizens a major government priority. The first step, they say, is to come up with a way to measure a nation’s happiness. Ideally they’d like to be able to boil it all down into a single statistic that will resonate with voters – think of it as a mental health equivalent of GDP or the unemployment rate.

[…]

If policymakers were to prioritize happiness over economic growth, they might favor policies aimed at keeping employment stable and unemployment low instead of policies that helped companies maximize their profits. They might also do more to protect the environment and preserve open spaces even if that meant sacrificing a few ticks of GDP […]

I’m sure it’s just coincidental that happiness is largely equated here with a kind of equality of outcome — and that equality of outcome as pushed by a centralized government is tied to the democratic socialism that many on the left support as a matter of foundational ideology.

But leaving that aside, isn’t “the pursuit of happiness” one of our unalienable rights — and so is a right that the government is there to guard, not devise and disperse?

(h/t Darleen)

31 Replies to “"Happiness should be a top government priority, expert says"”

  1. MissFixit says:

    falling down the rabbit hole. Looks like if the hole is deep enough, you really do end up in China.

  2. Carin says:

    I’ve got a book those numnuts should read. “Gross National Happiness” by Arthur C. Brooks. Conclusion? FREEDOM makes people happy.

    I mean you can/should read the book yourself – it’s good. But, basically freedom to make your own decisions, even if you fuck up, makes people happiest.

  3. Carin says:

    That means the freedom to choose your own healthcare, or not. Freedom to eat what you want, freedom glorious freedom.

  4. poppa india says:

    You will not feel happy until you are told you can feel happy. “Got a permit for that smile, citizen?”

  5. dicentra says:

    There’s a growing movement among economists and other researchers to make the psychological well-being of citizens a major government priority.

    So which critter has better psychological well-being: a critter in the wild or a critter in the zoo?

    After all, the zoo critter gets waited on hand and foot, whereas the wild critter is exposed to the elements and predators.

    If the zoo critters are better off, we’d better cancel all those animal rehab programs. What are they thinking, releasing the dears into the dangerous, filthy ecosystem?

  6. Mueller says:

    Wasn’t this in one of those futuristic novels,”This Perfect Day”, or “The Tomorrow File”?
    Life imitates bad art, badly.

  7. newrouter says:

    newt’s idea of gov’t happiness

    Executive Summary

    Repeal Obamacare and pass a replacement that saves lives and money by empowering patients and doctors, not bureaucrats and politicians.
    Return to robust job creation with a bold set of tax cuts and regulatory reforms that will free American entrepreneurs to invest and hire, as well as by reforming the Federal Reserve and creating a training requirement for extended federal unemployment benefits to encourage work and improve the quality of our workforce.
    Unleash America’s full energy production potential in oil, natural gas, coal, biofuels, wind, nuclear oil shale and more, creating jobs, stimulating a sustainable manufacturing boom, lowering gasoline and other energy prices, increasing government revenues, and bolstering national security.
    Save Medicare and Social Security by giving Americans more choices and tools to live longer, healthier lives with greater financial independence.
    Balance the federal budget by freeing job-creators to grow the economy, reforming entitlements, and implementing waste cutting and productivity improvement systems such as Lean Six Sigma to eliminate waste and fraud. Pass a balanced budget amendment to keep it balanced.
    Control the border by January 1, 2014 and establish English as the official language of government; reform the legal visa system, and make it much easier to deport criminals and gang members while making it easier for law abiding visitors to come to the US.
    Revitalize our national security system to meet 21st century threats by restructuring and adequately funding our security agencies to function within a grand strategy for victory over those who seek to kill us or limit American power.
    Maximize the speed and impact of medical breakthroughs by removing unnecessary obstacles that block new treatments from reaching patients and emphasizing research spending towards urgent national priorities, like brain science with its impact on Alzheimer’s, autism, Parkinson’s, mental health and other conditions knowledge of the brain will help solve.
    Restore the proper role of the judicial branch by using the clearly delineated powers available to the president and Congress to correct, limit, or replace judges who violate the Constitution.
    Enforce the Tenth Amendment by starting an orderly transfer of power and responsibility from the federal government back “to the states, respectively, or to the people,” as the Constitution requires. Over the next year, state and local officials and citizens will be asked to identify the areas which can be transferred back home.

    Link

  8. Frontman says:

    I can haz Soma?

  9. Alan Furman says:

    In this book I read once there was a Ministry of Love.

    That would be even better.

  10. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Knowing our political class, we’ll probably get both. Two Minute Hates and Victory Gin on even numbered days, Soma and orgy-porgy on odd.

  11. happyfeet says:

    they don’t really want to know what would make me happy to no end

  12. bh says:

    Two Minute Hates and Victory Gin are how soccer hooliganism got started.

    Those odd days sound sorta sweet though. All hail Ford!

  13. zino3 says:

    We are well and truly screwed.

    Where do these twat waffles come from?

    I think journalism schools would be the first place to look.

  14. Blake says:

    From self esteem to happiness.

    Government will leave no feel good social experiment untried.

  15. Blake says:

    Hah, newrouter, I was thinking the same thing.

  16. LBascom says:

    But leaving that aside, isn’t “the pursuit of happiness” one of our unalienable rights

    You know, I’ll confess that til now that particular right in the Declaration kinda stumped me. Seemed awfully broad to me.

    Now I get it. It’s so simple.

    I guess I just never conceived the government(our government) actually deciding what would make me happy. Them founding fathers were some visionary dudes.

    The current bunch? Think soccer is more fun if they don’t keep score.

    They know happiness like Obama knows humility.

  17. Stephanie says:

    The first step, they say, is to come up with a way to measure a nation’s happiness. Ideally they’d like to be able to boil it all down into a single statistic that will resonate with voters – think of it as a mental health equivalent of GDP or the unemployment rate.

    If they pull that Misery Index out of mothballs and rename it the Happiness Index, Orwell would be happy. Or at least bemused.

  18. Stephanie says:

    Happiness is a government approved warm gun.

    Awesome takedown of a cretinous fool.

  19. Pablo says:

    It they were honest folks, they’d call it the Department of Brainwashing.

  20. Evil_Otto says:

    “The Computer is your friend. The Computer wants you to be happy. Happiness is mandatory. Failure to be happy is treason. Treason is punishable by summary execution.” — Paranoia

    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HappinessIsMandatory

  21. Carin says:

    Fitter happier more productive comfortable not drinking too much regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week) getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries at east eat well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats) …

    Fitter, healthier and more productive a pig in a cage on antibiotics

  22. B. Moe says:

    The first step, they say, is to come up with a way to measure a nation’s happiness. Ideally they’d like to be able to boil it all down into a single statistic that will resonate with voters – think of it as a mental health equivalent of GDP or the unemployment rate.

    I am already resonating with anticipation.

  23. Abe Froman says:

    You know who I’ve noticed always seem happy? Retard people.

  24. McGehee says:

    The first step, they say, is to come up with a way to measure a nation’s happiness.

    The Gross Underlying Mental Product.

  25. Ernst Schreiber says:

    You know, I’ll confess that til now that particular right [i.e. “pursuit of hapiness”] in the Declaration kinda stumped me. Seemed awfully broad to me.

    That’s because Jefferson was too much of mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, feel-good, limousine-liberal pussy to include something as crass and commercial as “property” in his holy writ.

  26. Silver Whistle says:

    You know who I’ve noticed always seem happy? Retard people.

    You have no idea how happy we are over here, Abe. Positively beaming with happiness.

  27. B. Moe says:

    I am so happy I could just shit resonate.

  28. Libby says:

    “..make the psychological well-being of citizens a major government priority.”

    Which undoubtedly means that our government betters will be defining what psychological well-being looks like. Somehow I’m imagining something along the lines of that “Equilibrium” movie. Don’t want any pesky emotions, they’re so messy and lead to passions, such as anger. Nope, that’s not happy at all.

  29. sdferr says:

    So, government is shortly to start handing out warm puppies?

    For dinner?

  30. Silver Whistle says:

    With you in phase and amplitude, B. Moe.

Comments are closed.