1230 Congress is a Troubled Teen

1230 Congress is a Troubled Teen

This particular troubled teen is into cutting.

For those unfamiliar with this practice you can get the full definition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, any recent edition.

Look up Self Harm or Deliberate Self Harm.

To save you the trouble, the basic layman’s definition is when kids cut themselves with razors or knives.  It’s kind of like a drug with no purpose but loads of side effects.

Well, not exactly no purpose.  Some  say it relieves pressure or fear or anxiety or other common intense but unwanted emotions.  

The key is “intentional” or “deliberate.”

And that’s what the House of Representatives is doing to itself.  If it had an arm, it would be scarred.  But there’s a difference.

When this crazy teen cuts, it’s the rest of us who bleed.

Defund the Affordable Health Care Act.

Cut the heart out of the food stamp program.

Lie about the debt ceiling and then freeze it.

Sequester.

Shut down the government.

Deny global warming, especially since it has slowed in recent years.

Bomb Syria.

Reduce taxes for billionaires.

Listen to constituents only when it suits you, and scarce little suits you.

Stopping cutting requires willpower. It needs encouragement and support.  The best way to stop this particular version is to send every one of these self cutters into rehab.  That’s much more humane than, say, putting them in straightjackets, though there are times that might be helpful.  And it’s more practical than invading their homes and offices and removing knives, scissors, razors, pens, pencils and other pointed or sharp objects.

Cutters will cut their arms, their legs, their torsos.  But they will not cut their own throats.  So we’ll bleed, we’ll hurt, but we won’t die. At least not right away.

They have to be removed from bad influences like their friends and favorite lobbyists, the House of Representatives, the state capitals, the county seats, the town councils, the village boards, the screens of TV networks, the political clubhouses, the right wing “think” tanks.  They need to be isolated and kept incommunicado.

Maybe the straight jacket and the home invasions aren’t such bad ideas after all.  If they bleed out, so do we.

Shrapnel:

--Merkel stays on as chancellor of Germany.  That means there’ll be no change in the way the EU will handle its phony debt “crisis,” anymore than our congress will end OUR phony debt crisis.  Merkel says she’ll serve the entire term… four years.  She realizes there’s nowhere to go from that spot but down.

--Over this past weekend, the Kenya shopping mall invasion remained unresolved but the islamist invaders have not killed any more hostages that we know of.  There were bombings at funerals in Iraq and Pakistan and the overall death count is in the mid-200s.  Bombing them back ain’t gonna help.

--Did you watch the Emmy awards last evening?  Do you know what TV people say about them?  “Emmys are like catching cold… eventually everyone gets one.”

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013