I would say this beats Obama asking people to put more air in their tires and Jimmy Carter asking people to turn the thermostat down. Has the government ever asked people to voluntarily do anything more absurd than take their waste fats to their meat dealers so they can be used in torpedoes?
[Note: This is a repost that I thought might be interesting to the many new visitors Chauncy seems to be bringing us.]
30 comments
Comments feed for this article
Saturday ~ November 21st, 2009 at 9:50 pm
jsalvatier
Paying farmers not to grow corn is pretty weird from an everyday sort of perspective.
Sunday ~ November 22nd, 2009 at 12:19 am
Fred
Glycerine can be made from waste fat. Glycerine can be used to make explosives.
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 5:44 am
CogitoErgoCogitoSum
I am unsure as to why this poster thinks government involvement is a bad thing. He has yet to prove any of his claims for which he mocks. He just points them out, out of context.
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 5:45 am
CogitoErgoCogitoSum
God knows that turning down the thermostat to save energy, fuels, and prevent pollution is just plain “absurd”. He probably tosses his garbage in your gutters too.
Monday ~ April 19th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Mike
“Voluntarily” tithe our income to the government?
Monday ~ April 19th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Mary
I don’t recall the word “voluntarily” being in their vocabulary. They might think they’re “asking” us, but then they turn into law anyway right? Exhibit A – the health care bill.
Monday ~ April 19th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
neurotype
I second jsalvatier’s comment. This is pretty reasonable! What they’re asking the meat dealers to do, on the other hand, is probably weirder.
Monday ~ April 19th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
itzexodus
That is strange, but I can think of some other things that come close.
Hiding under desks during NUCLEAR explosions.
Reporting “un-American” activities to local police stations.
Participating in government-sponsored research to test the effectiveness of “truth-serum” LSD.
List goes on, brother.
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 2:40 am
teageegeepea
I think the CIA or Defense Department also did research on telepathy and telekinesis. I haven’t seen “The Men Who Stare At Goats”, but that’s what inspired it.
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 10:55 am
ML
Now I’m intrigued…. and routing a country in search of “weapons of mass destruction”, despite reams of intelligence depicting a notable lack of.
Monday ~ April 19th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Lola
there’s a disney video from WWII that asks people to do this:
poor pluto really wanted that bacon fat, but Mickey needed it to help fight the Nazis!
Monday ~ April 19th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
slamdunk
That is an odd one.
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 12:50 am
ian in hamburg
I think the strangest thing governments all over the world do is put people on trial for murder in the courtroom while training murderers over at the army base.
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 1:15 am
The TFJ
What about the former murderer in chief, George W. Bush?
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 9:43 am
Will
You hippie. Go sit in a drumcircle, why don’t you, with a bunch of other hypocrites. You live and breathe under the protection of a government that allows you to even say that and then choose not to educate yourself about the reality of the world you live in enough to realize just how truly inane that statement really is. Yes, the government kills. All governments kill. That is and always will be one of the functions of government: Killing people who threaten the safety of the people that government represents so they can go about their lives in relative peace. Sometimes they are people who kill individual citizens within the bounds of the country. Other times it is foreigners who threaten the safety of the people from abroad. Bottom line governments must always be prepared to kill because if they aren’t, their people will always be at the mercy of another government that is. Reference: Tibet. To carry out that function they train men who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect those who are too weak to protect themselves. Men like me. Me who protect all of the citizens of their country, regardless of whether they believe they are worthy or not. We even protect yellow-bellied little cowards like you and give you the freedom to go sit at Starbucks drinking lattes and calling us killers. Do us all a favor: keep your mouth shut until you know enough about the world you live in to make intelligent comments.
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 11:17 am
pit
“Me who protect all of the citizens of their country, regardless of whether they believe they are worthy or not. We even protect yellow-bellied little cowards like you and give you the freedom to go sit at Starbucks drinking lattes and calling us killers. Do us all a favor: keep your mouth shut until you know enough about the world you live in to make intelligent comments.”
Hey Will, keep it together. Regardless of who you think might be unworthy, weak or yellow-bellied, there is a definitive support system active and in place, maintained by those who care. Despite your having charge of a weapon system, you’re not in the position to make those calls. Be interesting in hearing what your CO might have to say in light of your public diatribe/ rant.
-VET with a firm grasp on reality.
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 12:53 am
The TFJ
Rachel Maddow is not a lesbian and she’s not a liberal!
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 1:23 am
Remain.Simple
Yes, examples of something very controversial are: when Bush told Americans to voluntarily or I mean enlist to attack Iraq because they thought they had WMDs or maybe there are some, just not found yet. And another is how 9/11 came to be, either by terrorists flying planes into the two buildings or an implosion done by people “inside”.
I support the US Army and send my condolences to those involved with family/friends in the 9/11 attack/sabotage.
Remain.Simple
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 2:54 am
Songbird
Huh? Most odd…
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 3:16 am
dreamlivedream
Gosh!!! Think of all the explosives we could have been making if we had only known sooner. .. To the meat dealer we shall go!
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 3:44 am
gitedupa
really?she’s not a lesbian?
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 3:50 am
Rajneesh
Strange….. but interesting….
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 3:55 am
dressingmyself
In the months following 9/11, the American government advised Americans living abroad (such as me) to a. avoid congregating with other Americans and b. try to be quiet. An American (such as me) – quiet???
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 4:53 am
hanneymonster
Amazing how war can become a moral obligation…
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 8:19 am
vintagejenta
Pretty sure the U.S. Government asked people to do a lot of things during World War II that would be unthinkable now. Meat, sugar, coffee, gasoline, and rubber were all rationed. You couldn’t buy a new car because they weren’t being manufactured. You gave aluminum, tin, paper, rubber, other metals, and yes, even fats to the government to be recycled into instruments of war. Even fashion was changed – skirts got shorter and skinnier because there was a shortage of fabric, nylons were unavailable (women used brown eyeliner to draw lines up the backs of their legs to simulate nylon stockings), even razors were hard to come by.
There was actually a serious shortage of fats and oils during World War II precisely for the reason Fred said – it was all being used to make the millions upon millions of bombs that were dropped during the war.
So tell me, how is participating in the total war mobilization of a nation weird?
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 9:08 am
Tracy
ahahah, yeah I’d say that’s a sure winner.
http://www.tracyzhangphoto.wordpress.com/
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Will
That’s definitely a weird one, but the total war paradigm under which WWII was fought required the involvement of 100% of the populous. They needed people at home feeling like they were involved in the fight to maintain support what was in the beginning a very unpopular war. Fighting a war on the other side of the world for land and countries not our own, while common today, was a relatively new concept back then. A lot of Americans had issues with it. Today, because of Globalization, this is almost exclusively the nature of war. Countries are less and less bounded by geography and increasingly define the limits of their interests in terms of economic/political influence. To help the average American feel like they are still involved in these fights, the government looks to get them involved. In the beginning, it was by getting them to believe they were actually helping to kill the enemy. Today, Americans are very adverse to the notion of killing, so they get involved by supporting the troops; i.e. sending care packages, giving discounts to soldiers and veterans, etc.
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 10:06 am
random
haha foolish americans. whilst america is a nice country i will never be moving there too many people either ignorant to the world around them or to proud to do anything
Tuesday ~ April 20th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Karin
Compare this to the things the religions say
Tuesday ~ May 18th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
unforgivens
I found your site from the WordPress.com page which has several sites that are strong enough to make the page.
Your site is wonderful and beautiful..
Thanks.