Enough with the Doom and Gloom. Just Give Me Happy Talk.

At first this Onion story made me laugh a lot. It's so true.

"Tired of hearing the grim truth about their economic future, Americans demanded that the bald-faced lies resume immediately, particularly whenever politicians feel the need to divulge another terrifying problem with Wall Street, the housing market, or any one of a hundred other ticking time bombs everyone was better off not knowing about."

"From now on, just tell me the bullshit I want to hear," Pletcher added. "Tell me my savings are okay, everybody has a job, and we're No. 1 again. Please, just lie to my face."

Many people want to hear happy talk. I don't blame them. I like to focus on the positive and focus on the things that I can do the improve the situation.

Unfortunately, many politicians see times like these as opportunities to do things that would be more difficult for the masses to accept during "normal" times.

It makes me take notice when I hear a high ranking official say that "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

It makes you start to wonder whether some of these crises are actually created in order to allow specific policies to be able to be passed.

Sadly, I think that most Americans are getting worn out by one crisis after another. The thing that troubles me is that 75 years ago there was a similar situation in another country. I'm not saying that we are going there but I do think that it's important to be aware of the possibilities. Here's an excerpt from a famous trial.

The March elections and the adoption of the Enabling Act by the Government had greatly strengthened his position. At first he was quite reserved, modest ....., or perhaps even embarrassed. Now he was filled with the thought that he was the executor of the popular will. Perhaps that can be explained by the fact that he had directed all his activities to winning over the masses; that he now saw success; that he believed he had judged the will of the people correctly; that he considered himself the personification of the people's will; and that he wanted to execute its authority.....

The Enabling Act, which is called the "Law to relieve the distress of People and State," was issued because the cumbersome machinery of the Congress worked too slowly and laws had to be created speedily. It had been expected that only a temporary solution would be found with the Enabling Act and for that reason it was limited to four years; later it was repeatedly extended.