# Omnibus Stupid MFers in the news thread (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 5, 2024, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657 "2024-01-05T16:15:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 221
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4401 "2025-04-10T00:52:11Z")
Presented for your disapproval: the parents of late 5-year-old [Thomas Cooper,](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/family-absolutely-devastated-son-killed-hyperbaric-chamber-rcna192263), who apparently suffered from sleep apnea and ADHD, two non-life-threatening conditions for which modern medicine has multiple safe and effective treatments available. OR – you could take your kid to an unlicensed and unregulated facility offering hyperbaric oxygen treatment as a miracle cure for basically anything, run by quacks who don’t know how to operate their equipment properly. A fire started in the 100% oxygen chamber and the poor kid was burned alive, with his mother suffering serious burns while trying to rescue him. The parents belong in this thread, the quacks running these places and the FDA which lets them get away with it belong in the Evil MFs thread. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4402 "2025-04-10T07:44:53Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > It’s an interesting idea; some sort of voluntary social service where people could simply go to _exist_ but have everything done for them and every minute of the day dictated by others, but not because a crime was committed or any punishment has to be given. It’s why people join cults. Or the military, for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4403 "2025-04-10T07:54:02Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > some sort of voluntary social service where people could simply go to _exist_ but have everything done for them and every minute of the day dictated by others, but not because a crime was committed or any punishment has to be given Sounds like a Dickensian workhouse to me. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4404 "2025-04-10T08:03:39Z")
Or a monastery. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4405 "2025-04-10T09:46:22Z")
In _One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest_ many of the patients at the asylum were there voluntarily. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4406 "2025-04-10T13:54:19Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > It’s an interesting idea; some sort of voluntary social service where people could simply go to _exist_ but have everything done for them and every minute of the day dictated by others, but not because a crime was committed or any punishment has to be given. Of course there’s a huge difference between people willing to partake of that service because they _can’t_ make it on the outside versus they _don’ wanna_ make it on the outside. In a perhaps slightly related note one of my brothers is naturally more conservative than I. Back 30-ish years ago he came up with a novel idea for all forms of public assistance. You can sign up for food stamps, “welfare”, whatever. And you’ll be approved for sure. No stigma. Benefits can be more generous than those of then-today. But … A condition for receiving your day’s benefit is that you go to a giant stadium-sized waiting facility and spend 8 hours there in your chair. It’s pleasant enough, heated and air conditioned, but spartan. Think waiting room at the DMV. This was before mobile devices, but those would be prohibited, as would be books and magazines. You’re welcome to yak with whoever is sitting around you. He figured that would greatly reduce the uptake of “welfare”. Despite the benefits being as large or larger. Once you make it just a bit inconvenient, folks will somehow find a job that pays. Or so he thought. I wonder. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4407 "2025-04-10T17:59:56Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Once you make it just a bit inconvenient That would be massively more than “a bit inconvenient”. It would mean severe physical distress for a lot of people, and some would be incapable of it. Unless these facilities were placed every mile or so all over the country, quite a lot of people wouldn’t be able to get to one; and even if they were, significant numbers of people wouldn’t be able to get to one, or wouldn’t be able to without great difficulty. It would mean either leaving young children alone, or enforcing this sensory and learning deprivation also on the children. It would prevent people from studying so that they could potentially get jobs that might get them in a position in which they didn’t need benefits. It would prevent people from doing any of the huge number of useful things which either don’t pay anything, or don’t pay them enough to live on, and which many people on benefits are doing. And you’d basically be imposing a daytime prison sentence on people for the supposed sin of being poor. – I could go on. And for that matter, are you and he under the delusion that applying for and repeatedly recertifying for benefits isn’t already “a bit inconvenient” and in many cases more than a bit so? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4408 "2025-04-10T18:05:25Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And for that matter, are you and he under the delusion that applying for and repeatedly recertifying for benefits isn’t already “a bit inconvenient” and in many cases more than a bit so? I’m sure that @LSLGuy was speculating on Trump’s “reasoning”, not stating his own opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4409 "2025-04-10T18:10:33Z")
Yeah, I don’t think LSLGuy was advocating that. If he were, thorny’s response lists a few of the most obvious reasons why this is a terrible idea, but we could go on… ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4410 "2025-04-10T18:21:04Z")
I think those reasons are exactly why it’s being proposed though I seriously doubt Trump contributed a singe thought to that line of reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4411 "2025-04-10T18:57:49Z")
No, I am NOT proposing any such thing. My point was simply introducing an idea I had heard from a conservative person decades ago: Namely that the way to deter freeloading on “welfare” was to make it a 40 hour a week job. Just like a real 40 hour a week job, but more boring and perhaps even more onerous. He also thought that it would make paying the taxes to support such a system less of an affront to the conservative-minded electorate who _despise_ the idea of free-loading and complete free time too. But the real connection to this thread was that it’s a sort of voluntary daycare / incarceration in exchange for money. Which voluntary daycare / incarceration is exactly what @mnemosyne was musing about in the post above mine which I snip-quoted. Which musing in turn was in response to the info about certain criminals committing crimes for the purpose of being incarcerated as a form of all-expenses paid living with few decisions needed. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4412 "2025-04-10T20:49:16Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > one of my brothers is naturally more conservative than I. I’m idly curious as to what this phrase means. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4413 "2025-04-10T21:18:16Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > My point was simply introducing an idea I had heard from a conservative person decades ago: Namely that the way to deter freeloading on “welfare” was to make it a 40 hour a week job. Just like a real 40 hour a week job, but more boring and perhaps even more onerous. He also thought that it would make paying the taxes to support such a system less of an affront to the conservative-minded electorate who _despise_ the idea of free-loading and complete free time too. So basically, the [WPA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration), without actually producing anything. Sounds efficient. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4414 "2025-04-10T21:37:15Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > > There was an Adam-12 about a guy who had basically spent most of his life in and out of prison. He was out at 60-something and he couldn’t cope. He committed another crime so he could go “home”. > > I had a patient who did just that. He’d spent over 4 decades in prison in NY and NJ, got released and couldn’t cope. But he’d heard the medical care was better in Wisconsin, so came to Wisconsin and robbed a bank, and waited patiently until police came. He was disappointed that the judge wouldn’t give him as much time in prison as he desired. > > He was quite interesting to talk to, and discuss how he viewed life in and out of prison. That theme was touched on a few times in Stephen King’s _The Shawshank Redemption_ (or, as the story was titled, _Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption_). Brooks Hatlen is paroled after 50 years in prison, and can’t adjust to life on the outside. He contemplates robbing the grocery store he works at (and even entertains the notion of killing his boss) so they’d “send me home.” Instead, he ends up hanging himself. At the end of the film, Ellis Redding (the narrator/Morgan Freeman’s character, also called “Red”) experiences a very similar situation after he’s paroled, though he doesn’t commit suicide. And, as a counterpoint to that movie, in _Back to the Future_, there’s a line where Lorraine puts a cake on the table and says to her kids, “well, your uncle Joey didn’t make parole again,” which is just kind of a throwaway line until Marty goes back to 1955, and meets his mother’s family when they were younger. He’s introduced to his uncle Joey, who is just a few years old., and in his playpen. Marty mutters, “so you’re my uncle Joey, huh? Better get used to those bars, kid.” His grandmother says “he just loves his playpen. He cries whenever we take him out of it, so we just leave him in it all the time.” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4415 "2025-04-10T21:38:16Z")
I’m Progressive. Which I hope has become obvious to most folks some time over the 20+ years I’ve been dishing up political commentary here. He started out mildly conservative and I assume is now a trumper. I’ve not talked to him in years. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4416 "2025-04-10T21:39:12Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > So basically, the [WPA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration), without actually producing anything. Sounds efficient. I never said it was smart. College kids come up with all sorts of wacky ideas at 3am. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4417 "2025-04-10T23:11:09Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > That theme was touched on a few times in Stephen King’s _The Shawshank Redemption_ I tip my hat to Stephen. He knows how I think, he knows what’s in my head, and he knows what scares/disturbs me. From how prisons work and inmates think to addictive disease and recovery, to near death experiences to the inevitability of aging, to contemplations of the eternal, to the horrors and joys that life offers. My patient who robbed a bank to return to prison was truly interesting. He had no conception of cell phones, much less smart phones. When I showed him the media headlines he’d generated in the national press with his robbery attempt, he was astounded at both his notoriety and the whole computer thing. His concept of life outside of prison was pretty much standard mid 1960’s. Yet he was thoughtful and insightful, and knew his chances of making it outside of an institution were pretty slim. He understood not only how to be safe in a prison, but also how to thrive there. He was back where he wanted to be. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2025, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4418 "2025-04-11T00:26:53Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And for that matter, are you and he under the delusion that applying for and repeatedly recertifying for benefits isn’t already “a bit inconvenient” and in many cases more than a bit so? Back in the day, it was like doing your taxes every month and being audited every three months. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2025, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4419 "2025-04-11T02:48:41Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > He started out mildly conservative and I assume is now a trumper. Or maybe not. My older brother is quite conservative but decidedly a Never Trumper. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2025, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4420 "2025-04-11T04:36:07Z")
A Catholic hospital in Iowa being sued for malpractice that lead to a miscarriage is arguing that they shouldn’t have to pay full damages on the basis that a fetus isn’t a human being. > **[Aiming to limit damages, Catholic hospital argues a fetus isn’t the same as a...](https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2025/04/10/catholic-health-initiatives-iowa-argues-a-fetus-isnt-the-same-as-a-person-in-lawsuit/83018157007/)** > > Catholic Health Initiatives-Iowa is arguing that the loss of an unborn child does not equate to the death of a “person” when calculating damages. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657.md?page=220) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657.md?page=222)