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Do We All Have PTSD
Brownstone Institute ^ | March 16, 2025 | Jeffrey A. Tucker

Posted on 03/18/2025 4:40:09 AM PDT by Former Proud Canadian

ust how much mental and psychological trauma exists in the country and world today cannot be quantified, and I would not trust any studies that tried. But this much is clear. We have lost our footing in knowing something that scientists long believed we could know: whether and to what extent an economy is growing and prospering or going the opposite way.

Everyone seems just to be winging it these days. Ever since lockdowns utterly broke reporting, it’s been hard to tell up from down.

The substantial hits taken by major financial indexes over the last two months seem to have triggered a shift in public sentiment from indifferent to gloomy. Probably this has nothing to do with the vast wealth held in invested retirement accounts.

Each refresh of the page seems to deliver more bad news.

This has in turn affected the willingness to spend and the outlook generally.

And yet there is something strange going on....

(Excerpt) Read more at brownstone.org ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: brownstoneinstitute; covid; jeffreyatucker; pandemic; ptsd
Read it or listen. Excellent piece.
1 posted on 03/18/2025 4:40:09 AM PDT by Former Proud Canadian
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To: Former Proud Canadian

This is simply another paragraph in human history, in a fallen world. Life is hard. Learn to wear a helmet.

Contrast the experiences of a Marine in Fallujah with a bereaved Progressive voter ... and get back to me.

Furthermore, my dad was a great father who lived a full life, despite his combat experiences as a twice combat-wounded pilot in the WW2 Pacific theater. He didn’t like to talk about certain events, and he lost his younger brother (F4-U pilot) over the Philippines (which hurt him more) yet he did fine.

People need to be able to cope with stress and adversity. Faith helps. A lot. I don’t doubt people suffer, some irrecoverably, yet that is not the only path forward, and shouldn’t be.


2 posted on 03/18/2025 5:03:28 AM PDT by Blueflag (To not carry is to choose to be defenseless.)
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To: Former Proud Canadian

for four years it was waking up to some fresh new hell...

the long national nightmare is over.


3 posted on 03/18/2025 5:19:48 AM PDT by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. #FJB)
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To: Former Proud Canadian

I gave my PTSD, stress, fear, worry, anxiety and irrational fears to Jesus and let Him take care of that crap. I pray each day and I feel fine. Is the world a messed up place right now? Yep in some ways and some places it sure is but don’t let that get you down, God is at large and in charge and if folks would just understand and accept that FACT, then everything would be peachy.


4 posted on 03/18/2025 5:19:55 AM PDT by The Louiswu (USA FIRST...USA FOREVER)
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To: The Louiswu

bttt


5 posted on 03/18/2025 5:23:04 AM PDT by linMcHlp
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To: Blueflag

The premise of this is ridiculous and insulting to people who have gone through real trauma. I recognize that on an individual level, there may be some people who have suffered through some intense trauma, like a bad accident, or even long term trauma, like abuse, but suggesting that the general population has PTSD because they have some stress or adversity (as Blueflag puts it) in their life is an example of how much we have lowered the threshold of expectations in our society and culture.

It’s pure irony. Most of us are soooooooooooo lucky to live in this time and this place. I include myself in this. We have absolutely no clue what it’s like to live in a war zone, or live where there is no stable government or economy and warlords control the streets. I’m speaking about civilians too, not just soldiers. If you look at what civilians went through in WW2 in Europe, you would count yourself lucky and stop whining about deadlines or morning alarms.


6 posted on 03/18/2025 5:27:50 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: z3n

To follow up and finish my thought, i call it pure irony because, the easier people’s participation trophy lives get, the harder it seems for them to deal with the most simply of problems.


7 posted on 03/18/2025 5:29:16 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: The Louiswu

My son died in a fire. I guess I could have curled up in a blubbering ball of mess and fallen apart but would it have changed anything.


8 posted on 03/18/2025 5:39:31 AM PDT by yldstrk (Nothing like the truth)
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To: Chode

Well, we all suspected that the whole of government was one stinking pile of corrupt dogshit. Turns out it was true. Kari takes over VOA and it takes her, what, a week to decide the whole thing is irredeemable and should just be shuttered. Imagine contracts to the AP to tell VOA what to broadcast? I mean you cannot make this stuff up.


9 posted on 03/18/2025 5:41:29 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: z3n

You should read “Next Door Neighbor” in D.C. The trauma of reality being different than the fog the local residents have all been living in is very very real.


10 posted on 03/18/2025 5:43:03 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: Blueflag

Yes the proliferation of use of the term PTSD for the stress of meeting the exigencies of everyday life is an insult to those who have had to face life threatening danger and encounters with death close up and personal.

I am surprised this writer thinks U of Michigan would in any way be representative of “flyover country.” It has been a bastion of hard left thinking going back to the 1960s, when their own radicals were flying high. No surprise to me that their Institute would be a stooge for the deep state.


11 posted on 03/18/2025 5:54:00 AM PDT by hinckley buzzard ( Resist the narrative. )
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To: z3n
--- "... insulting to people who have gone through real trauma."

Agree. The article's "Ever since lockdowns utterly broke reporting, it's been hard to tell up from down" is just so many words. For my bride and me "up from down" is rarely if ever a problem.

What is interesting is that this author -- a "libertarian" -- operates the Brownstone Institute as a CHARITY, under 501(c)3 rules, and as a result, is dependent on government rules to shield journalism income from normal taxes.

One finds:

AMERICAN BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE Form 990 Another tax-exempt "charity"

Tucker claims to work 60 hours a week for the Institute, in Brownsville Texas, per Part VII, line 1a.

Between "current officers" and "other salaries and wages," as well as some hidden "wages," this institute pays out $1 million and an additional $157K to "Grants and other assistance to foreign organizations, foreign governments, and foreign individuals." Its "donor" data on the 990 is "restricted."

Isn't it amusing when a "libertarian writer, publisher, entrepreneur and advocate of anarcho-capitalism" uses tax exemption laws to shield itself, and is NOT a private, for-profit entity?

Here's his sales pitch:

"Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work."
Is everyone a victim, these days? "....professionally purged and displaced."

Your statement rings loudly: '"... insulting to people who have gone through real trauma."

What else rings loudly is "donate," which seems the grifters' game of the day, every day. "You can help" Jeffrey Tucker says, so "donate."

12 posted on 03/18/2025 5:57:44 AM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
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To: Former Proud Canadian

Learning to be grateful helps. Paul said “I have learned to be content despite my situation”. He wrote that from prison


13 posted on 03/18/2025 5:59:33 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If Hitler were alive today and criticized Trump, would he still be Hitler?)
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To: AndyJackson

100%


14 posted on 03/18/2025 6:10:41 AM PDT by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. #FJB)
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To: yldstrk
"My son died in a fire."

I am so sorry your loss. May the Lord keep your son and comfort you.
15 posted on 03/18/2025 6:19:35 AM PDT by The Louiswu (USA FIRST...USA FOREVER)
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To: The Louiswu

Thank you.


16 posted on 03/18/2025 6:45:31 AM PDT by yldstrk (Nothing like the truth)
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To: Former Proud Canadian
He followed up: “We haven’t really had a kind of reckoning with all that, have we?”

“Nope,” I responded.

.......

17 posted on 03/18/2025 6:51:17 AM PDT by Irenic
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To: Former Proud Canadian

Once you recognize the fact that Western Civilization is collapsing and that there is absolutely nothing you can personally do to stop it, you can let the emotional baggage go.


18 posted on 03/18/2025 7:09:16 AM PDT by GingisK
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