Sen. Chris Murphy Wants the Government To Help You Make Friends – By Elizabeth Nolan Brown (Reason) / July 19, 2023
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Is there any social issue that elected officials don’t think they can solve? Loneliness is a highly complex phenomenon, produced by an interplay of cultural components and personal psychological attributes. One senator thinks he can fix it with bureaucracy and “public awareness.”
On Tuesday, Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy announced the introduction of his “National Strategy for Social Connection,” a bill that would create “a federal office to combat the growing epidemic of American loneliness, develops anti-loneliness strategies, and fosters best practices to promote social connection,” as Murphy put it.
The idea that the federal government can solve loneliness is naive and laughable. If there is an “epidemic of loneliness” in America—a big if—its causes are surely so diverse that no group of bureaucrats is going to dislodge it. And certainly not with the silly solutions Murphy proposes.
Murphy’s bill would create an “Office of Social Connection Policy to advise the president on loneliness and isolation,” order federal agencies to implement a “national strategy on social connection,” and start a public awareness campaign to educate people about fostering connections.
CONTINUE > https://reason.com/2023/07/19/sen-chris-murphy-wants-the-government-to-help-you-make-friends/
