They tried the "hand's-off" approach after the 1929 stock market crash and they got the Great Depression. Any economist today will tell you that doing nothing is going to guarentee not just a severe recession but a depression too. That is why Congress signed off on the 700 billion financial bailout of all the banks.
There is nothing wrong with bailing out an industry that in normal economic times would be profitable. The trick is figuring out if the industry your bailing out WOULD be profitable if the economy hadn't tanked. Unfortunately what has clouded the auto bailout debate are the legions of people who years ago bought a car and something went wrong with it and they now see this as their chance to "get even" with the automakers.
If this was Japan and the subject of bailing out Toyota was public discussion there would be equal venom from some quarters to keep them alive. It is simply that everyone who has ever owned a car has felt it wasn't as good a deal as it could have been for them. Cars are products people love to hate.
Of course, being a girl I don't expect you to understand anything about this anyway. Why don't you go back to Target and buy some dresses or something?
Ted