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Shutdown 2023

THat you hate centrists so much tells a lot about you..and it's not good.
So I choose between HItler and Stalin.Nice.
And thanks for proving my point; Hard Core ideolgues of both flavors hate democracy..or redefinde democracy to mean rule by their party.
Shall I lend you my fainting couch, or did you bring your own?
 
THat you hate centrists so much tells a lot about you..and it's not good.
So I choose between HItler and Stalin.Nice.
And thanks for proving my point; Hard Core ideolgues of both flavors hate democracy..or redefinde democracy to mean rule by their party.

That's not the choice. The Democrats are simply not hard core ideologues nor do the ideologues hold disproportionate sway to the Democratic side. The choice is between fascism and being slightly more like Europe.

When there is no center, Democracies collapse. you only have a choice of which flavor of dictatorship you will have.

No, no it is not.

How democracies actually die is disengagement from government and distrust of institutions by the populace often enable by appeasement of radicals, among other factors. Since only one side is actually in any meaningful way behaving radically here and now, the idea that one must cut between them is preposterous. Doing that would only lead to more distrust as the will of the people is again denied to appease the minority who are 'playing the ref' with their nonsense.

Remember that the dems already compromised with the GOP on the budget. This crisis includes the GOP already having gone back on their deal. Rewarding them with even more compromise is rewarding bad behavior and bad governing. Don't reward them if you really worry about dictatorship.
 
The whole meta-debate we keep getting forced to have about the political scale in every discussion is insufferable.

1. Nobody (in the real world where they breath air and touch grass and therefore actually matter) thinks either major (and you're an idiot if you think any of the major-minor) political parties in America right now represent some perfect beacon on enlightenment or efficiency.

2. The Democratic Party is countless factors better than the Republican Party in every possible metric that falls under the umbrella of "facts" or "basic human decency."

3. Sometimes you are in a scenario where only have two options and you have to suck it up and pick the better one no matter how crappy they both are and doing some big show off routine of pretending your morals keep you from doing it because neither side is perfect just makes you a douchebag.

All of those points are true and they are exactly 0% hard to understand.
 
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My wife and I just recently returned from a long weekend vacation to DC. We had originally wanted to go in later October but planning around potential government shutdowns is simply a part of navigating the DC tourism industry these days. Must really suck for the hospitality industry to have their lifeline periodically cut to 0 every few years. I feel bad for anyone who didn't take this into account and is facing the prospect of every major tourist destination in DC being closed during their visit.

The Smithsonian museums are excellent and 100% free, assuming this country isn't doing its "failed state" routine.

yeah, I think it's very important in these "government shutdowns" to close all the parts of the National Park Service, including Smithosonians.

And they should prevent people from working at the Nationals Zoo. Send the air traffic controllers home.

We'll see how long the "it doesn't hurt anything to shut down the government" crowd will stick with it when the animals at the National Zoo all die and all the airports close.

Oh, we didn't mean to actually shut down the government, just those parts that make a grandstand.

The military has to work but won't get paid. Serves the mofos right, right? Sucking on the government teat like that....They should walk off the job, too.
 
Worth recalling that there have been proposed solutions to put this fake crisis to bed forever.

The treasury could mint a trillion dollar coin and deposit it into the fed.

I don't see how Dems playing along with this fake crisis does anything but help their opposition. These freakouts about government debt and spending are entirely cynical and it only gives credence to the conservative idea that debt spending in inherently bad or whatever. A total surrender of the political initiative to the Republicans to have to deal with this nonsense.

Minting the coin would require a bit of creativity and decisive action from the Dems, so it'll never happen.

"Reagan showed that deficits don't matter." - that darn socialist Dick Cheney.
 
Yeah, **** all those federal employees who need to get paid in order to survive! Park rangers, what do they ever do? Fatcats rolling in diamonds and minks. Live minks, too.

See my other comment. Air traffic controllers are federal employees, too.
 
Federal workers won't be paid during the shutdown, but they'll be paid for that time after the shutdown ends. That includes the non-essential workers who are barred from doing anything useful during the shutdown.

Who'd have thought that paying people not to work would become such a prominent element of Republican political philosophy?

And remember during the pandemic when the republicans were crying about who gets considered to be an "essential" worker?
 
Thirty seconds, thirty days, who cares? It's not like we actually need a functional government.

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Yeah, **** all those federal employees who need to get paid in order to survive! Park rangers, what do they ever do? Fatcats rolling in diamonds and minks. Live minks, too.

You beat me to saying essentially that.

I think the overwhelming majority of people in the US could function quite happily without congress or a president. We might not even notice the lack.

But there are a huge number of government employees who end up not getting paid when the idiots in charge get into pissing matches like this. It's irresponsible, and it's not serving the citizenry or the country. All of those condresscritters should have their wages garnished to pay for the people they're screwing over with this.
 
Thirty seconds, thirty days, who cares? It's not like we actually need a functional government.

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We don't need anyone to manage Medicare and Medicaid and social security!!! We don't need anybody approving and reviewing passports and Visa applications!!! Let AI do it all!!!
 
It's sad how many people at times like this comment flippantly about how little we need the government because of how much they dislike and mistrust it, with no irony whatsoever.
 
That's not the choice. The Democrats are simply not hard core ideologues nor do the ideologues hold disproportionate sway to the Democratic side. The choice is between fascism and being slightly more like Europe.



No, no it is not.

How democracies actually die is disengagement from government and distrust of institutions by the populace often enable by appeasement of radicals, among other factors. Since only one side is actually in any meaningful way behaving radically here and now, the idea that one must cut between them is preposterous. Doing that would only lead to more distrust as the will of the people is again denied to appease the minority who are 'playing the ref' with their nonsense.

Remember that the dems already compromised with the GOP on the budget. This crisis includes the GOP already having gone back on their deal. Rewarding them with even more compromise is rewarding bad behavior and bad governing. Don't reward them if you really worry about dictatorship.

The GOP is beyond hope;you cannot c ompromise with them, I just don't want the Dems to catch the same disease.
That some of the progressive wing of the Democrats seem to have a huge dislike for moderates is not a good sign.
I will be voting a straight blue ticket because the GOP is so far gone down the rabbit hole, but I am not happy about it.
 
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If the Democrats refused to compromise from now on, the government will no longer function. Compromise is a disgusting, dirty requirement of politics.

a perquisite for compromise is that all parties involved are dedicated to maintaining said democracy.
Republicans are staunchly anti-democracy, so they need to be opposed, not coddled.
 
Problem is for some people. any concesions whatsoever is "Capitulation"
That is the problem with hard core ideologues. Their whole philosophy is 'My Way Or The HighWay".

The trouble is that any move to make concessions will result in the other party assuming an even more extreme position - and demand further concessions.
 
Compromise?
The house voted yesterday to reduce the salary of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin to $1.
It was proposed by Marjorie Taylor Greene.

She said
Lloyd Austin, the secretary of defense of the United States, definitely deserves to be fired,” Ms. Greene said. “$1 is too much.

Is that something the Dems should compromise on?
 
The GOP is beyond hope;you cannot c ompromise with them, I just don't want the Dems to catch the same disease.

seems to me you and others are saying is that people who think it's a losing proposition to compromise in this situation, with people you admit cannot be compromised with anyway, and equating that with being opposed to the idea of compromise.
 
Compromise?
The house voted yesterday to reduce the salary of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin to $1.
It was proposed by Marjorie Taylor Greene.

She said


Is that something the Dems should compromise on?

LOL!!!

What do you think???
 

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