Shut 'em down, shut 'em, shut 'em down

A little over two years ago I wrote one of my signature, rambling, poorly-though-out  posts about the debt ceiling. We were on the brink back then. Lots of dangerous rhetoric being bandied about. People feared that we were about to cross the Rubicon, and that this country might never recover.

Actually, the mood was pretty blase. No one really took it seriously. It looked like the usual political theater from careerist, ideological dolts on both sides of the aisle.
 "It's an arbitrary deadline" we said.
 "They'll just push it back again" we suggested.
 "No, I'm TIRED, I don't feel like going out, let's just make quesadillas and get drunk in the living room" I said to my girlfriend.
And that's what happened. The GOP even got some choice spending cuts and everyone in the Executive and Legislative branches of our government learned a valuable lesson about political brinkmanship and crying wolf.

Then some nutjobs showed up.

 Republicans took the house in a huge power shift, riding on a wave of district gerrymandering and fear about the Affordable Care Act, which I vainly hope we can someday stop calling Obamacare. It just sounds stupid. What we had now in the house was largely a band of political neophytes, resolutely devout in their belief that the ACA would destroy this country. Ambitious, ruthless, and in no way willing to let facts distract them from their aspirations, these are the people that have pushed us into a government shutdown.

People like Ted Cruz (R-TX), whose grandstanding kicked off the current shutdown. His delusions of grandeur are already leading him to think about a 2016 White House run, despite the fact he has been on the national stage for about ten minutes and was born in freakin CANADA.

Also people like Ted Yoho (R-FL), a large animal veterinarian that is used to euthanizing unhealthy behemoths, and also maintains the cognitive dissonance to suggest that the US defaulting on its debt would "bring stability to the world economy" You can't make this stuff up! No matter how much you wish you had and that insane people like this aren't in positions of power.

Anyway, the GOP is trying to keep the conversation focused on the ACA, not the debt ceiling. Mainly because they have an answer to the ACA: No. They don't care that it's the law of the land, they maintain that it is massively unpopular with their constituents and will be nothing but destructive. If only we had these compassionate souls wielding this kind of clout in the run-up to the war in Iraq. I'm sure they would have followed the will of the people.

As it is now, we are in Day 9 of the government shutdown. National Parks are closed and the communities that rely on the revenue they bring in  up the creek. Families of soldiers killed in action aren't getting the death benefit that they are due, par for the course as far as the way we treat our military personnel and their loved ones in this country. To top it off, we are about a week away from default. Even if we get out of this one, the precedent has been set. They have learned they can hold this country hostage as a negotiating tactic. I really don't want to be around for the next temper tantrum these people throw.