Jeff's Lunchbreak: More Thoughts on the Government Shutdown, or !*#%!#@ Republicans

Political Fighting I've written about my political affiliation previously:

As far as party affiliation goes, I'm an independent who usually votes Democratic, but not exclusively. I've never voted a straight Democratic ticket. I always try to look at individual candidates to decide who to vote for. It's just that more often than not, the Democratic candidates match my views more closely than the Republicans (and I'm not about to throw my vote away on a third party candidate).

But I have to say, it's getting harder and harder to take anyone seriously who associates themselves with the Republicans, and this latest stunt with the government shutdown is about the last straw in my mind. It doesn't matter how much they disagree with the Affordable Care Act, holding the government and economy hostage to try to achieve their goals is unacceptable. It's not the way our government is supposed to work, and is quite frankly un-American.

The Republican talking point about trying to claim that Democrats have refused to negotiate is horse puckey. Take a look at the article, 19 Times Democrats Tried to Negotiate With Republicans, for a list of all the times the Democrats tried to enter into negotiations with the Republicans before it came to this.

I'm also tired of hearing about them supporting the 'will of the people'. Go read this article, Poll: Don't Shut Down the Government Over Obamacare, reporting on a recent Quinnipiac University poll. Even on the point where the Republicans are closest to reality, the number of people favoring or opposing the Affordable Care Act, they still don't have a good case. Roughly 45 percent of people support the Affordable Care Act, while around 47% oppose it. That's a pretty even split, and not even a majority in opposition. So, according to that poll, Republicans are basing this whole fight on a law that less than half the country disapproves of. Granted, other polls do show the numbers skewed a bit more towards disapproval, but nowhere near an overwhelming majority - nothing that calls for the type of scorched earth approach they've taken.

But, that was the one point with the most support for Republicans. Look at another stat, and it's far worse. A full 72% of those polled opposed shutting down the government in an effort to defund the law. According to another article, Poll Shows Disapproval of Threat of Government Shutdown, it was 8 out of 10 who disapproved of the Republicans' tactics. So the House Republicans can't even pretend that they're representing the will of the people here. They're hijacking the country in an effort to enforce the wishes of around 1/4 of the population.

I could go on an on venting about this situation, but it's difficult not to devolve into using strings of four letter words. Instead, I'll post a couple links to people that have already made the points I was thinking. The first of these is more humorous, from Tom Tomorrow. I'm only showing the first panel - click on it to read the full thing.

The second is an article by Charles Pierce, The Reign Of Morons Is Here. Here's the opening, to give you an idea of what to expect.

Only the truly naive can be truly surprised.
Only the truly child-like can have expected anything else.

In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic. There have been Congresses more dilatory. There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress -- or, more precisely, in a single House of the Congress -- a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than exists in this one, which has arranged to shut down the federal government because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it, a law based on a proposal from a conservative think-tank and taken out on the test track in Massachusetts by a Republican governor who also happens to have been the party's 2012 nominee for president of the United States. That is why the government of the United States is, in large measure, closed this morning.

It's hard to describe how disgusted I am with the Republican party right now. I didn't have a very high opinion of them before, but they've gone and lowered the bar to a depth I wouldn't have guessed it could reach.

Related Entries (i.e. the government shutdown, and general Republican stupidity):