Government Shut Down

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

That isn't new: China has been working towards owning us for years and years.

I, for one, won't welcome our creepy sneaky overlords.

Don't worry, our super massive over the top excessive superfluous defense contractor piggy bank military will keep them from owning us.

[glatt]

Except all our machinery uses chips and ICs they manufacture, and they have a secret backdoor kill switch built in to each one.

[henry quirk]

"So you love it that extremists are playing right into China's hand. "

Nope. What I loved what the possibility folks might see for themselves they don't need as much 'governing' as they're told they do.

What I loved was the possibility folks might see the politicians need them a helluva lot more than they need the politicians.

What I loved was the possibility that ludicrous amounts of scrip might stop being spent on horseshit.

China: fuck 'em...what they gonna do? Without the U.S., China goes back to being just a Third World hole.

All moot anyway...*shrug*

[henry quirk]

"This was the most boring government shutdown EVER!"

"you anti-american fuck"

HA!

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

"So you love it that extremists are playing right into China's hand. "

Nope. What I loved what the possibility folks might see for themselves they don't need as much 'governing' as they're told they do.

What I loved was the possibility folks might see the politicians need them a helluva lot more than they need the politicians.

What I loved was the possibility that ludicrous amounts of scrip might stop being spent on horseshit.

China: fuck 'em...what they gonna do? Without the U.S., China goes back to being just a Third World hole.

All moot anyway...*shrug*

Great. Right up until the part where a bunch of children actually starve for lack of food aid programmes; old people actually freeze in the coming winter because they cannot heat their homes, and a rash of small businesses are crippled by the soaring cost of borrowing.

You may not need that much government, but there are a fuck of a lot of people who do in fact need government.

Government didn't expand because it is some hulking beast wanting more and more. It expanded because the alternative to doing so would leave some people for dead. It expanded to fill the gaps left by libertarian and free market ideologies. It expanded to facilitate the broadening out of society's benefits to all Americans and not just those who successfully rode the financial surf.

Now, I daresay you'd be quite comfortable with all that. Survival of the fittest, no passengers, no such thing as fairness idyll.

I honestly don't know what it is you expect to happen if the government were to suddenly shrink to the bone.

[henry quirk]

"Great. Right up until the part where a bunch of children actually starve for lack of food aid programmes; old people actually freeze in the coming winter because they cannot heat their homes, and a rash of small businesses are crippled by the soaring cost of borrowing."

I get it: I (and folks like 'me') are supposed to carry 'them' because they can't carry themselves.

Make me.

#

"You may not need that much government, but there are a fuck of a lot of people who do in fact need government."

And that’s 'their' damned problem.

#

"Government didn't expand because it is some hulking beast wanting more and more."

'It' expanded 'cause the mercenary wanted more (more power, more control). To that end: generations were taught (are being taught) that bigger government is better government, that governance of the minutia of living is a necessity, and that no individual can do without the 'guidance' of 'authority.

Utter horseshit.

#

"...the alternative to doing so would leave some people for dead"

An unsavory truth (fact): some folks need to die.

If X can't fend for him- or her-self, and X has no one who WANTS to help him or her, then X needs to go.

To demand I care for X is theft (of my time, resources, and self...fuck that noise).

That folks like you have to force folks like me is theft, Dana.

No other assessment makes sense.

#

"I honestly don't know what it is you expect to happen if the government were to suddenly shrink to the bone.”

First, it'll never "suddenly shrink to the bone". Like smack in the vein: it's 'needed'.

Second, if it did "suddenly shrink to the bone" I expect lots of folks to suffer...some die; some make it through (and are better for it).

#

"Survival of the fittest"

HA!

You write it as though it were a bad phrase.

It's not bad or good...just what 'is'.

Folks like you wanna insulate themselves from it...good luck with that.

#

Tell you what, Dana: if children starving and old people freezing bother you so much, devote your time, resources, and 'self' to saving them.

Why do 'I' have to participate?

[henry quirk]

Here's why...

Because it is manifestly 'unfair' I can fend for myself when so many cannot.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

How sad, then (for the incapable), that I just have to say 'NO'.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

Here's why...

Because it is manifestly 'unfair' I can fend for myself when so many cannot.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

How sad, then (for the incapable), that I just have to say 'NO'.

Don't want to participate? Move to the wilderness. Don't participate in any economic activity. Don't rely on emergency services, state-funded roads, or any of a number of things. You can so no, but you're just not willing to do so effectively.

Society has a cost and that cost is cooperation and mutual support. A lot of the monetary support is misapplied and a lot of our representatives and employees don't behave as I'd like, but the benefits are greater to me than the cost of cutting myself off from all of it.

[henry quirk]

Same horseshit as always...a little originality would be nice.

*sigh*

In reverse order...


"Don't participate in any economic activity."

Conflating voluntary transactions (I buy 'this' over 'here' instead of 'that' over 'there', or choose to do without) with theft (gimme that or I'll jail you) is dumb.

#

"Don't rely on emergency services"

I don't.

#

"state-funded roads"

That I pay for by way of state sales taxes...why would I not use what I've paid for?

#

"Society has a cost and that cost is cooperation and mutual support."

Society is nuthin' but a word for a buncha folks living in close proximity to one another and not killing each other.

It becomes 'jail' when communitarians (Left and Right) decide that the one owes the many sumthin' more than not stealing and not killing.

#

"...the benefits are greater to me than the cost of cutting myself off from all of it."

Then mire yourself up to your neck in it.

##

"so predictable"

What's predictable is that you'd try to make a lame joke at my expense.

I laugh at your lack of novelty, not the joke.

##

"How strange that you would use English to communicate that. Shouldn't you be making up a new language, rather than participate in something that the entire culture has developed over a period of many centuries of deep cooperation, a tie that binds us together so strongly?"

The day some motherfucker with the big stick tries to tax me for using English is the day I might just do that.

##

So stupid (all of you, for missing [or, being incapable of comprehending] the point of anything I've written in this thread [and others]).

No wonder the lot of you crave being governed.


Who's next?

[Lamplighter]

Now that the world has seen that Henry Quirk was right all along,
we can look foreward to February 7th, 2014.

Yesterday, when the Senate passed it's Bill to end this shutdown and debt ceiling fiasco,
Harry Reid made gave a short speech trending towards conciliation and optimism.
Not so for the Senate Minority Leader...

Senator Mitch McConnell's "conciliation" speech drew a bright new red line on the floor.
The GOP will begin it's "conversation" in the super-committee at
last March's $986 billion sequester (aka the Budget Control Act (BCA).
It will be the new Pavlovian war cry of the GOP.
In other words, Obamacare (ACA) becomes just one ribbon on the GOP's BCA battle flag.



Here is a link to the current effect of sequestration by state...

The Texas Tribune
Ryan Murphy
2/26/13

Interactive: Sequester Cuts by State

<snip>
Using the data made available for every state plus the District of Columbia
(yes, we opened and collected numbers from all 51 PDFs),
we have prepared an interactive that makes it easy to compare the White House's numbers for each state. Select a sequester cut from the drop-down to view a different chart.

[henry quirk]

HA!

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

HA!

I thought you might fall for that... so predictable