US Government Shutdown

[Jester]

Can't say I disagree with most of that....

[Crabfight]

Originally Posted by Leo656

The reason I laugh when people blame one party or the other for "what's wrong" is that all politicians are jagoffs. The second the cameras are off, almost all of them head right to the same strip clubs with the same "paid escorts" and do the same cocaine with rolled-up bills they got from OUR taxes. So many Democrats and Republicans even have the same speechwriters, it's ridiculous. F*ck 'em all. It's all a huge work, even this "shut-down" is just something they staged to get normally-complacent people impassioned leading into an election season. How convenient is it that so many people who usually have nothing to say about politics are suddenly so deeply invested in it? It's all a game to our Corporate Masters. None of it affects them, so it's theater. They don't care what happens to The Little Guy? Sh*t, what else is new?

Anybody who wants to "save the world" joins the Peace Corps. Nobody who wears a suit for a living is doing it for ANYONE but themselves.

**Disclaimer: This isn't solely directed at you, Leo; some of my points are also in response to some posts before yours.

Your disillusionment is completely understandable, but sweeping generalizations are rarely, if ever, accurate. I have a wife studying policy now with a mind to enter politics in order to make the changes she believes to be necessary in our government. MANY politicians start on this road, and the assumption that they all end up being "jagoffs" is a bit too simplistic of an explanation for me. Heck, I live in Texas, one of the most frustrating states in the union when it comes to politics, and it's not hard to find good people who care about each other trying to make change in politics.

The unfortunate result that an enormous percentage of our higher up representatives are taking advantage of us for their own personal gain is, at least in part, the result of voter ignorance and apathy. We put them there and most of us never raised a single concern when more and more legislation that entrenched money further and further into our political model got passed.

Are there a lot of jagoffs in politics? No doubt. Do they come from all sides? Absolutely. And I wouldn't go as far as to say it's solely the fault of the American people, but the plan of "Welp, nothing we can do now" is, in my humble opinion, not a good one. I think people should absolutely be involved in making the decisions that affect their lives. America's system is just that, a system. In my opinion, it's better than some countries' system and worse than other countries'.

Also, there's a bit of irony in your using the Peace Corps as an alternative for doing good in the world. That, too, is a program that has a lot of great people in it, but has received lots of criticism due to a few in the spotlight taking advantage of their positions of power, as well as a model that can, at times, be damaging to the people it's trying to help.

P.S. - Bah! I don't wanna make my post too long, but I forgot to mention that if I were to vilify a single profession (though I should definitely take my own advice and not generalize), I'd be tempted to blame the modern media. They (in many cases) are the ones who are perfectly happy to abandon the tenets of their noble profession in order to make them g's.

[BubblyShell22]

Originally Posted by Jester

But Bubbly....it's your voice. Even if the 2 major parties "always" win, it might put a fire under them to see 3rd party options getting higher and higher election results every year. It'd be a sign that The People are growing more and more dissatisfied with them. It may be one way to put the fear of God into people who at best want what they feel is best their small segment of America and at worst just want what's good for them.

You vote to let your voice be heard...even if it's just a whisper in the screaming throngs of the 2 Party System.

That may be, but most of the time, third party candidates don't even get majority of the votes like I said. It would be a waste of time, and I'm not going to waste my time holing up in a booth and voting for people who really don't count in the general scheme of things since the majority of Americans vote either Democrat or Republican.

Originally Posted by Katie

Yup exactly. At one time there were no republicans. There were whigs. Don't have those anymore. Was a major party at one time. Presidents even. People stopped backing them. Party died.

But I fear we're speaking to a brick wall. Some people are very content to let the rest of us dictate their lives with our voices.

Yep, you are. I'm not going to vote because the desire's not there and never has been. Besides, if you guys want to vote, that's fine. You can let your voice be heard because you vote for one specific party and your voice WILL be heard. Mine won't no matter what anyone thinks. Screw it.

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

First of all, the only people who get ignored on election day are the one's who don't show up.
Secondly, no one's individual vote counts in a Presidential Race because that race isn't decided by popular vote, but by Electoral.

The races that are actually important, the ones that impact your daily lives, are the local municipal and State/Commonwealth elections. Those would be the ones held every November, and very rarely involve party politics at all.

So...yeah, sorry. By not voting you're only really hurting your own cause.

No, I'm being smart about it because I'm not going to blindly follow anyone. And even those small elections don't matter to me because I just don't care about any of them. They're meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but then again. anything involving politics is.

Originally Posted by Leo656

The reason I laugh when people blame one party or the other for "what's wrong" is that all politicians are jagoffs. The second the cameras are off, almost all of them head right to the same strip clubs with the same "paid escorts" and do the same cocaine with rolled-up bills they got from OUR taxes. So many Democrats and Republicans even have the same speechwriters, it's ridiculous. F*ck 'em all. It's all a huge work, even this "shut-down" is just something they staged to get normally-complacent people impassioned leading into an election season. How convenient is it that so many people who usually have nothing to say about politics are suddenly so deeply invested in it? It's all a game to our Corporate Masters. None of it affects them, so it's theater. They don't care what happens to The Little Guy? Sh*t, what else is new?

Anybody who wants to "save the world" joins the Peace Corps. Nobody who wears a suit for a living is doing it for ANYONE but themselves.

Definitely agree with you, Leo. Half of the politicians are lying when they say they're for America. Even if they act like they are, a lot of them turn around and change what they said during their campaign and pretty much sh*t on all of us. Obama is a good example of that, and Congress isn't doing much better with it. But whatever. If you guys want to buy into the political B.S. and vote, that's your business. I'm going to stay far away from it because I feel that's the best thing I can do.

And back on topic of the shutdown, did you guys hear that the Amber Alert website was shut down because of all of this? Seems ridiculous to have something as important as that shut down when there are tons of missing kids out there who need to be found.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by BubblyShell22

And back on topic of the shutdown, did you guys hear that the Amber Alert website was shut down because of all of this? Seems ridiculous to have something as important as that shut down when there are tons of missing kids out there who need to be found.

Don't worry, those kids are "...meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but then again. anything involving politics is."

One party is responsible for the shut down, and we should be holding them, and anyone who voted to put them in power or didn't vote at all accountable.
The Shutdown could end today, if House Speaker Boehner brought a clean Budget Extension bill to the floor for a vote, but he won't because he knows it'll be the end of his GOP political career.

[BubblyShell22]

Yep, looks like Boehner isn't going to budge on this one. Obama just held a news conference concerning this and pretty much said that if Boehner would just let Congress have the floor and vote on this, it would be done. However, he's probably not going to because he's an idiot. They tried this sh*t before Obamacare was signed into law, and it didn't work, so it's pointless to do this now when you know you can't repeal the law once it's been signed. You have to wait for a period of time before you can do anything. These guys need to just use common sense.

As for who voted them in, no one will know, so you can't really hold anyone responsible for that since the voting is top secret. Best thing we can do is just hope that this will get resolved soon, though I'm not going to get my hopes up.

[Crabfight]

Originally Posted by Katie

As much as I think the shutdown is idiotic, part of me does hope that it lasts through election day if for no other reason that it will get people to go vote.

I would totally agree with this sentiment if the debt limit deadline weren't earlier than Election Day. Letting October 17th pass while we're in shutdown mode would be terrible for us.

So yeah. Hopefully people have a memory longer than half a month...

[Leo656]

I hear ya, brah, but the fact is "The System" eats idealists for breakfast. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," as the saying goes. I've watched people go from moderate means to having lots of money and how it *completely* changes them, to say nothing of what happens when someone with the best of intentions becomes part of "The System". Because no matter what they say, no matter which misbehaving politician they throw to the wolves every so often to prove there's SOME form of "accountability", it's all nonsense. When you reach the upper levels of the American Political System, you are essentially free to do whatever you want, whenever you want, to whoever you want, for the rest of your friggin' LIFE, and as long as you know how to assuage your constituents, you can go to your grave with a big Thumbs Up from the public. And there is NO way to handle that and remain a decent, noble, honest person, not when *every single part of your job*, every single day, involves lying to people to suit your own ends. No matter what people *want* to do when they get into politics, by the time they're done, they're all the same. That overwhelming power combined with lack of any and all consequence is just too powerful to overcome.

Case in point, Teddy Kennedy killed someone! Beyond any shadow of a doubt, a person who, were they you or I, would have been punished *severely* for what they had done, not only received pretty much NO punishment at all, but went on to have a SPECTACULAR political career, and most people still think he was a helluva guy, "Except for, y'know, that one little thing." A lot of these are the same people who will wax poetic about how O.J. Simpson was a phenomenal athlete and overall great human being, "Except for, y'know, that double-murder thing. But other than THAT, he was a helluva guy!" Point being, when we're "trained" to look up to, trust, and idealize these fallible, corruptible human beings, we tend to let them get away with a LOT of bullsh*t.

So I simply don't think you can change The System from within, I think The System is too powerful and people are too easily swayed by money and power. It's not like there's some group of people out there anywhere on Earth who can turn down millions (potentially billions over a lifetime) of dollars in income and favors, along with the ability to live a life free of punishment and consequence, provided you don't make any enemies among your own political party. Politicians are only human, and humans aren't just fallible, they're essentially hard-wired to be selfish and dishonest. The very *worst* of them, ascend to the top of the heap and become "Our Leaders". The idealists are either "turned to the Dark Side" or otherwise gotten rid of because they hold back the Big Machine.

So I don't vote and never plan to. Choosing "The Lesser of Two Evils" Isn't how I roll. If I don't believe in something or someone 100%, I don't put my stamp on it. If I see someone who seems to have the same values as I do, and I think they're not *entirely* full of sh*t, I may change my mind. I'm not above changing my mind. But so far, all I've ever seen is sh*t on top of sh*t, where whenever anyone votes all they ever say in defense of their pick is, "Well, at least they're not (The Opposing Candidate)," and that kind of weak, "Hold your nose and pick one" method of choosing the people who are supposed to LEAD us is frankly disgusting to me. I don't need to vote to make my voice heard. I have YouTube and a Facebook page, I'm real easy to find, and my message to our corporate overlords is "F*CK YOU." The last time anyone in America successfully enacted any real change and sent a message to their Masters, they didn't do it by voting, they did it by dressing up like Indians and dumping a bunch of tea into Boston Harbor. *That* is how you send a message that you're fed up. Not by writing a name on a piece of paper in some pre-determined farcical demonstration of make-believe democracy, and not by sitting outside a building on Wall Street holding signs.

Then again, this dude always explained it better than I ever could. This hits the nail on the head, and to me, is the only logical argument one can make about our electoral process...

[Katie]

Originally Posted by Crabfight

I would totally agree with this sentiment if the debt limit deadline weren't earlier than Election Day. Letting October 17th pass while we're in shutdown mode would be terrible for us.

So yeah. Hopefully people have a memory longer than half a month...

It would be terrible for us regardless. I believe someone will blink before that happens. Neither side wants austerity to kick in. That would KILL the economy. (See: Europe)

Also, totally glad so many of my fellow americans are so totally happy with the choices I'm making and the people I'm choosing to lead the country that they feel no need to override my vote with theirs. Awesome feeling!

[BubblyShell22]

Leo, I agree with you one hundred percent, and you pretty much summed up why I never plan to vote.

And, Katie, why should it matter? I think voting is stupid and really would be better if the politicians themselves didn't get to vote for themselves. Then we'd see a fair system. And like Leo said, most politicians go in one way and then totally change their tune about things when it's all said and done. As we know, our illustrious president is a big example of this and how he said certain things on his campaign trail that definitely haven't been followed through.

It was funny because when Obama said, "We look pretty bad to the rest of the world right now," I yelled at the TV, "Then why don't you just nix your stupid healthcare act since that's the cause of all this sh*t, you idiot?" I had to turn the channel because I pretty much couldn't stand to listen to Obama go on and on and continue to lie. Guy needs to be impeached.

[愛]

I have a feeling this is going to go the wrong way soon, so I should interject and say be civil and understanding of opinions here. We're already bending the rules by allowing this thread.

[The Stryker]

Originally Posted by BubblyShell22

It was funny because when Obama said, "We look pretty bad to the rest of the world right now," I yelled at the TV, "Then why don't you just nix your stupid healthcare act since that's the cause of all this sh*t, you idiot?" I had to turn the channel because I pretty much couldn't stand to listen to Obama go on and on and continue to lie. Guy needs to be impeached.

So you're mad at him because he is sticking to his guns on a plan and promise he made during his campaign?

Isn't that exactly what you want politicians to do? Do what they say?

[Redeemer]

Originally Posted by BubblyShell22

It was funny because when Obama said, "We look pretty bad to the rest of the world right now," I yelled at the TV, "Then why don't you just nix your stupid healthcare act since that's the cause of all this sh*t, you idiot?" I had to turn the channel because I pretty much couldn't stand to listen to Obama go on and on and continue to lie. Guy needs to be impeached.

Well katie truthfully I flirt with the republican side of things (Actually independent) but I actually like a few things about Obama care such as...
1. You now cannot be denied insurance for pre-existing conditions.
2. A young adult can stay on their parents healthcare until there 26 now no matter what. I believe it used to be that 24 and you had to be a full time student.

These two are especially good for me. I am currently not in school and I have not been for a year bc I ran out of money bc I broke a vertabrea while working.

And I have severe injuries from a car wreck and I have a genetic disorder when Im older a insurance company would have been able to deny me bc they were pre-existing injuries, cant do that now.

What I dont like is that people will get fined if they do not have health insurance and the fact that for major surgery the deductable is 4500$ dollars and that it does NOT roll-over.

Truthfully I believe that the insurance should just be taken out of taxes.
The healthcare plan is not perfect, but is a good start.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by Katie

Also, totally glad so many of my fellow americans are so totally happy with the choices I'm making and the people I'm choosing to lead the country that they feel no need to override my vote with theirs. Awesome feeling!

Yup, pretty much.

I really truly wish I was lucky enough to be one of those people who so easily fit into the constructed norm that I didn't have to vote. Must be awesome, really.

[BubblyShell22]

Originally Posted by The Stryker

So you're mad at him because he is sticking to his guns on a plan and promise he made during his campaign?

Isn't that exactly what you want politicians to do? Do what they say?

Yes, but I want politicians to be for the people and care about them. Obama doesn't, and it shows within this act. I agree that the pre-existing condition clause and the clause about kids being on their parents' insurance is the only good thing to come out of this, but there are a lot of bad things that are in this bill, mainly that people are forced to have health insurance when this stupid bill is going to make insurance cost more to even get. But then again, this is what comes of the mindless idiots who passed this stupid bill without reading it first. If they had read it first, they would have seen what was in it and would have been able to repeal it, but their excuse is that they couldn't pass it without reading it first, which is a load of B.S. If they really cared about us and what we wanted, they would have read it first. These people aren't using common sense, and that's the problem. Obama is the same way in that he thinks forcing people to get health insurance will change things, but you can't do that in a poor economy, and many hospitals are only opting for one type of insurance for low income families anyway.

So, no, I don't agree with this bill and if you have to blame anybody, blame the idiots who supported it and didn't read the damn thing first before passing it.

And I believe that by refusing to vote, I am taking in stand in that I don't approve of what politicians do and that I see through their lies. I think the best thing we can do is just refuse to vote one Election Day to show our disapproval of how things are being run. Maybe then they'd get the message that we aren't going to buy into their B.S. and that they'd better start being honest about their policies and a lot fairer about them, too.

That's my opinion on it. You don't have to agree with me, but that's what I feel. I march to the beat of my own drum and don't follow the herd like so many others when it comes to politics. I'm not trying to stir debate but just stating my opinion. I don't care if you vote and feel you can let your voice be heard that way. I do things my way, and that's the way I'm going to continue to do it. Plain and simple.

[Candy Kappa]

Redning all this... The new Norwegian government doesn't seem all that bad, really.

[BubblyShell22]

Yeah, and I thought politics was crazy everywhere.

[Andrew NDB]

If the government shutdown in some way interfered or shut down the production on TMNT Part 5 then I might have some feelings about it one way or the other (good feelings, in that case).

[Barkworm]

Originally Posted by BubblyShell22

It was funny because when Obama said, "We look pretty bad to the rest of the world right now," I yelled at the TV, "Then why don't you just nix your stupid healthcare act since that's the cause of all this sh*t, you idiot?" I had to turn the channel because I pretty much couldn't stand to listen to Obama go on and on and continue to lie. Guy needs to be impeached.

Hahaha. Wow.

[LordShredder]

Not going to lie I think they are really having a party in there. I mean why else haven't they figured this mess out?

On a serious note I'm sorry to say this but I think the U.S. has taken so many hits it will never be the power house it once was.

[CyberCubed]

This is still going on? I haven't been paying any attention since it first happened.

I'd laugh if it takes into next year to "open" the government.