Tuesday, October 01, 2013

This Government's Broken. Let's Get a New One.

I've made it no secret that I despise politics. It's not that I don't like ideologies or belief systems. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and everyone is entitled to reasonably express that opinion. The thing I don't like is the polarizing effect that many political issues tend to have on the majority of the people in this country.

That said, I make it a point to remain as neutral as possible whenever exploring political issues. I only explore politics on the rarest of occasions because I like to avoid the subject at all costs. Sometimes it's because I know I haven't paid close enough attention to the news to really form an educated opinion. Sometimes I avoid politics because I don't want to throw gasoline on the fire, causing people to leave comments that only serve to point fingers at the people on the other side of their particular political lines.

But since I rarely receive comments anyway, prepare for my well written thoughts on the events of today.

This government shut down is stupid.

You like that? Nothing more intelligent than what a 12-year-old would say. Or, judging by the actions of our elected leaders over the past weeks months, nothing more intelligent than what a congressman/woman would say.

As someone who works with children on a daily basis, I don't think I'm far off in saying that our representatives are acting like spoiled children. Each of them wants their way and no one is willing to give ground in order to come up with a compromise. They can tell the public that they're working on a compromise all they want, but they don't understand what the word compromise really means. True compromise means that both parties will walk away having given up or lost something they initially wanted. But no one is willing to give anything up, even though giving up something will be what's in the best interests of the American people.

Right now, hundreds of thousands of federal employees are out of work. Every day that this government shut down continues means those people are losing a paycheck. Their way of life is being put on hold while the men and women of congress are hashing out some sort of agreement. Sounds like it's not that big a deal, right? They're just hashing out a few details. "Hashing out" is a term I read in a few different articles regarding this whole disagreement.

But congress really has no incentive to get this done quickly. While those hundreds of thousands of federal employees sit at home and worry about what their next paycheck will look like, our elected officials continue to receive their regular income. So they can keep on arguing 'til Christmas and their families won't really know that there's been any difference.

I know, I saw on the news this morning that a number of these representatives have said they'll be donating their pay to charity during the shut down. Well, that's really thoughtful of you Representative Imfullofit, but how does a donation to the Red Cross help all those employees that have been laid off with no definite end in sight?

I don't care if you're a democrat, republican or independent. You were elected to congress for one purpose only, and that's to serve the people who put you in office. That means you serve all the people, not just the democrats or republicans or the others who are stuck somewhere in between. That means you don't serve your own interests. You don't serve the interests of your political party. You serve the people. And if you can't do that effectively, the people will remember it.

I say that, but really, will the people remember this? Ideally, a well informed voter would remember this petty squabbling that led to a complete government shut down and would use their vote to make a change. But we're a society with ADD.

Is it possible to recall all of our elected officials and just start from scratch? Because this group just isn't getting the job done.

Remember, this rant is not an attack on democrats or republicans. It's an attack on democrats and republicans. You're all being stupid, collectively and individually. Try to remember who put you morons into office, okay?

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