Among all the impotent “Don’t they realize the damage they are doing?” that populate my blogroll, finally I found somebody who understands that, of course, they do:
The U.S. government is shut down, except for essential employees. The military, prison guards, and air traffic controllers stay on the job. Isn’t that exactly the limited government the extreme right wants? National defense and homeland security, and nothing else. Hard-line conservatives don’t want to spend money on parks, environmental regulation, nutrition programs. They don’t want taxes to be collected, and they certainly have no sympathy for unemployed government workers.
Let’s face it, the conservatives in this country are very good at getting exactly what they want. We all know that time is not on the side of ultra-conservatism. The battles on immigration, gay marriage, abortion rights, contraception, evolution, and even hawkish foreign policies are pretty much lost. In twenty years, these issues will only be raised in comedy routines making fun of the older generations. If things are allowed to run their natural course, ultra-conservatism is dead. Its only hope is a very profound crisis that will disrupt the country’s existence on every level.
So. please, let’s stop referring to the ultra-conservatives in Congress as children who throw tantrums or fools who are blind to reality. The fools and the children are those who don’t accept the existence of a logic that is different from their own.
Clarissa's Blog 
Thanks for the link, Clarissa. Seems like most people don’t have a clue about what motivates the “ultra-conservatives.” Americans are in denial that the far right really wants to shut down Social Security, and most of the rest of government.
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What I find really worrying is how anti-democratic this whole thing is. Yes, the tea-party people want something, namely a very limited government and now they have a chance at getting it at least for some time, but this is, at least as far as I read, not what the majority of Americans want. If these people respected democracy, they would not behave in this way. So even if there is an internally self-consistent logic to their actions, this logic is deeply anti-democratic.
Other countries know why they ban anti-democratic parties from elections.
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There are many people – not politicians, regular, seemingly normal people – who think the shutdown is a good thing. Mind-boggling.
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People often participate in elections to “punish” the politicians that somehow wronged them: they are voting AGAINST, and not FOR something. So it shouldn’t be strange that some people like the government shutdown not because of its effect on the population, but because it annoys Obama and Democrats.
You would be amazed how far people can go in order to avenge any slight they suffered, even when doing so harms them twice more than the “wrongdoer”.
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“Seemingly normal” is the right way to put it…
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“If these people respected democracy, they would not behave in this way. ”
After having had the misfortune of speaking to a few supporters of the tea party, I’ve come away with the impression that anything they say about “democracy” is mere lip-service. The tea-party does not believe that governments gain their legitimacy in elections; the tea party believes that it is inherently more legitimate than its opposition because its platform is ‘righteous’ in the view of God.
Now, of course, they’ll try to paper-over the extreme un-Americaness of this idea by making up conspiracy theories about rigged elections and Kenyan-Socialist-Muslim-Affirmative Action Presidents, and by claiming that only the opinions of “Real Americans” actually count (here “real Americans” can be tidily defined as “Americans who support the Tea Party”), but all of this is just to avoid having to admit that they are, essentially, anti-democratic authoritarians.
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Yes, this is what is so worrying. The national socialists in Germany, by the way, behaved in the same way when they were still a minority in the parliament: They did everything to block and slow down the normal work of the parliament, so that they could prove that democracy was not working, everybody except them was weak, and that another system was needed. As we know, this worked. The behavior of the tea party is frighteningly similar, and it is very worrying that many Americans seem to think that “politicians in general”, including the democrats, are to blame for the shutdown.
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Good point about viewing things in adult, political terms, rather than aiming for a petty psychological analysis. We could make a lot of headway if more people had a political head, rather than viewing everything in emotional and moral terms.
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I agree that whinging through political analysis is rather boring but I’m not sure what pressure can be put to bear to counterbalance this effective behavior.
By effective behavior, I mean “using every trick available to them through gerrymandering, voter suppression and parlimentary procedure to undermine the essential functions of the goverment.” I also mean “using intimidation, and casting their actions in terms of high school psychology.”
When I think about how to deal with this, my thoughts are not pretty, tidy, compromising, or parlimentary.
I think about the 14th amendment option and that would certainly trigger an impeachment trial.
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Thing is, the American public has adopted an attitude that they are children who need to be cared for, and that pointing out the immoral ways of the adults will assure they receive better care in the future.
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Oh dear: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/30/train-tracks-sex-run-over-ukraine-_n_4017485.html?ir=World
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The stereotype that Ukrainians can’t control their passionate natures seems to prove true in this disturbing case.
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I would support a complete shutdown, but not this partial shutdown.
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Whenever I have said “childish”, I have never said it in terms of “silly children who are clueless”, but, rather, “spoiled children who are selfish.” So, while I naturally agree with you, I don’t think everyone who calls their behavior by certain terms is necessarily not saying what you are.
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Is it true that this shutdown will result in soldiers not receiving their payment ? Would be pretty funny if an aircraft carrier came back to “project power” on USA.
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I heard that the soldiers will continue getting paid.
The NASA is 98% closed down. And the Statue of Liberty is closed to visitors, too. This is getting very symbolic.
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As I understand it, soldiers and “essential” civilian employees are continuing to work, and will be payed, but their paychecks will be “delayed.” Nobody wants to continue working without a paycheck for very long.
The “nonessential” employees are furloughed and not allowed to work. They are supposedly losing money for every day they don’t work. Congress decided to pay them retroactively after the last shutdown, but It seems unlikely that will happen this time.
The interpretation of who is “essential” and “nonessential” seems to be inconsistent, arbitrary, maybe almost random?
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This story about a Republican Congressman who scolded a park ranger for the shutdown demonstrated that these people will stop at nothing: http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/03/video-congressman-scolds-parks-service-ranger-protests-erupts-at-memorial/
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Demonstrates how stupid some Republican congressmen can be. And rude, too.
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I’ve been seriously wondering about that guy’s train of thought. My understanding is that park rangers have pretty strict rules about what they are allowed to let people do when the parks are closed, and he must know that the closure of the park was a result of his actions.
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http://www.salon.com/2013/10/06/gops_massive_fraud_the_shutdown_isnt_really_a_shutdown/
“Of course, there is an insidious method to the madness of government shutdowns. In general, the dividing line between what gets shut down and what doesn’t is a similar dividing line between what America’s political culture typically venerates as The State and what that culture lambasts as The Government.
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At a practical level, this institutionalized double standard creates incentives for government shutdowns — at least on the political right. That’s because while conservatives loathe The Government, they love The State.”
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