# Why do people seem so "meh" about the US Government shutdown? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 5, 2013, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421 "2013-10-05T07:44:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/81 "2013-10-06T13:24:07Z")
> [@yorick73](#): > > First of all the Republicans are not my “team”. The only group I have less respect for are the Democrats…and it’s not that much less. The only two remaining teams are the Socialists and the Tea Party Libertarians. And while the commies may not have a brain, at least they have a heart. The TPL show no evidence for either. > [@yorick73](#): > > Second, the democrats in the Senate have shown zero interest in any type of compromise. The republicans knew they weren’t going to get defunding through the senate. The house came back with two additional offers that were immediately shot down. The last offer was a one year delay in the individual mandate and eliminating federal subsidies for lawmakers and aides on the hill (as per the ACA legislation). The democrats want a clean CR and nothing more. > > The house has passed numerous funding bills for different government agencies and all have been rejected by the senate. The senate democrats are demanding a clean CR and will not fund individual agencies (or even the park service) because they want the shutdown to be as painful as possible. And rightly so. The Republicans brought a screaming child into a movie theater. So if the Republicans can’t control that screaming terror, the other grown ups in the room have to present a united front and have that parent either control the child or leave the theater with him in tow. The way things stand right now, the child is screaming his head off, the Republicans are shuffling around looking embarassed and offering up excuses for the behaviour of the rotten kid, while the Democrats are looking on in disaproval waiting for some sort or responsible action on the part of the Republicans. Is that going to happen? My worry is that it will not. What’s worse, the kid having the screaming tantrum will end up ruining movie night for everybody. Analogies aside… The Tea Party Libertarians (or whatever they want to call themselves) have dug in for trench warfare. They feel like they have nothing to lose by doing so and everything to gain if gov’t becomes so fractured that it will be easier to achieve their goals with a piecemeal approach. They have enough support from the people they claim to represent. They have a political voice in the gov’t. They clearly feel like they are gaining because this shut down is the biggest victory they’ve ever accomplished to date. I see no reason they should change their tactics now. In fact this is a clear signal that what they’re doing is progress towards achieving their goals. It’s not entirely clear what exactly those goals are and I don’t believe they can articulate them either. Many have tried to get them to express it in specific terms and all have failed. We can speculate and many would agree that a fracturing of the US gov’t and society along these lines would be a bad thing but I believe the TPL’s want exactly this sort of scenario to play out. They want to achieve some sort of fantasy autonomy and break from the federated/republic model to then govern their feifdoms as they see fit. Sure, it’s a ridiculous and immature ideal and would serve to harm many more than it would help. We can try to explain that it would harm most TPL’s and that it would ultimately be against their interests to lose many of the benefits provided to them by the federal gov’t, but we’re not dealing with rational wants. We’re dealing with people who want a revolution for the sake of a revolution; These are rebels without a clue. Historians, sociologists and psychologists will in time come up with a theory about why such relatively large elements of a well established democratic society decided to take their bat and ball and go home. Maybe they’ll even get it right. But right now, it’s becoming depressing clear that there are people who are determined to destroy an essentially cohesive society by exploiting the very same rights and privilages that are afforded to them because of the society in which they live. They do not realize, or don’t want to, that once they achieve these goals there will be no more safety net and no one to protect their “freedom”. I don’t know why they are not able to understand the consequences of their desires. For the same reason that inmates should not run assylums, I believe it’s the job of those in gov’t who understand the potential consequences to discourage this sort of hostage taking of the institution. Perhaps not enough have tried hard enough to do so. The Democrats are stepping up but with too little & too late in the way of public support (so far). The Republicans appear to be throwing their hands up in the air and yelling “don’t kill me” to their own TPL members. It’s a real fuckshow folks. And we’ve got front row seats. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/82 "2013-10-06T13:38:50Z")
It’s not a true ‘shutdown’. Everything dealing with ‘security’ is going but some of those are working for IOUs from the government. If we shutdown the FAA and closed the airports. If we recalled the Coast Guard, closed our borders so nothing could enter America (legally) then you would see people massing around the congress with torches and pitchforks and whole lot more. ---
**Author:** ![computergeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e56c9b/32.png) [@computergeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/computergeek)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/83 "2013-10-06T14:36:15Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > It’s not a true ‘shutdown’. Everything dealing with ‘security’ is going but some of those are working for IOUs from the government. > > If we shutdown the FAA and closed the airports. If we recalled the Coast Guard, closed our borders so nothing could enter America (legally) then you would see people massing around the congress with torches and pitchforks and whole lot more. Exactly. If the government really shut down for real, meaning anything and everything Federal actually stopped working, including cutting social security checks, then you would see people being really pissed and bringing a whole lot more pressure on Congress and the President to get things moving again. As it is, it’s not a crisis yet so people are pissed but resigned to be pissed from afar. ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/84 "2013-10-06T14:49:40Z")
The only story I’ve heard about how it’s affecting things locally is you can’t rent a canoe on the St. Croix anymore, which I wasn’t planning on doing anyway. I still have water and electricity and still go to work and shopping. What the clowns are doing it Washington doesn’t affect me. I figure they’ll get it sorted out, and there’s too many things to get angry about in the world without adding abstract principles from people I didn’t vote for to the list. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/85 "2013-10-06T14:53:08Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > BTW, do you know what my most conservative friends are saying? You know, the ones who have actually been in the Tea Party or shown support for it? They say that we should let Obamacare take effect and start bracing for how to deal with it when it fails. When even they don’t support this… We are watching two sides of the same attention-whoring coin. The Rs did this to make it look like they were doing something and now the Ds are trying to exploit it for the same reason. ‘We aren’t going to compromise with a gun to the head of the economy’ as Obama loves to say. I couldn’t think of a statement more loaded to make him look good and his opposition not look good if I was paid to be his mouth piece. He could have gone “The Ds have been negotiating since April on a budget with the Rs, and an agreement couldn’t be made and now the government has non-essentials furloughed until we resolve this.” Factually correct and not looking to whore up to the media and blame someone else. Sure, the Rs called the furlough to put forward their own designs, but to hear half the people we have in congress plus the president point fingers and parrot on about how they are either leading the “good fight” or “not succumbing to terrorism” does nothing but force-march our government off a cliff. As an aside: We all know how this started. Each and every one of us. Repeating to the news media 150 times the same canned statements doesn’t help anything and only contributes to the brinkmanship that has become commonplace. What we need to start hearing are ways to fix it from Congress, not blaming everyone else. If they don’t have a way to fix it without coming out and saying “All the [D/R]s have to do…” then they are abject failures at being politicians. And I’m not talking about this one issue, I’m talking about how to stop this from becoming the norm (even though it is pretty much already the norm). > [@knel3030](#): > > I’d say its because the vadt majority of us Americans are politically apathetic and have no real understanding of or awareness of politics, history, or international relations, beyond what country Uncle Sam is currently &%&\*&ing. The main concept of politics is like a WWF match between THE REPUBLICINATOR and THE DEMOCRATONIZER. This idiotic arbitrary polarization is the result of, not so much the natural human propensity for campism and the rigged game of a two party system, as of media personalities on either camp needing a constant Enemy character to keep ranting about, and over time its escelated to full retard. But the MAIN reason for no one giving a %&$ is because their cars have fuel, there’s food in the fridge, no enemy tanks in the streets, and they really really have to spend their energy on keeping up with whose backstabbing who in Survivor and what Miley Cyrus is wearing. I disagree. The reason that the American citizen doesn’t pay attention is two-fold: First, most of America spends it’s time trying to make a living. They don’t get to go to work and destroy a $2.7T piece of revenue generation and get to come back tomorrow. In many cases, if their employer find out that a worker took a past-date sandwich from the to-toss tray and they will fire that worker’s ass. On top of that, you need two income earners just to be able to pay your bills (either an SO or a roommate) on most of the jobs you can even get. So, go spend 40-60 hours at work trying to make ends meet, then come home and take care of any household issues that need to be taken care of, THEN flip on the news and try to get up to date on all of the BS going on in the world. Second, the DC area has been nothing but political theater for pretty much the last 50 years. Everyone comes out and campaigns against some evil and how they are the salvation for our nation. Before 1985-1990 (as the USSR destabilized and disintegrated], we were lucky to have that threat externalized to the Soviet Union for the most part. After/during 1985-1990, we as a nation suddenly found ourselves with no real external threat. The politics that anyone could remember needed an enemy. And, instead of changing with the times, the two parties rapidly went from “I don’t believe in the [R/D] proposal, for \.” to “[R/D]s are trying to DESTROY America! Vote [D/R]!” Other nations, which are so baffled now, had a huge insulator against the external threats: The United States. Our purpose was to be the buffer and protector against the evil Soviets. Since this was taken care of, most of the Western World left that mostly alone (notable exceptions do exist) and grew their political framework in ways that didn’t require a valiant effort against ultimate evil. Now that it’s passed, the American legislature finds itself increasingly marginalized and keeps trying to get more attention and relies on what got it to where it is, now: The other side is eeeeeeeeevul. We can’t negotiate with evil! Ultimately, the apathy of the average American comes down to “We are tired of every situation being used to advance everyone’s agenda. We are too tired to pretend to care.” The analogy of the tantrum in the supermarket is an apt illustration (despite being called a wobbly. Damn ferriners). The Feds are the infant and the population is the parent and the average Americans are just **burned out** on taking care of them. Let them have it off. If they wreck something, it’ll get dealt with, but otherwise let them pass out and hit their head on the coffee table after their face turns blue. The Ds, as of late, have been getting more of the centrists simply because the Rs have declared war on ‘RINO’ and are trying to ostracize them. The centrists swung R in the first place because of a similar (but far less overt and…dumb) mentality that took hold of the Ds for a few years during the Clinton administration. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/86 "2013-10-06T15:20:03Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I’m not saying the opinions of foreigners should shape domestic policy or anything. But when you say “people who don’t matter,” that’s a view of the world I don’t understand. Ah, but I’m referring specifically to the _ **ignorant** _ foreigners, as per your post: the ones who don’t understand how astonishingly minor the government shutdown is, the ones you’ve been explaining things to for a week. Your reply to John Mace – the one my reply copy-and-pasted – was key: _“You’re correct that the American government shutdown is not a shutdown of the American government, but you can understand why people with different political systems might not get these little nuances.”_ Those people? Not the people who matter. The people who decide whether to pull out of NATO matter – and, as you now go on to note, _“I mean, nobody’s going to pull out of NATO because Congress is collectively behaving like an ass”_. Which means I think you understand said view of the world perfectly. [QUOTE=Dr. Drake] Seriously, though: the entire world is watching your elected government have a very public, very stupid tantrum, and you’re not the least bit embarrassed? [/QUOTE] I can’t find it in me to be embarrassed by the ignorant opinions of the powerless. It’s an odd personal quirk of mine. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/87 "2013-10-06T15:28:23Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > If the Republican House insists on continuing to show how useless, irresponsible and stupid it is, then I say, “please, proceed.” ‘Republicans believe that the government cannot do anything right, and they take every opportunity to prove it.’ ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/88 "2013-10-06T15:55:53Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > We are watching two sides of the same attention-whoring coin. The Rs did this to make it look like they were doing something and now the Ds are trying to exploit it for the same reason. > > ‘We aren’t going to compromise with a gun to the head of the economy’ as Obama loves to say. I couldn’t think of a statement more loaded to make him look good and his opposition not look good if I was paid to be his mouth piece. He could have gone “The Ds have been negotiating since April on a budget with the Rs, and an agreement couldn’t be made and now the government has non-essentials furloughed until we resolve this.” Factually correct and not looking to whore up to the media and blame someone else. Sure, the Rs called the furlough to put forward their own designs, but to hear half the people we have in congress plus the president point fingers and parrot on about how they are either leading the “good fight” or “not succumbing to terrorism” does nothing but force-march our government off a cliff. > > As an aside: We all know how this started. Each and every one of us. Repeating to the news media 150 times the same canned statements doesn’t help anything and only contributes to the brinkmanship that has become commonplace. What we need to start hearing are ways to fix it from Congress, not blaming everyone else. If they don’t have a way to fix it without coming out and saying “All the [D/R]s have to do…” then they are abject failures at being politicians. And I’m not talking about this one issue, I’m talking about how to stop this from becoming the norm (even though it is pretty much already the norm) This tired old approach. “I’ve looked at the issue and both sides are to blame, therefore I am taking an objective, reasoned approach unlike all these blindly partisan people who blame one side or the other.” It’s the old false equivalence offered as objectivity again, and it’s really just refusing to look at the particulars and correctly assess what’s wrong. It’s the equivalent of someone whose car won’t shift gears who says, “Well I’ve looked at the problem and the engine and the transmission are both to blame, being equally involved in making the car move, and the car is not moving properly so clearly they’re not working together and both are the problem. That’s the objective truth.” It’s not the objective truth. It’s the transmission that is clearly the issue. But that takes a bit of, you know, knowing about things and figuring things out. Simply saying “they are both at fault” is so much easier, you don’t have to look at specifics or think about things at all. Journalists know this trick well, it saves them a lot of work that would otherwise be needed to do actual reporting. The false equivalence. Learn it. Know it. Loathe it. In this case, the House Republicans are clearly to blame. All they have to do is sign off on a clean CR that funds all the legiislation that they’ve passed, but they won’t do that, because they want to blackmail the Senate and the President into allowing them to control which specific bills can and cannot be funded, after they’ve been passed into law by all three legislative branches. It’s a naked power grab, and the REAL reason that the Senate Democrats and our notably weak-kneed President will not cave is that giving in to the blackmail would in essence reduce the Senate and the Presidency into vestigial organs of government. So, they’re NOT the same, get it? Both are NOT equally to blame. One of these things is NOT like the other, and no amount of false equivalencing will make it so. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/89 "2013-10-06T16:28:37Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Of course the main function of the Syrian government is to kill any Syrian who doesn’t agree with it. If the Syrian government does not pay its workers and see the functioning of government stop, then the Government will not be killing anyone, disagreeable or not. Assad cannot kill everyone personally nor does he have an army of perpetual energy robots. > [@](#): > > Tinpot dictators have the luxury of not having too many people who disagree with the budget. :rolleyes: They do that and they will soon have the luxury of not being dictators or in power. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/90 "2013-10-06T16:39:36Z")
> [@yorick73](#): > > First of all the Republicans are not my “team”. The only group I have less respect for are the Democrats…and it’s not that much less. I’m sure you reflexively attack Republicans at almost the same rate as Democrats… well I’m actually not sure of that. 😃 > [@](#): > > Second, the democrats in the Senate have shown zero interest in any type of compromise. The republicans knew they weren’t going to get defunding through the senate. The house came back with two additional offers that were immediately shot down. The last offer was a one year delay in the individual mandate and eliminating federal subsidies for lawmakers and aides on the hill (as per the ACA legislation). The democrats want a clean CR and nothing more. A clean CR means no one gets extra. You want the Dems to compromise, when all the GOP is offering is that they’ll stop hurting the country on purpose. If I show up at your house and say I’ll burn it down unless you give me a thousand dollars, and you say no, and then I say that I’ll take $100, that doesn’t mean you’re not willing to compromise. This is so clear and obvious that only your partisan position is keeping you from seeing it. > [@](#): > > The house has passed numerous funding bills for different government agencies and all have been rejected by the senate. The senate democrats are demanding a clean CR and will not fund individual agencies (or even the park service) because they want the shutdown to be as painful as possible. Thought experiment. Say there are 100 programs shut down right now. Okay? Now the GOP makes a bill for one of them to be funded. Think hard about this part: What is the end result of this? The end result, is that the GOP makes a bill for everything they agree with, and doesn’t fund everything they don’t agree with. So the House GOP gets to decide exactly how the government is funded. That’s not the level of power they have. Their tantrum is damaging the country and giving them what they want isn’t compromise. It’s inviting them to damage the country again next time. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/91 "2013-10-06T16:55:07Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Ah, but I’m referring specifically to the _ **ignorant** _ foreigners, as per your post: the ones who don’t understand how astonishingly minor the government shutdown is I think you overestimate the level of ignorance required to be confused by the situation from abroad. I think you underestimate the effects of the shutdown on America’s reputation. It may be minor in its effectson the average American’s day-to-day life, but coupled with the eleventh-hour debt-ceiling negotiations, it is a major statement of how America deals with important issues. It’s not just the ignorant. Do you think the informed are _more_ impressed because the US can sustain such entertaining political theatre? Our leadership is showing the world that they are buffoons, and you can only do this so many dozens of times before you stop getting invited to the cool kids’ parties. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/92 "2013-10-06T17:33:09Z")
What, precisely, is “the cool kids’ party” and when, precisely will we get kicked out of it? ---
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/93 "2013-10-06T17:34:53Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Same reason we care about what people at our local church might think if we run naked through the streets. Not quite: same reason we would care what people at our local church might think, if we had to negotiate with them on international trade, international banking regulations, money laundering, drug trafficking, protection of intellectual property, child pornography, arms control, sanctions against rogue nations, etc., etc. Mrs Merkel won’t exactly point and giggle, but she will give you ‘the look’, and the whole ‘do it our way because we know best’ thing won’t cut it any more. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/94 "2013-10-06T18:02:31Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > What, precisely, is “the cool kids’ party” and when, precisely will we get kicked out of it? It is a metaphor. As such, it is a multivalent reference which can stand for anything from the G-8 to the UN to the Olympics. And I didn’t say “kicked out.” One is not kicked out of a party for being a jerk. I meant we’ll stop receiving invitations to future events. As for “when, precisely,” while I’m sure it will be 4:37 p.m. on a Thursday, I am afraid I cannot foresee which one. Seriously, I don’t think anything more than a few raised eyebrows and behind-the-hand laughs will happen in the next decade or so, and probably not ever. I would just rather be from a country nobody is laughing at. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/95 "2013-10-06T18:10:40Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I would just rather be from a country nobody is laughing at. Can you point me out a country nobody is laughing at? ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/96 "2013-10-06T18:27:52Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > This tired old approach. “I’ve looked at the issue and both sides are to blame, therefore I am taking an objective, reasoned approach unlike all these blindly partisan people who blame one side or the other.” It’s the old false equivalence offered as objectivity again, and it’s really just refusing to look at the particulars and correctly assess what’s wrong. It’s the equivalent of someone whose car won’t shift gears who says, “Well I’ve looked at the problem and the engine and the transmission are both to blame, being equally involved in making the car move, and the car is not moving properly so clearly they’re not working together and both are the problem. That’s the objective truth.” > > It’s not the objective truth. It’s the transmission that is clearly the issue. But that takes a bit of, you know, knowing about things and figuring things out. Simply saying “they are both at fault” is so much easier, you don’t have to look at specifics or think about things at all. Journalists know this trick well, it saves them a lot of work that would otherwise be needed to do actual reporting. > > The false equivalence. Learn it. Know it. Loathe it. > > In this case, the House Republicans are clearly to blame. All they have to do is sign off on a clean CR that funds all the legiislation that they’ve passed, but they won’t do that, because they want to blackmail the Senate and the President into allowing them to control which specific bills can and cannot be funded, after they’ve been passed into law by all three legislative branches. It’s a naked power grab, and the REAL reason that the Senate Democrats and our notably weak-kneed President will not cave is that giving in to the blackmail would in essence reduce the Senate and the Presidency into vestigial organs of government. > > So, they’re NOT the same, get it? Both are NOT equally to blame. One of these things is NOT like the other, and no amount of false equivalencing will make it so. Nice strawman. You obviously did not bother to understand that I was complaining about the culture of both sides looking to drive the largest pile of flaming shit straight to the doorstep of the other party and that this contributes to the escalating game of brinkmanship. But, no, keep raging against positions that are baseless _based on the very text you quoted._ The very first sentences in that post were “We are watching two sides of the same attention-whoring coin. The Rs did this to make it look like they were doing something and now the Ds are trying to exploit it for the same reason.” Gee, seems like I blamed the Republicans and then said that the Democrats were trying to actively profit from what the Rs were doing, too. It’s almost like I had a point that had nothing to do with saying that the Rs and Ds were the same, but more that they were both attention whores more bent on trying to gain re-election than actually trying to solve a problem. Hm. Reading comprehension. Learn it. Know it. Love it. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/97 "2013-10-06T18:35:13Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Can you point me out a country nobody is laughing at? You’re right. I can see that I am arguing my point poorly, because you (collectively) are succesfully poking all sorts of holes in it. Fine: you win. This situation is insignificant and America’s reputation is not important. Keep it up; it is quite entertaining, and since I’m not in the US I don’t have to live with the consequences. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/98 "2013-10-06T18:40:15Z")
It should also be noted - or maybe it already has and I missed it - that the public already has an _extremely_ low opinion of Congress. That opinion is getting lower, but it was very bad to start with. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/99 "2013-10-06T18:51:02Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > You’re right. I can see that I am arguing my point poorly, because you (collectively) are succesfully poking all sorts of holes in it. Fine: you win. This situation is insignificant and America’s reputation is not important. Keep it up; it is quite entertaining, and since I’m not in the US I don’t have to live with the consequences. If only that were true. But we’re the enormous looming elephant and the picnic that’s drunk on its own power and lurching around the other attendees who hope they can still get things done without it. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421/100 "2013-10-06T18:55:16Z")
What a farce. Some workers are furloughed but they will be paid anyway. Basically this is giving some workers some free vacation days. What a silly way to throw a tantrum. The New York Times says China has already come out a winner: > [@](#): > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/world/asia/another-shutdown-victim-us-efforts-to-counter-china.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/world/asia/another-shutdown-victim-us-efforts-to-counter-china.html) > > By forcing President Obama to cancel a visit next week to Malaysia and the Philippines, the impasse with House Republicans is spoiling Mr. Obama’s show of support for two Southeast Asian countries that have long labored under the shadow of China. And it is undermining his broader effort to put Asia at the heart of American foreign policy. > > Mr. Obama’s planned itinerary for next week — a mix of summit meetings and good-will visits — was carefully molded to reinforce the message to China that the United States is once again a central player in the region. But the president’s Asian pivot keeps getting pulled back by two forces that have haunted his presidency: strife in the Middle East and strife with Capitol Hill. What we are seeing is just one very small step in the long process of decadence and disintegration of the American Empire which started long ago but which is gaining momentum now. It’s like watching a bunch of spoiled kids who inherited a luxury yacht from their parents and all they do is have drunken parties and squabbles and won’t even maintain the yacht as it falls into disrepair. At the same time working boats around them are being productive and their owners are progressing but the spoiled kids despise them because thier yacht is still bigger than the fishing boats. It is obvious that in another generation the yacht will hardly be seaworthy and the owners of the fishing boats will be much better off but the spoiled kids don’t want to think about that, they just carry on with their drunken squabbles. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-seem-so-meh-about-the-us-government-shutdown/670421.md?page=6)