You can blame the Affordable Care Act. That nasty bill that provides women and children with the healthcare they need and deserve as a human right.
But the law isn't going away. Not even if every last tea-party Republican stomps around, throws shit, then holds his or her breath until they turn blue and pass out. Because that's what they're doing.
They cannot change the law doing this.
This would be like me wanting them to take all peanut products off the shelves, and they won't when I write them a letter, so I go into a grocery store with a gun and start shooting up the place.
Think about it. The analogy, as petty as it seems on first glance, works.
Innocent victims, no resolution, angry reactions, and no clear goal to the action itself.
Or, how's this one?
My kids have no power in their lives. They can scream about wanting soda at 9 p.m. until kingdom come, and they're not getting soda. We have a no-soda law, if you will. Yes, I love and respect my children, and I understand why they want it, but they're not getting it.
Now picture them flopping on the ground, pulling things off grocery store shelves, kicking, screaming and pitching a huge fit because I will not buy them soda.
What would you have me do?
Buy them the soda?
First of all, that's not going to happen. Secondly, if it did, who's the asshole? That's only going to teach them that they can tantrum whenever they want. (Not that I think you can teach these Congresspeople anything, but just imagine with me for a moment.)
Even if this shutdown could be remotely related to the healthcare law (which it isn't), having Obama gut it after this show of impotent toddleresque bullshit will only show Republicans that these terrorist tactics work.
Shutting the government down because you are in the minority about a law that has passed, its revision having been rejected by the Senate multiple times is not a solution to the problem you don't even have.
We live in a democracy. We voted. It passed. Time to buck up, kiddos.
Go back to my screaming kids in the grocery store. I don't give them the soda. They scream. Sure, many of you will look at me like I'm the asshole. As many people are looking at Obama like he's the asshole. Does not matter. At the end of the day, sure, maybe I could have trained them better, but you cannot train grown-ass adults, can you?
The long and short of it is, my kids' tantrum is going to inconvenience a lot of people. It's going to piss them off. It's going to annoy them. But it's not going to get them a soda.
The difference is, the "inconvenience" of a government shutdown because some people cannot face the reality of our democracy (Elizabeth Warren), is money lost, people out of work, the CDC, FDA, and other important organizations forced to stop live-saving operations, veterans without pay or medical assistance, an economic and stock market shutdown, children without WIC or Headstart, the list goes on.
And the Congress is going to sit back and say, "look what you made me do?"
I don't think so.
You did this. You own it.
Not getting your way doesn't mean you can throw a tantrum. It doesn't work for my kids, and it sure as hell shouldn't work for you.
If you don't straighten up, one can only hope your parents (ie: the American public), will put you in time out (ie: vote you out of office).
Maybe when you're not getting a paycheck, you'll feel differently about this incredibly awful, heartless, stupid show of messy power. But, luckily for you, by the time that does happen, at least WIC will be back in place, so you can, you know, maybe eat.
Thanks, Obama.
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