shutdown

[psocoptera]

So first I read that the shutdown includes WIC, which, seriously, that's not considered a matter of health and safety? I mean absolutely no disrespect to people utilizing WIC when I say that most of them likely have enough difficult stuff going on in their lives already without taking away something they may be counting on to help them feed their kids. And then I read that the NIH isn't going to be able to enroll people into clinical trials, and, okay, I think "the desperate families of kids with cancer" probably even beats "babies in poverty" as a demographic that does not need any additional bullshit in their lives. Come *on*.

Although, oddly, I do continue to believe shutting down the government is a valid tactic. Not *this* shutdown, this shutdown is appalling and ridiculous. But if Congress had gotten together a few years ago and taken a stand about torture, say? Said that due process and abstention from cruel and unusual punishment were bedrock values of our country and we couldn't pretend to be the United States if we were going to accept torture so we weren't going to get to have a functional nation until we sorted that out? I think I would have given that a standing ovation even if the fallout to WIC, NIH, etc was exactly the same. So I guess I am curious whether I'm in the minority on that, or if other people also have ideological points that they would consider worth it. (Uh, I mean "other people with similar values to me", if you're just as glad to see WIC get turned off anyways, pls do not bother to comment.)

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

Although, oddly, I do continue to believe shutting down the government is a valid tactic. Not *this* shutdown, this shutdown is appalling and ridiculous. But if Congress had gotten together a few years ago and taken a stand about torture, say? Said that due process and abstention from cruel and unusual punishment were bedrock values of our country and we couldn't pretend to be the United States if we were going to accept torture so we weren't going to get to have a functional nation until we sorted that out? I think I would have given that a standing ovation even if the fallout to WIC, NIH, etc was exactly the same.

thank you.

[irilyth]

Like most political tactics, it's an appalling abuse of power if the other guys do it, and a brilliant and heroic move if our guys do it.

[eastgategirl.livejournal.com]

Shutting down the government for ideological reasons is irresponsible whoever does it.

If we have war criminals who approved the use of torture, we should arrest them and ship them off to the Hague.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

This is my feeling.

I would disapprove of people who were supposedly on my side doing this and would be just as angry at them as I am at the House Republicans at the moment.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

Possibly angrier, actually, since I would feel betrayed.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

I totally respect this position, even if I don't feel the same way. If I can ask a further question, though, without making you feel attacked or put on the spot, do you think there is any sort of government wrongdoing that could justify this tactic? Indefinite secret detentions of American citizens? Use of drones to kill people crossing the US-Mexico border without permission? The reopening of Manzanar? Elizabeth Warren getting disappeared in the night?

Don't get me wrong, I feel like we're living in a bizarro universe when the government atrocity that cannot be allowed to happen is that some people get health care they couldn't otherwise afford. I totally get that anything "we" can do, "they" will also do. (And, in fact, here in the mirror universe, there is in fact no chance that "we" *would* ever manage to make this kind of stand over anything, so it's a kind of stupid argument to be having, let's just all grow our mustaches of evil already.) I just have no idea what could ever stop (what I see as) the possible slide of this country into total police-state corruption, but, I don't know, the soapbox and the ballot box don't seem to be effective, if government shutdowns worked, they'd be better than the ammo box.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

I haven't thought about this for very long, but here's what comes to mind immediately.

I have no trouble with civil disobedience and passive resistance in a good cause. However, the civil disobedience and passive resistance I respect is the kind where bystanders don't get hurt. Sometimes the participants get hurt, though not deliberately; they go into awful situations knowing that people might hurt them in the process. But such resisters don't conduct actions that will hurt people who are not participating in the resistance in question.

Government shutdowns hurt innocent bystanders.

All of your examples are awful, horrible situations that I can (unhappily, cynically, yet truthfully) imagine happening. I would still feel betrayed if there were a government shutdown by elected officials in the service of stopping those things. The ends do not justify the means.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

Furthermore, the people I know who break the law to protest bad law do so with the expectation of undergoing the relevant consequences: being arrested, going to jail, a court date, possibly a fine, and all the rest that goes with that.

I don't see the people responsible for this shutdown willing to undergo similar consequences.

[irilyth]

Yeah, I may just be cynical. I feel like the filibuster is the classic example of a thing that one team thinks is unacceptable obstructionism when the other team does it, but necessary heroism when their team does. (And that supporters of both teams have said this, at various points in the past years when theirs was the minority party in the Senate.) Not everyone, obviously, but a lot. (And no one comes out and says "it's fine if we do it but BS if they do it", there's always some reason why our use of it is fine but their use of it is BS. But those reasons sound a lot like BS to people who don't really agree with either side.)

[gannet.livejournal.com]

Yes but. The filibuster is part of how our government is run, even when I do think it does get misused. I feel conflicted about the filibuster, frankly, though I do see its uses. (I do think that if we're going to have it exist, the actual speechifying needs to happen, as Wendy Davis did. Threatening to do it just to block votes without actually having to stand up and talk themselves dry--that annoys me.)

One thing I would note though is that the filibuster, while occasionally misused (yes, by both sides), doesn't shut the government down in the same way. This current situation is going to go downhill in a hurry. And it's not, to my knowledge, something that both major parties do.

As someone who is passionate about the positive effects of good government and really angry when people try to define government as being fundamentally in opposition with the population it serves, I find it appalling when government is turned off to make a point. This is why I would campaign against anyone who pulled this kind of stunt, whatever their party label.

[irilyth]

Yeah, I agree that as tactics go, this seems a lot more extreme. :^p

(I'm also not entirely sure what the point of the shutdown is. In particular, I don't think it's to make the point that we don't need as much government as we have, is it? Because that's a pretty stupid way to make that point. The metaphor I've had in my head for a while is that it's great to save energy, but you do that by replacing your incandescents with LEDs, not by shooting out the bulbs with a slingshot. My vague impression, anyway, is that this is more like a "fuck you, we aren't giving in on our demands, even if it kills us all" thing than like a "this is a good thing to do" thing.)

[gannet.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think that's the argument being made. I will note, though, that this is coming from the party that claims to be in favor of less taxes and smaller government, and thus has less ideological attachment to the existence of the government programs that are on hiatus. That's what I had in mind in that regard.

A party that feels there should be less government is going to be more willing to do this sort of thing than a party that feels more government is necessary.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

I haven't investigated this in great detail, but I have seen claims that this isn't so much a "fuck you" in any case as it is part of a bigger strategy. This is the link I was pointed toward, but I haven't yet had sufficient time or motivation to read it. (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/09/house-gops-legislative-strike.html)

I am therefore not making that claim myself (because I haven't been convinced of it). I want to think it's plausible, but I am also able to recognize my bias in the matter.

I just present it as a possible argument against what was also my vague impression about the motivations behind the shutdown.

[ccommack]

Shutting the government down is not supposed to be a Thing That Happens. Every other first-world democracy I'm familiar with would have triggered a snap election at a much earlier stage of the procedings. Those of us who see the complete lack of a "snap election" mechanism in the US Constitution as a serious bug, are having a very grim "I told you so" moment this week.

There is a very, very dark part of my mind that is very disappointed that soldiers have been exempted from the shutdown insofar as they're still getting paid. I feel like "failing to pay your enormous army to the point they rise up" is one of those basic failure modes for countries that, if you believe in shutting down the government, you should believe in risking. Yay, Roman Empire!

[gannet.livejournal.com]

Yes. This is when we should have an immediate closure of government and new elections.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

(Of the sort that parliamentary democracies regularly do, that doesn't involve interruption of usual services.)

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

I would feel very conflicted in your example. Shutting down the government is, as you say, one of those really big lots-of-collateral-damage sticks to hit problems with. And serious government-wide ethical breaches of that magnitude are one of the things I would say at least warrant considering using the big stick, but I honestly don't know which way I'd vote if it were up to me.

[gannet.livejournal.com]

I asked S for his opinion on the matter because his politics aren't always the same as mine, but in this case, we agree:

Either use specific legislation enacted through proper procedures to stop unjust action or conduct civil disobedience as private citizens.

(As a side note, Senator John Lewis still performs civil disobedience on a regular basis; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/us/politics/50-years-later-fighting-the-same-civil-rights-battle.html?pagewanted=all>and has been arrested four times since joining Congress</a>. His stature only lends power to such actions, in my opinion.)

[q10.livejournal.com]

government shutdowns, much like nuclear war, are one of those things that one is vanishingly unlikely to accomplish any quasi-legitimate goal by doing, but that one might hope to accomplish a reasonable goal by threatening to do or by seeming crazy enough to do. actually doing it is, at best, justified insofar as it's necessary to keep one's threat credible for future use, or insofar as government shutdowns do their damage over a longer time than, say, a nuclear exchange, so that by starting down the path you can force the issue. it's still fundamentally a game of chicken - the point is not that it's every a good idea to crash, but that sometimes, if things get truly dire, it's a good idea to not swerve and take your chances.

if there's a constitutional crisis - if the alternative is letting the other side send the country to hell the long, hard way, then it could be justifiable. but even trying to put myself in the Republicans' ideological shoes (something i'm not great at) i'm not seeing that in this case. the difference between ACA and no ACA is a difference in degree (we still have socialized medicine for old people and whatnot*), not in kind, so the story you have to tell for this to be that kind of crisis is going to be pretty convoluted.

*i feel compelled to note, as i always do, that selectively giving handouts to old people, at least without means-testing, is upward redistribution in like five different ways. it's like some kind of dystopian antiprogressive socialism. every major or quasi-major political ideology in the US should be against it.