US government shutdown - Page 78

On October 09 2013 13:13 Myrddraal wrote:


So essentially the Republican's are trying to turn it from a win/win into just a win for them?

On October 09 2013 13:15 Whitewing wrote:


That doesn't matter, if the Republicans kill the ACA, there's a very good chance they win the next major election cycle. People will have no faith in democrats.

On October 09 2013 13:22 Alex1Sun wrote:

I would say it has already been a definite win for Republicans on all fronts for quite some time. Recently they have added a sequester on top of that win. Now they want to get even more, and may well get it.

On October 09 2013 12:33 omnic wrote:


Finally got home to and i'm ready to reply to this. i'm going to break my reaction into a few seperate parts.

The very beginning of this post starts by claiming that your idea is actually right and claims that its a theory accepted by analysts once you "put some meat on the bones of that statement.". It doesn't cite any creditable analysts or even puts "some meat on the bones of that statement.". The content of the rest of his post does absolutely nothing to provide any information that this claim is correct besides the same type of circumstantial evidence that you provided in your very first post. None of what follows is any sort of real evidence that supports the idea that Obama or the dems have manipulated republicans into acting this way. I know it's tempting to ignore this because he's agreeing with you but I suggest that you don't leave your critical faculties at the door just because somebody isn't arguing with you. The reason why you should do this is because if they are wrong they weaken your position and arguments on a subject, and if they are right then you better understand and thus strengthen your own arguments and resolve.


Is passing a budget important? Yes. Can republicans use it as a way to try to get what they want purely because its important and they have the ability to? Sure. Does that in ANY way suggest it's the right thing to do? Lets apply the same type of might equals right mentality to war. Chemical and biological weapons if used correctly could be pretty damn effective and that's going to become the case even more so over time. Should we start trying to weaponize the aids virus just because we can? If not why? Why is it that in one case the power to do something doesn't necessarily mean it's acceptable to do so while in another instance it's treated as if it alone is reason enough.

The second part of this post is biased at best and misinformation at worst. Don't take my word for it. Do a bit of research on what the republicans are actually asking in regards to Obama care and make your own opinion. If you want to take anything meaningful out of this exchange you're going to have to put in the effort to actually look at what is being proposed by both sides. Anything I could say on the subject directly can easily be discarded under the guise that it's all a PR campaign to make the republicans look like the bad guys. (Notice how both sides are pointing fingers? I would suggest that if you have zero information and have 2 people telling you conflicting stories that you should investigate further on your own because investing things while under the pretense of either side of the argument can distort as well as guide your conclusions. The problem is you can't be sure which path you're following. Consider this: watch from 0:00-1:14 this same line of logic applies to how you see the world politically.

The third part of this post is split so let me separate these parts and respond to them
It's half calling out Kwark for calling republicans ideological assholes. I agree it's rude I don't particularly care about this probably because the internet is going to have a fair bit of name calling during arguments. I wouldn't get too bent out of shape but I have no problem with him calling out Kwark for what he did.


The second part then goes on to say that your position is actually sound but merely worded poorly and explained poorly. All he's doing here is saying he agrees with you. He hasn't actually provided anything to talk about but he said that your argument was sound. Saying an argument is sound basically means it's conclusion has to be correct and not in just a "it could be right" type of way.If it's a sound argument then the conclusion HAS to be right. I don't want to go into why this is so i'll just give you a wiki and you can enjoy it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundness

I'm going to flat out dismiss that your argument was sound. Your argument was your opinion. It was based on things you inferred which were based on circumstantial evidence part of which relied on circular logic. Sound arguments are not formed in this way. Sound arguments are not presented in this way. There is nothing that shows the premise that you gave for your reasoning can only logically lead to that conclusion which is a requirement for an argument to be valid and validity is a requirement for something to be considered to be "sound". Find anybody that's taken Philosophy 101 and they'll probably talk your ear off about this sort of thing.

To be frank I have a bigger problem with Ghanburighan trying to say what you said was sound than Kwark calling people names.

p.s. To clarify why I feel that way is this: all I can say is that Kwarks use of name calling might hurt somebodies feeling but besides that it isn't going to do anything. Saying that an argument is sound when it isn't is basically just spreading misinformation which is the worst thing that can happen in a thread like this.

p.s.s. I'm sorry i'm being verbose in my posts i've never been adept at being concise.

On October 09 2013 11:25 screamingpalm wrote:


Ryan's budget, Romney's healthcare and yet, they say Dems won't compromise. Yes, for those to the left of the American political spectacle, it is akin to 'heads you win, tails I lose'. :D

On October 03 2013 17:43 Phenny wrote:


Why though?

It's the democrats fault. The repubs showed up to negotiate obamacare adjustments (making it fractionally less terrible), the democrats didn't even bother to show up because they're not even willing to discuss it and listen to what the repubs have to say (resulting in budget failing and govt shutdown). Imo this makes the Dems incredibly childish in addition to basically being all or nothing tyrants on a crusade to increase the size of the state at all costs.

On October 09 2013 10:31 Funnytoss wrote:


As far as I'm concerned, it is quite simple: if you have any desire not to see federal-run, federal-staffed, or federal-funded parks close, you have two choices.

1) Do not shut down the United States government.
2) Find someone else to run the damn park; don't expect the United States government to do it for you when you're not even willing to permit said government to operate, without harassing it with random shutdowns because your political agenda isn't going like you'd planned in 2008.

In other words, you can pick up your own damn trash, or you can ask someone else to do it for you - but don't expect them to do it without pay, even if theoretically they could, even if they did before. You may not know exactly what it costs them to do it, or what the long term consequences will be. Whether or not the park is normally profitable or subsidized by the federal government is irrelevant, as this is a *legal* issue and not a practical one.

The people told to keep coming in to work are, by and large, those without whom people might die (air traffic controllers). Or without whom buildings might fall down, or prisons go unguarded, or various other immediate crises that would make things much much worse.

Now, if there were some way to ensure the consequences fell only upon the heads of the people who wanted the damn shutdown in the first place, and enabled it by voting in politicians who courted it, I'd be sorely tempted to say "sure, let them deal with the consequences of their actions; it is a conservative truism that ideas have consequences, so let them experience consequences."

But since that is not the case, and innocent people could come to grave, immediate harm if these vital positions were not filled... yeah. The government writes rubber checks to keep them coming. Which it does NOT do for park service staff, again - regardless of whether or not the park makes money.

If you resent Obama's decision not to write rubber checks to fund the park service, reflect that the park service is blatantly a luxury. Many other things the government can't do are NOT luxuries, certainly not for the people most directly impacted.

My guess as to why parks are being shutdown the way they are is as follows.

The Park Service's handful of essential employees (i.e. the ones expected to keep working without pay during a shutdown) were given a directive "close down all our facilities that we are responsible for." That includes the ones that are obviously entirely Park Service operations. Like Yellowstone National Park, which is open air but which is policed, patrolled, and maintained entirely by the Park Service. Without the Park Service employees on staff there, there's no one to stop hunters from killing the animals. There's no one to stop people from vandalizing or pillaging the buildings within the park (restrooms, gift shops, etc.). There's no one to do search and rescue for lost travelers who wander up into the hills. It would be grossly irresponsible to allow this open air national park to remain open during the shutdown.

But the same logic applies to pieces of a larger facility- if a parking lot is maintained by the Park Service, then it cannot reasonably be open when the Park Service lacks the ability to do anything about it. If some disaster damages the lot, who is responsible? If some criminal starts sabotaging the cars, who is responsible?

There's a reason we have park agencies in the first place- someone has to act as custodian of the facility, even if it's something as benign and low-maintenance as a field of grass.

Now, if we knew the shutdown would only last a few days, perhaps the Park Service might be able to say 'Okay, no harm done if the parking lot is unmonitored for a few days,' and keep it open. We have no assurance of that. The shutdown will last as long as the House Republicans and the Senate Democrats choose to permit it to last, and the Park Service has no control over either of those parties. For all we know, the shutdown could last for months.

It could last through the winter- when parking lots in most of the US will need continuous upkeep (snowplowing and salting) to remain usable... and when the Park Service will not be able to provide those services. Heck, in some parts of America it's already started snowing. The shutdown did nothing to prevent blizzards from falling on parking lots in the Great Plains.

And it could go longer. Hell, the shutdown could even last until the next election, at least in principle.

If National Park Service facilities aren't closed down now, at the start of the shutdown, then pray tell, when can they be shut down?

As far as I'm concerned, it is quite simple: if you have any desire not to see federal-run, federal-staffed, or federal-funded parks close, you have two choices.

1) Do not shut down the United States government.
2) Find someone else to run the damn park; don't expect the United States government to do it for you when you're not even willing to permit said government to operate, without harassing it with random shutdowns because your political agenda isn't going like you'd planned in 2008.

In other words, you can pick up your own damn trash, or you can ask someone else to do it for you - but don't expect them to do it without pay, even if theoretically they could, even if they did before. You may not know exactly what it costs them to do it, or what the long term consequences will be. Whether or not the park is normally profitable or subsidized by the federal government is irrelevant, as this is a *legal* issue and not a practical one.

On October 09 2013 15:11 Whitewing wrote:


Now, they're just incompetent. Never attribute to malice what can be appropriately explained by incompetence.

I'm disgusted that the closest Americans can come to a real liberal party is the green party, and they have no chance in hell of ever winning anything. It seems we're doomed to forever be stuck with this: http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2?g=2&c=bl3

If you're correct and the democrats genuinely think that going more to the right is good, we're fucked, so I'm just going to hope for incompetence. Frankly they're probably both completely bought and owned at this point.

On October 09 2013 16:11 Whitewing wrote:


*Shrug* we can always revolt or force an amendment through the states without going through congress.

On October 09 2013 16:11 Whitewing wrote:


*Shrug* we can always revolt or force an amendment through the states without going through congress.

On October 09 2013 16:34 Whitewing wrote:


The American Revolution is kind of a big one. And improving things for future generations is more important to me than to improve things for myself. We're not all selfish assholes who only care about what happens to ourselves.

On October 09 2013 15:54 quebecman77 wrote:


they should not negociate anything, this have passed, name me only something terrible from the obamacare ? nothing.

stop to be brainwashed american people, the bill good, you should accept it, this will help you unless you got ALOT OF MONEY....the republicans are in the wrong.

im sure you dont even know what the obamare in reality, you are brainwashed by media .....the republicans want to change something who already passed and change how it funded... you CANT TRADE HERE, obama right.

would also add you guy are damn lucky to get someone like obama, yet you dont even understand or know what all the good thing he trying to do, everything he do media and way more stupid people make him look bad.

that not his FAULT for the closure ?? yeah realy, maybe that the republicans by trying something dirty in the first place no?

try to know what he trying to do at the start, he in the right....just like snowden a hero yet you make him look like a terrorist... what wrong with you people ???!!! wake UP

Is passing a budget important? Yes. Can republicans use it as a way to try to get what they want purely because its important and they have the ability to? Sure. Does that in ANY way suggest it's the right thing to do?

Lets apply the same type of might equals right mentality to war. Chemical and biological weapons if used correctly could be pretty damn effective and that's going to become the case even more so over time. Should we start trying to weaponize the aids virus just because we can? If not why? Why is it that in one case the power to do something doesn't necessarily mean it's acceptable to do so while in another instance it's treated as if it alone is reason enough.