A US government shut-down, will it happen?

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I've read this thread a few times, and I still get confused by the fact that the title asks one question, but the actual poll asks the opposite.

As opposed to the big government types, where inflicting your politics on everyone is a feature and not a bug?

If the Republicans do manage to shut down the government, they'll get the blame, just as they had when Gingrich was leading the show in Congress during the Clinton years. Republican attempts to say Obama was actually responsible will only come across as insulting to the American people, as it was the Republicans who had devised this whole threat of shutting the government down in the first place. The only bigger losers than the Republicans in such a case would be us Americans, as our already fragile recovery would be in jeopardy.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I am long used to the repubs peeing on our legs then telling us it is only raining.

Yeah. Unfortunately, they may be the death of us all before this is all over.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Oh, those cursed libertarians, forever plotting to take over and leave everybody alone. What could be more obnoxious than somebody who does NOT want to spy on you, take your money, dictate what you can and can't eat, drink, or own, and drop bombs on half the world?

To have the government do something good for it's citizens, rather than have it just sit idly by when people are in need, is the counter argument to the notion that government only acts negatively.
On top of that, plenty of people claiming to be libertarians today are actually to the far right, wanting government to tell people who they can't marry, make women pay for ultrasounds of the fetus prior to abortions, etc.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Sadly, this isn't far from the truth. Just this year alone we've seen more and more attempts to stall change for the better and it's been largely due to congress and the general incapability for compromise, especially in topics concerning their own paychecks. I've said it before, but it's worth saying again: We need to fight their idiocy with a "help the people or we take your jobs" mentality, that's the only way they're going to make the right decisions, the ones that benefit the people instead of lining their pockets with our money. So far, every single time congress has come together to stop a government shutdown, the republicans have done nothing but waste time and block any real attempt for change. It's gotten old, and this crap is always at our expense, where more often than not, we have to pay more taxes, or pay more for food or gas, all of this on a system that is already unmanagable by most of the working class, who are losing their homes and instead have to settle for low income housing because of the economical bullsh*t that has taken the nation so far into hell it's not even funny. I say fire them all (congress) and replace them with people capable of making adult decisions, based not by greed, but instead by need.

there is no dealing with the sociopaths who believe that greed is good. greed is one of the 7 deadly sins, and those who promote greed are deadly to our nation and by extension our world.

This current crap in Congress had started with Newt Gingrich, who had began this adversarial, make no compromise attitude, which unfortunately has outlived his political career.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

A statement of opinion is no argument at all.

"Need" is an objectively meaningless criterion for anything. No physically fit person needs more than a cave, a loincloth, and a handful of rice per day. (Certainly nobody needs a computer and internet access, mankind having survived for millennia without such ... and yet here you are.) Perhaps you are quite comfortable with a distant faceless bureaucrat deciding what you do and do not need. I am not.



Straw man. The government has legitimate functions, outlined neatly in the Constitution. There may be anarchists here but I am not one of them.



I don't know about "plenty." Libertarians are anything but a monolithic bloc, but those are decidedly non-libertarian positions. Show me a prominent libertarian organization, publication, website, whatever, where most participants hold religious-conservative views on such subjects.

Meanwhile, pretty much every American who calls himself a "liberal" is in favor of granting the federal government nearly limitless power to control every aspect of life. It's the most illiberal group of major influence since the Klan faded away. If American "liberals" were honest they would call themselves statists. The shoe fits -- wear it with my compliments.

I've gotten the message that I will not be working tomorrow (unless they pass something by midnight). I have been deemed non-essential. There is only going to be 1 person working in the Radiation Safety department that will not be furloughed. No paycheck for me for.

So if this goes on for a while, would anyone out there want to have an unemployed health physicist living on their couch?

Good luck living with just a loin cloth and rice. And you forgot something in that list of what you need to survive - you also need a group of other humans to help you to hunt and gather, and to care for you when you get sick, injured, or too old. Because regardless of the libertarian myth of the sturdy individual going it alone, humans we know from archeology and anthropology from the very beginning have never been solitary creatures, but have needed the help of others. That's where government comes in, in modern industrial society.
And sure, the Constitution lays out the duties the government must provide. But it's unworkable for the government to limit itself to just those things, as circumstances have dictated government responsibilities expand as need requires.
In closing, what I want is not dictated to me by a government bureaucrat, but by my own needs and desires. And if that includes a computer, so be it.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

tomorrow's the big day [exchanges open], I hope I can sign on right away. i'm glad that at least they will not be affected by the republican gov't shut-down.

Good luck!

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

The Black walnut tree is dropping nuts so I have food even if there is no government.And that is awesome.