Federal Government Shutdown

[Violet]

I'm looking at not being able to pay rent next month cuz of this shut down. I'm on disability. I'd get a job to pay my rent but I'm on 2 low dose chemo Meds plus another immunosuppressant, and my auto immune disease is flaring. I have no family in the state, and I don't have anyone that could help me move my things. This. Sucks.

Got an open room down here.

#justsayin.

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Big problem with your assertion. Corporations are for profit. Governments are not. Or they ought not be. If they are, then the populace of that government is doing something wrong -- like not paying attention. It is true we have significantly ceded control of our government over to corporate interests, which is why we have the PPACA instead of single payer... but that needn't remain the case. And that still doesn't make our government a corporation, however charming it may be to say so.

Right, and its employees don't get paid. Tell me another one

I'm imagining if a common corporation didn't pay its employees, right now. The sight ain't pretty

And yeah, it would be true that it, (not we, maybe you, but not me) allow(s) 'corporate affairs'... it being a corporate, and its employees being paid

Seriously, it's profit is your taxes. This is the only corporation that is allowed to run in the red because you continue giving it your taxes (and paying them, and their 'interests', coincidentally). It's also allowed to extort you, and it used to be allowed to jail you or otherwise make you pay (debtors prison) your fee-ahhh... tax.

You'll have to show me where I said government was some supernatural force. I don't believe that; I think you know it, and you putting words in my mouth is the refuge of one who doesn't have a sound argument.

No, I won't have to... since you assume(!) that it is 'the only way'. Not unlike Baby Jesus is the only way to get to heaven, and all that. Sarcasm? Meet idiom.

I think your continued assumptiveness is hilarious.

One of the biggest problems with our government today is the extent to which services are being privatized. Why did we let this happen? Your statement demonstrates exactly why corporations ought NOT be in charge of many things, and why properly regulated government ought to be, instead.

*Still hasn't told me how government is regulated? Check.

How about 'properly regulated' non-extorting corporations?

Care to show some authority for that view, apart from what would "likely" occur?

Sure, history. You know... *every example of food riots ever*?

http://devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/sites/dev...20riot.pdf

It's kind of been a recurring thing. Prices on food rise and ends cannot be met by a sudden surge of the populace? Riot. Sometimes it's so severe that <government> is removed from power, and prices drop.

Famine riots in particular are nasty things... don't expect we'll be having that anytime soon, but 'you never know'

I'm not sure, but we may be on the same page on this. I do believe the biggest problem with our government today is corporate involvement. But I don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, saying that government is therefore inherently bad, or that it isn't still the most effective way to address large societal concerns, which, frankly, is a ludicrous assertion.

I didn't say that government is bad (at all). I said that government is a business, and that our current is a corporate, but nowhere have I said either of these are bad (esp. necessarily).

It's *an* effective way to address *a lot* of concerns to a *reasonable* degree. It is *not* the *most effective* way to address a particular concern to the *best* degree

Governments are traditionally 'at their best' in 'the middle years' of their existence. Early government is tumultuous, late government is corrupt. No exceptions.

Well, have fun, if it pleases you to do so. As you don't know me at all, I think your ad hominem attacks on my demeanor do nothing to advance the validity of your position. It does, however, say a lot more about who you are than who I am.

I think your defensive and distracting sarcasm does you no favors. Would you rather I didn't illustrate such failings to you? I mean, you might never recognize. Self-righteousness is a bitch, man... I know.

On this, we fundamentally disagree. I think people have the government they deserve -- certainly true in this country, anyway. If enough people educate themselves as to the actual facts and not just take their positions based on the garbage that is spewed from mainstream news outlets; if they follow those facts wherever they may lead and then actually take substantive action, they can change anything -- even a flawed government.

Ethiopia deserves that? Assad? Hussain? Somalia? North Korea...?

I don't believe many people 'deserve' what a powerful group does to them. I don't believe it when the mob sees someone put down, I don't believe it when 'eminent domain' is claimed on someone's house, and I don't believe it when an employer takes advantage of his employees because he knows that he's their only chance at avoiding the depths of poverty.

There are degrees of power. To overcome a wheel-chair bound 90-year old woman who will die tomorrow in an AIDS-related complication... takes a very low amount of power.

To overcome a military power who's expenditure/comparative strength has been measured as the next four nation's expenditures... doubled... would take that amount, doubled (or the same amount used more than twice as effectively as the other). And that's just the military strength, it says absolutely nothing about the political, economic, socio-cultural, and other associated powers of said power. This would likely take more power than you can find anywhere on this earth right now.

Yeah, I'm an idealist, one who has seen how much even one individual, by themselves, can do. It's much more than you think.

Oh, I'm a pretty big appreciator of them fat grains of rice, tipping scales and shit.

But I'm also appreciative of the other rice on the scale, and they are not without weight.