I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about politics on this blog, unless its the fictional politics going on inside my stories. \u00a0This blog is supposed to be here to help me work on my writing. \u00a0Someday, I’m hoping this blog will be a valuable resource for my fans, once I’m rich and famous and ruling the best seller lists from a golden throne.<\/p>\n
But this is my blog, and I want to rant for a little bit about the shutdown, and the behavior of the Republicans in Congress.<\/p>\n
I am not a Democrat. \u00a0I identify more with the Libertarians, honestly. \u00a0I’m financially conservative, socially liberal, and I believe that the vast majority of the power should be at the state level, making for a smaller, leaner, more efficient federal government. \u00a0I believe that the Constitution prescribes what the federal government is allowed to do, and everything that is done beyond that is either bonus, or criminal, depending on what it is that’s being done.<\/p>\n
So now that I’ve described my general views, let me say that I believe that the behavior of the Republicans in the House is reprehensible, and I think that the dispute is not being represented very well in the media. \u00a0I’ve seen several publications put the blame on both parties. \u00a0I’ve even seen some people throw some blame at Obama for this. \u00a0The blame for this manufactured crisis\u00a0should be fully set upon the shoulders of the Republicans in the House.<\/p>\n
I like analogies, so I’ll use one. \u00a0Imagine two small children sitting at a table, working on their homework. \u00a0One of the children is diligently working along, trying to get his work done. \u00a0The other was working on his homework, but then stops, puts his pen down, and then tries to wrestle a hotly disputed toy from the other child. \u00a0Their Dad comes in and says, “Knock it off! \u00a0Your homework isn’t finished!” The obstinate child protests, “No! \u00a0Not until I get this toy!”<\/p>\n
That’s what I see happening in Congress. \u00a0It’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s close enough. \u00a0The republicans have manufactured this crisis by picking a fight over something that doesn’t have anything to do with the budget. \u00a0They’ve started a fight, and have dragged everyone down to a low level.<\/p>\n
How can the democrats respond? \u00a0How do you compromise with someone that’s willing to go immediately to holding their breath and throwing a tantrum? \u00a0And yet, if they don’t try to compromise, they’ll look as bad as the republicans. \u00a0They’ll look like the ones unwilling to fund cancer research or the space program or the World War II memorial.<\/p>\n
This is a no-win situation for everyone, and it was created by the Republicans in the House. \u00a0Blame doesn’t help us get out of it, but I dearly want people to see what’s going on here, and remember.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about politics on this blog, unless its the fictional politics going on inside my stories. \u00a0This blog is supposed to be here to help me work on my writing. \u00a0Someday, I’m hoping this blog will be a valuable resource for my fans, once I’m rich […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}