Category: government

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Whenever I hear some talking head bemoaning the fact that there is a lack of trust in government, I always think what am I missing here. Why do these people think I should trust government? Government officials have been lying to us for years — particularly when it involves national security. Just off the top of my head — the government knew the War in Viet Nam was lost even while escalating the number of troops sent to die what they knew to be a losing cause. Or the weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq? I could go on but you get the hint.

It seems to me perfectly reasonable for the public to question any information that comes from a government official. I mean really, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

So when the government’s released UFO documents which confirmed that there have been actual sightings of UFO’s, I became a little irritated. While I am excited by the possibility of there being intelligent life beyond our planet, I am a little miffed that our government has been hiding this information and dissembling about any reports of UFO’s for the past 80 years.

Why? Oh, right the public would panic if they learned there were actual UFO’s. The relative calm that greeted this information must have been a bit of a disappointment to all those government officials who have been so worried about the public’s reaction all these years. I haven’t heard of any panic yet.

Denying it may be a reasonable reaction if there were 1 or 2 sightings over the course of 80 years, but once you got into the hundreds and thousands, what possible advantage could there be? People were actually seeing UFO’s and reporting it. At some point, you would think someone would say this is going to continue to happen maybe we should let on that this is indeed happening instead of quashing any reports.

More worrisome to me is if there are UFO visitations happening then not telling people that they were happening seems like the exact opposite of what responsible government should be doing. They would rather have people encounter UFO’s and alien beings and question their sanity than the actual truth. Right.

And then if anyone ever did run across a little green man, and weren’t content to take the government explanation of an errant weather balloon and they decide to report the UFO to the wider world, the government made it seem like that person was off their rocker with a wink wink and nudge nudge. They would rather undermine good people’s reputation as sane human beings than tell the truth of their fantastic encounter with an alien being or spacecraft. What a fucking crock of shit.

And you want me to put faith into these people? No, thank you. I’d rather live in the real world than in some imaginary one.

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Every day, every new outrage, and I think is this the one that is going to bring the whole rotting edifice down but, to my surprise, the rickety all structure is still standing.

Yet the rot is so pervasive that almost anything could bring it down. It is both remarkably sturdy and remarkably vulnerable at the same time. How does it survive all this rot? Then I take a deep breath and remember, oh, right, now I remember — I am the problem. The present system, as configured, is all I know. Whatever comes next is unknown. This mystery is more than a little frightening. I want the system, with all its flaws, to survive.

It isn’t encouraging that every idea I have heard regarding change now seems to involve a bit of violence. It is mostly this fear of violence that keeps me firmly on the side of the present system for all its problems. There still is the notion of democratic give and take as the best way to resolve our problems despite the rot. I maybe wrong but the risk of political violence seems, at present, unwarranted.

What I fear though is this reflexive support for democracy is waning. To what I do not know. I do know that blood on the streets is to be avoided mostly because the idea is always that it will be the bad guy’s blood (read here the people who disagree with me) and not the good guy’s (read here the people who agree with me) blood. But we all know that once blood starts flowing, both good guys and bad guys bleed the same color and it is horrible.

I don’t have the answer but I do know this — the present approach seems to be a shouting match where the only way to win is to outshout the other guy. The gerrymander wars shows two sides with little confidence that either can win through the political process so they redraw the lines to keep their power. People appear to be giving up on changing minds through persuasion and creating imperfect but workable institutions through compromise.

And all we have is the rickety and rotting system to defend us in the coming political storm. It is a bit unsettling to think about.

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TSA agents are no longer being paid due to a partial government shutdown. This is ridiculous. Really ridiculous.

First government shutdowns are ridiculous to being with. Taxes are being paid. There is money to pay them because, if there was no government shutdown, they would be paid. It is an accounting problem. Members of Congress are being paid. Since members of Congress are government employees and they continue to get their paycheck, there must be some accounting trick that makes this possible. Why not use this same trick with TSA agents.

I would argue that TSA agents are actually more essential to public safety than members of Congress. Millions of people travel by plane every day. Even I go to the airport on occasion and in order to board a plane I must go through TSA to get there. This matters to me.

On the other hand, I can’t tell you the last time I needed a member of Congress to do, well, anything. I think it is safe to say never. It would seem that the government would prioritize the TSA agents’ paychecks over, how shall I say this politely, unnecessary government employees like members of Congress.

It is down right irritating that Airports are begging for money in order to help TSA agents through this shutdown. I get that they are just trying to help out people who are having a hard time through no fault of their own. Yeah for their good intentions but this is a very bad idea and fails spectacularly to deal with the real problem — the ongoing congressional stalemate regarding budgets.

Trying to help these people through private charity only encourages Congress to continue in their intransigence. Why settle now when we can hold out longer to potentially gain the upper hand? Right. I can’t remember a time that this has happened but OK, hope springs eternal. The food banks and the gift cards only delay the inevitable, why not just cut to the chase.

Holding people’s paychecks hostage in order to get your way on something that you don’t have the votes for in Congress is quite simply wrong. The idea is that the Republicans will be shamed into giving into the Democrats. I’m sorry to say, I don’t think the Republican Party is capable of shame. So holding out for a win here is pointless. The party in the minority never gets their way and the only thing that really happens is a lot of hard working people are inconvenienced.

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I know I hold a minority opinion among Democrats about the shutdown but what is the point of keeping government shutdown any longer. I believe that government has a job to do and it best get back to doing it — even if it is less than perfect and it will always be less than perfect.

There is a segment of the Republican Party who hates government so much that they don’t particularly care if it is open and will use any opportunity to undermine its function and will look with glee at its destruction. This segment of the Republican party doesn’t care if people go hungry. The Rich were not being hurt by the shutdown. The Poor were.

The Democrats, being the minority party, had very little leverage to change minds. Trump holds sway with the Republicans. What he says goes. He wasn’t going to backdown and there is little evidence that there were Republicans getting ready to bolt this position.

The idea that holding out longer would create a Democratic victory was a pipe dream. The Democrats who voted to reopen government are not traitors. They looked at the facts and made a reasonable decision. Continuing the shutdown was pointless and it was hurting actual people.

The Democratic Senators that voted to reopen tended to come from Purple states where either party could win an election. You don’t get to govern unless you win elections. A lesson that Liberal Democrats need to be reminded of all the time. Yes Mamdani won New York but there is little evidence that the same holds true for say New Hampshire or Wisconsin.

Given our forefathers structure of government, this means winning in states with a more conservative electorate. These moderates are needed in order to win future elections. So I think all this talk of punishing them is incredibly unhelpful. Indeed this is how Trump is keeping his party in line — punishing the Republicans who don’t agree 100% with him.

Let’s keep everyone on board.