My Take

I'm going to talk about politics. If you're predisposed to be offended, you should probably stop reading now. No hate-mail please. ;)

There have been enough opinions voiced on the shutdown of the US government recently. More than enough. So naturally, it's time for me to throw in my oar. ;) Here's my take on the shutdown and surrounding events.
Initially, when it started, I was actually thrilled. I mean, it's a real, gutsy display by the Federal Government. How great is that?! On that level, I'm still pleased. 
I was also pleased about the subject of said shutdown. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is not something I approve of. (I won't spend time discussing that here.)
However. I was not entirely pleased with this thing.
Like everything else, it quickly became less about the core of the issue (gutsiness and trying to resolve a difficult and sensitive issue) and more about... politics. (Ha. Ha.) Who is right? Who is wrong? Who is to blame here--President Obama or Conservative members of Congress? Look at everything the poor people are suffering because of this evil shutdown. The people wouldn't be suffering nearly so much if the government weren't trying to maximize negative impacts. Blame, blame. Politics was never completely a thing of beauty, but it wasn't always as ugly as this. Why can we not focus on the issue at hand, like intelligent people, instead of allowing our emotions and biases to overcome our logic? (Nando, that was for you. ;)
Another facet of the politics-in-politics issue (politicalception? Anyone?) is the scandal. As with anything that ever happens, people have shutdown horror stories to whisper to each other. (Journalists are less discreet; they prefer to scream the stories in the headlines.) You know, the stories about people being driven off national property, etc.. Or the guy with an independent inn on national property, who refused to comply and close his business, so they shut down the road that lead to his inn. Wow. We could all be more proud of the government's behavior. I mean, it acted petty. What even? This is me rolling my eyes.
But again, the scandals are NOT what this was about. Our government behaved like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum; stop complaining about it and do something. (Or just stop complaining so the rest of us can do something about it in peace.)
Finally, an intelligent and well-informed friend of mine posed this question: why is this even a big deal? How sad is it that this was even all over the airwaves? Because, NEWS FLASH: this is not the first government shutdown we've ever had. Not even close. But it's sad that the government is so involved in our lives that people even know about this. Because when you dig down past the politics and pettiness and headlines and scandal and blame, and even past Obamacare and our President himself and our Congressmen and women, the heart of the issue is us. We let our government put us to sleep and then stomp all over us. It did perfectly illegal things during a perfectly legal shutdown over a perfectly illegal bill. But the bill and the shutdown aren't the heart of the matter. Can't we, as Americans, act intelligent for a change and vote in solid people come election day? And maybe we can start to fix the core issue here. I'm done, thanks.