After listening to Ted Cruz’s diatribe on the Senate floor tonight, I couldn’t help but reflect upon the weirdness of both the government shutdown and showdown. As I listened to Cruz, my initial reaction was simply, “For God’s sake … someone please pull the microphone.”
One should not construe my position as pro-liberal or pro-conservative. Yet many are confused by Cruz’s consistent diarrhea of the mouth. What bothers me is that Cruz thoughtlessly scuttled the government simply to expand the conservative base. To those of us who lost income for the last seventeen days, Cruz should be considered cannon fodder during the next Fourth of July festivities (i.e., should there be a government).
Here are other weird shutdown-showdown stupidities I observed:
- Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin, after leading Tea Party representatives to close the government, go to a World War II memorial rally to express outrage that the government is closed.
- Palin suggesting that if the country defaults on its debt, Obama risks impeachment.
- House Republicans singing “Amazing Grace.” NY Times Columnist Maureen Dowd humorously noted, “… but they’re amazing only for their lack of grace.”
- GOP strategist and CNN commentator Alex Castellanos for being “high” after likening Ted Cruz‘s shutdown strategy to rabbit mating rituals. What The F…. was that?
- Boehner saying, “We fought the good fight, we just didn’t win.” Really? A good fight?
- Boehner and the Republicans being compared to the Texan defenders of the Alamo.
- Listening to Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch to demand Obama leave town, to put the Quran down and come out with his hands up. What The F…. was that?
- Bishop E.W. Jackson claiming government programs creates more harm to blacks than slavery. What The F…. was that?
Sadly, none of these representatives who supported sequestration and shutdown were ever on the average Joe’s side. After all the rhetoric, after all the back and forth and posturing, real Americans lost. Why? Well, forty-four (44) of the representatives supporting the battle against the Affordable Care Act are part of an elite group. In total, these representatives have a combined net worth of more than $342 million dollars. That’s enough to put them in the top 1% of wealth in the country.
So the 1% really believes in you, the 50% or so working families making an average of $50,000? If you seriously believe that, then you must believe Federal agencies creating new websites to tell visitors that they don’t have enough funding to run their old websites … was really a good idea.
The real losers are our children. Our children will inherit government spending, investments, entitlements and poverty alleviation that have overwhelmingly benefited elderly voters. It’s the working youth of America that will have to support me … the rapidly aging fifty-three (53) year-old.
In an unlike Buddhist fashion, our generation has created significant personal entitlements unto our own ego. And eventually, America will lack in true economic growth, inadequate investments in infrastructure of the future, such as early childhood education, medical and technology research that help the poorest and investments that create substantial jobs, not just those at Burger King, McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Sadly, the family dog gets better scraps than those reserved for the children.