Cold War in the US Government.

And eleven days later the government is still shut down. What does this mean? Well for the average American, it just means they have another reason to complain about the government, and what a terrible job they are doing. Or for those that affiliate themselves with a party, it means they have an even bigger reason to hate the other party. If you work for the government or an affiliate of the government, or if national parks are a big part of your areas economy, well then, you have absolute license  to complain because your life is seriously being effected by the gridlock.

For me personally, the government shutdown means that I didn't get to talk to the NSA or CIA or State Department at the career fair this last week.

So why is this happening? Well, basically the Republicans are trying to stall the Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare) from getting its funding, and the democrats won't have it because it is a bill that has already been signed into law, and it has been validated by the Supreme Court. As part of this, the Democrats are determined to raise the debt ceiling. In fact, Mr. Obama, at the beginning of his second term, vowed to not negotiate over the debt ceiling with Republicans again, which given his previous experiences, you can't really blame him.

So that is a quick rundown of the "sitch" as Kim Possible might have said, and you know what it just gets my goat! You might say I have a bit of a vendetta against our countries two party system. By having only two parties, the whole political system feels the need to polarize itself. I almost feel like our countries government has its own "Cold War" going on. Take a good look at the system and you'll see it too. First, republicans and democrats can't agree on anything! If they do, those individuals that do get the whole weight of their party bearing down on them, or they are shunned. In the Cold War, the entire world was either with the Red Russians or the Americans. Both groups pretended to be nice to each other on a surface level, but it was all out indirect war, and agreeing on anything the other side was doing was blasphemy.  Second, because of this, compromise is practically impossible and gridlock is inevitable, (kind of like how we didn't compromise with those dang communists during the Cold War) which leads to the government shutdown. And finally, they are constantly blocking each other's moves for more power, or for change, which leads to the governments own personal Vietnam's and Korean wars.

Needless to say, I find all this very frustrating. The Republicans should not be trying to gut a piece of legislation that has already been passed, and the democrats shouldn't be antagonizing them. Our government has forgotten what it means to compromise. News paper articles shouldn't have to say that "the republicans and democrats are having diplomatic talks". We are one country, not several discussing international problems. The parties should be reminded of this more often: being a republican or a democrat does not supersede being an American.