Thoughts about the government shutdown
When you hear "government shutdown", it sounds great and all, but it's really mostly hype. Most of the government isn't really shut down. ?? They're not shutting down the DEA, or the hundreds of overseas military bases.
Still, it's a start. Maybe as the impasse continues, eventually the whole government will really be shut down. Unfortunately, they're not doing it in the right way or for the right reasons. They need to privatize the government's functions and sell off its assets before shutting down!
On a more serious note, what is this about? At first, it sounds as if it's a dispute over whether to build a wall across the southern border. And it sounds like *that* is rooted in major policy disputes about immigration.
Actually, no. The shutdown is bullshit theatrics for the benefit of the media and ignorant voters. There is no important philosophical or policy issue at stake other than wasting money; it is just a PR issue: Which side, Republicans or Democrats, gets to make the other look bad by 'winning' the contest?
Why do I say this?
(a) Neither side is talking about substantively altering our immigration policy, which is the main thing that affects how many immigrants we get.
(b) There are already hundreds of miles of fencing along the parts of the border that are most often crossed. They did that during the Bush administration. Neither side is considering changing that, and neither side is considering putting barriers anywhere else.
(c) They're not even really talking about changing the fence to a wall. As far as I can tell, the actual policy dispute is about spending $5.7 billion to replace existing fencing with new fencing. See: https://www.dallasnews.com/…/trump-moves-goalposts-border-w…
Seriously, no one could think that that makes a major difference to anything, other than wasting money. This could not seriously be claimed to be about solving any "crisis" on the border, giving the country "control" of the border, or "securing" the border in any sense that it is not already secured.
Why is it important to both sides, then? Symbolism. If Trump caves at this point, he loses face. If the Democrats cave, they lose face and Trump claims to have kept his campaign promise to "build the wall". It doesn't matter that that will be false; points (a)-(c) above don't matter because it would take voters a couple of minutes to learn those facts, and that is a couple minutes that the voters will not spare. All the voters are going to hear is "Trump won" or "the Democrats won" the dispute.
So that's why the government is shut down. People wouldn't shut down the government over a real policy issue these days; we shut down the government for symbolism. And if Trump gets his funding, we won't be spending $5.7 billion dollars to accomplish any policy goal, whether good or evil; we'll be spending $5.7 billion for symbolism.
I like symbols as much as the next guy (well, maybe 10% as much as the next guy), but this all strikes me as pathetic and corrupt. Or, to use more Presidential language: Sad.