Tach it up, tach it up, buddy, gonna shut you down

David A. Lombardo

My first cup of coffee was cooling in the kitchen as I lumbered down the driveway in my bathrobe to get the morning paper. The only thing I like about the winter months is that it's dark at that hour of the morning, and, unlike summer when the sun is already burning brightly, the occasional driver passing by can't see me and shout "get a job" or "put on some clothes."

Still unable to see the headline, I shuffled back into the kitchen, did an obligatory coffee test sip to be sure it wouldn't parboil the inside of my mouth, took a big swig, opened the paper, read the headline and sprayed the front page with coffee. There it was, in black and white: Obama signs budget deal.

I wasn't merely okay with shutting down the government; I was elated. You know when a song gets stuck in your head and you just keep humming it? All during the shutdown I kept humming 60s surfer idols Jan and Dean's, "Buddy gonna shut you down."

Now it was over. "They did it again," I muttered, or perhaps more appropriate it should have been, "They didn't do it again." Congressional Republicans are, for the most part, wimps, and the above-the-fold Tribune article affirmed it.

"It's pretty hard when we have a circle of 20 people who stand up every day and say, 'Can we surrender today, Mr. Speaker?' said Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a Kansian Republican. Oh, there were plenty of Republican feel-good explanations. "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor from Virginia urged constituents not to 'confuse tactics with principles.'" Gretchen, send Cantor a ticket to hear Dave Grossman next month, so hopefully he'll learn that retreat isn't a tactic: it's a failure to truly believe in your principles.

I advocated keeping the government shut down for six months. Bring the whole damn machine to a grinding halt. It's bloated, picking up speed and out of control; it's a freight train hurtling through the dark toward the end of democracy. Whether it was Thomas Jefferson, Ted Nugent or any of the other hundred or so people attributed to saying it, "I love my country, but fear my government." Shutting down the government and bringing it to its knees is vastly preferable to letting things continue until there's violence in the streets... oh, wait, we already have violence in the streets.

The Founding Fathers never intended for the Congress to be a full-time job let alone a career. The problem with being a professional legislator is that you have to do something to justify being a professional legislator, and that something is screwing with the democracy by passing idiotic laws then exempting yourself from having to abide by them.

Everything you need to know about Obamacare is explained by the fact that the White House, the Congress and about everyone who contributed a golf vacation to Obama has opted out of The Affordable Health Care Act. There ain't nothing affordable about The Affordable Health Care Act, but everyone who contributed to getting it passed then took two steps back and ran off silently into the night.

I figured a government shut-down of about six months would do the trick. Would there be honest hardships as a result? Yup, but it would be far less painful than citizens taking to the street in a serious move to curtail an out-of-control government.

Yeah, I think six months would be enough time for roughly half the civil servants to find other jobs, begin dismantling three-quarters of the useless-yet-efficiently-intrusive federal agencies, recall most of the legislators and replace them with people who have actually worked for a living, and implement a radical plan that would require Congress to live by the legislation it foists upon the American public. Oh, yeah, and not deploying a local rescue team to prevent a U.S. ambassador from being tortured and killed would become an impeachable offense.

Federal land closures: political theatre at its worst

The United States Sportsmen's Alliance called the Obama administration's handling of the public lands during the government shutdown, "political theatre at its very worst." The federal government issued directives to close accessible public lands and waters while the government was shut down, but in many cases it took manpower and an expenditure of funds to close areas that required no staff or money to keep open 365 days a year. The USSA pointed out at stake were millions of acres of public land administered by agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Park Service (NPS). "For decades the public has been free to access these lands for recreational purposes-including hunting, fishing and trapping-without securing any specific form of permission or authorization. But [during the government shutdown] those agencies were being told to close access to their lands because of the standoff taking place over funding the federal government," said Nick Pinizzotto, USSA President and CEO.  "Not only were the closures unnecessary, they run contrary to law.  It was 'political theatre' at its very worst."