The 2013 edition of the government shutdown shouldn’t be discussed in terms of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or as many refer to now as “Obamacare.” The law has taken effect and the shutdown has done nothing to change this fact. Understand, this ideological battle is not about changing a law, but subverting the Constitution. The Constitution is clear about how we change and amend laws. A shutdown is not one of the listed remedies.
MSNBC commentator Goldie Taylor aptly suggested that Texas Senator Ted Cruz “twerked America for 21 hours” and despite Senator Cruz’s super-sexy Green Eggs & Ham dance moves, the status quo remains.
It may be popular to engage in debates as to which political party is most to blame, but the status quo remains. Shutting down the government does not stop the ACA. Given that fact, the greater weight of responsibility then falls to the GOP. The 42 attempts to repeal the ACA have failed. The challenge on Constitutional grounds failed. The effort to elect Mitt Romney failed.
Now this.
If at first you don’t succeed; try, try again…to subvert the process.
If you are not winning elections, there’s always redistricting. If you are still not winning elections, there’s always gutting the Voting Rights Act and implementing “voter ID” laws…which also happen to include diminished early voting, eradication of same-day registration and curious polling locations which force people to wait hours in lines to vote.
There’s always that…
If at first you don’t succeed; try, try again…to subvert the process.
The U.S. Constitution is clear in terms of remedies for amending, changing and repealing laws. Not even during the Civil Rights Movement, the standard-bearer for unjust laws; no such tactic was employed. The resulting Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were wholly “unpopular” and would not have passed if put to a national vote.
The government did not shut down in response.
That’s the beauty of the Constitution, it often times is inconvenient. America, love it or leave it. For all those who wish to argue the ACA is “unpopular,” may I direct you back to the Constitution. We elect leaders both locally and federally to represent constituencies and vote in our stead. If we find that these individuals are not in concert with our interests, we have the remedy of voting them out of office in subsequent elections. Laws aren’t subject to repeal or amendment relative to CNN or FOX News polling results. We don’t even elect our presidents relative to popular vote. President George W. Bush knows this all-too-well and you should too.
The ACA was first passed by the House in 2009, meaning that there have been two intervening elections for those who opposed it to have their voice be heard and elect representatives in either house of Congress to best reflect their wishes. The ACA was not implemented by executive order or declared by fiat. It wasn’t “rammed down the throats” of Americans as some would like to say. It was democracy working as it should, passed in both houses and signed by the President of the United States. It has been ruled constitutional by the SCOTUS.
Nonetheless, the GOP argues that having the power of the purse in the House empowers it to make revisions to laws in opposition to its ideology.
Such power and how it is being used might fit within the letter of the law but is nowhere close to the spirit of it. The checks and balances system was to ensure an uninterrupted government, not allow one segment of one branch to bring it to a grinding halt.
Nonetheless, the status quo remains…the ACA is in effect. So the question is, what was to be gained here; other than making a political point?
Every two years we elect new leaders and can easily amend laws as we move into the future. But the GOP at this point has opted to just skip past all the fuss of elections, amendments and Congressional votes and opted instead for a director’s cut Blue-Ray version of the comedy This is the End as their plan of governance.
Here is the flipside; let’s turn this moment on its head.
What if the Democrats employed the same tactics moving forward, vis-à-vis the Left agenda? What if Sen. Harry Reid were to negotiate the Debt Ceiling standoff with gun control legislation stipulations? Or how about leveraging the default of the nation on its debts against immigration reform or gay marriage? Are you comfortable with that America? If you are presently in support of this government shutdown, then turnabout is absolutely fair play. Shutting down the government is then a reasonable tactic of redress for any political agenda and all bets are off moving forward.
Shutting down the government, be it partially or fully is not a form of governance. It can’t ever be. I’ll leave the inflammatory rhetoric of “treasonous,” “terrorist,” “anarchist” etc. for those of you cheerleading on your favorite comment thread or the pundit with an agenda on one of the corporate news channels. Let’s strip out the rhetoric some have employed to evoke the worst of emotions and keep it squarely in the realm or reason and common sense.
This form of governance can’t be tolerated, ever. Not now, not in two weeks or twenty years. It matters not how long the shutdown should continue or when it concludes.
Real Americans are being forced to suffer because of this shutdown and we already have remedies written into the Constitution to change laws. Shutdown is not one of them.
In the coming months, I’m really curious to know how the GOP expects to gain with minority communities in 2014. Are they going to include the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the implementation of Voter ID (and voter limitation) laws around the nation in their sales pitch to recruit African-Americans? Or are they just going to act like that smelly flatulence wasn’t actually theirs and ignore it altogether?
What is the GOP going to tell the LGBTQ and Latino communities? Are they going to include their public stances against gay marriage as well as serial reluctance to pass immigration reform in the House, which they controlled? Are they going to remind voters that states with the most federal employees impacted by this shutdown are red states?
Are they going to lead with the truth or just leave it out altogether and hope for the best?
Then again, what the hell am I thinking? Who needs to win elections to forward a party agenda when you can just shut the government down altogether and re-litigate the elections you previously lost?
God bless America.