US Govt. Shutdown. Does anyone care?

teatree, I conduct commerce with people overseas that I have effectively no legal recourse against all the time. Preservation of reputation is a good motivator, among others.
 


But what happens when Ben doesn't agree to 3rd party arbitration, and instead puts a bullet in the arbitrator's head, calls over 50 friends, and tells Adam if he values his life any things are going to begin running a certain way?

Then Ben doesn't sound like the kind of guy that would have 50 friends.
 
The USDA cut off access to their website. :rolleyes:

United States Department of Agriculture - Home

J4r2rS6.jpg


Internal Revenue Service seems fine
 
So GTA Online goes live today

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Lately, I've been more irritated at everyday people than the government.

Yes, the government takes my fucking money by dangling the looming threat of violence over my proletarian skull. And I hate that.

Even more so, I hate that only a minority of individuals realize the true audacious absurdity that is government power in their daily lives.

Sure, nobody likes taxes.

But let's face it - most people feel the same way about paying taxes as children do about completing a nagging mother's chore list. They don't like it, but it "has to be done."

Taxation is just another rule in a game they can't mentally escape.

.................................................................................

Want to know something else the government doesn't do that average dickhead people do?

Talk my fucking ear off about sports and then criticize me when I tell them I don't participate in tribalistic rituals.

Or gossip about celebrity bullshit while I pretend to give a half fuck.

Or incessantly quote stupid lines from B-comedy movies instead of coming up with their own clever and original observations on life.

Or try to pull me into shitty club/EDM scenes and then question why I'm not putting more effort in hitting on half-conscious, vapid club sluts "like I used to."

Or stare blankly at me when I try to explain a theory or idea outside the realm of TV, movies, social drama, etc...

Or think I'm an asshole when I don't congratulate them for bringing a human being into a fucked up world nobody truly understands. Congrats, I hope you enjoy that "Widdle You." After all, it's not a human. It's a carbon-copy pet. A pet you can't afford, and can't educate. But that's okay, just hand it over to the government. It's done a bang up job raising children thus far. Congrats, sheep.

Fuck all this honor/volunteerism/anarchy shit. The average American would not be able to keep up. At least not in the current cultural climate.

I've become more of a misanthrope than an anarchist, and for good fucking reason.

The government might have shutdown, but people are still in full swing.

We're all fucked as a species, .gov or not.
 
I've become more of a misanthrope than an anarchist, and for good fucking reason.

You may have good reasons for being stressed out about the current cultural climate. But does it help to just whine about it? That "honor/volunteerism/anarchy shit." is what drives cultural change. Sure, it can't be implemented on a broader scale as of now. Still, we need people like you who are frustrated by the current state of affairs and turn their rage into something productive.
 
Somalia. They haven't had a government since 1991. They're a poster-child for laissez-faire - no taxes, no government, no laws and no law enforcement. They're really showing everyone how it's done. All their neighbours are really chuffed about how it's working out.

Re American govt shutdown - happened in 1995, and contributed to Clinton winning the '96 election handily... I guess most people don't have the stomach for Somalia-style anything-goes.

Ah yeah.. Somalia..

Piracy, Islamist Radicals (Al Shababb, anyone?), regional power struggles, ...
Such a nice poster child for anarchism.

I'll just leave some links here:
Somalia: A Textbook Case
Letters from Somalia / ISN
Somalia: The exodus / ISN
Somalia and Shabaab / ISN

Crazy Town - By James Reinl | Foreign Policy

http://www.stratfor.com/sample/analysis/somalia-complex-attack-mogadishu-courthouse

::emp::
 
Also, please don't forget that a new gorvernment was formed in Somalia 2010.

::emp::
 
This anarchy debate is so tiresome. Yes, anarchy sounds great if you live in a rural community in Western Canada. No, anarchy does not sound great if you live near Detroit.

The reason governments evolved at all, and the reason they have evolved differently is because people are different culturally.
 
I just got back from a wedding. Before the ceremony, everyone was boozing. On the way in, everyone set their drink on the fence outside the beautiful little ceremony area in the woods.

No one told them to leave their drink outside, and there certainly was no law prohibiting them from bringing their drink inside, but since they didn't want everyone to think they were an asshole, they took it upon themselves to leave the booze outside. Even I, who really, really, would have preferred to bring my booze in, left it outside due to the social pressure.

This is basically how things will work without government.

Too bad they won't actually "shut down."

Socializing promotes unnatural behavior. No wonder facebook is tentacled by the gov't.
 
Wont the govt shutting down save a bunch of money. Plus we are talking about the federal govt which doesn't have much to do with a day to day lives.
 
Wont the govt shutting down save a bunch of money. Plus we are talking about the federal govt which doesn't have much to do with a day to day lives.

No. Everyone will get back pay most likely. Also, we run short on cash starting Oct. 17. That means we have to start juggling payments. If this isn't resolved in around a week, we're likely looking at another credit downgrade, which means higher interest rates. That balloons some of the money we owe on previous borrowed monies and means all future borrowed money will cost us more.

A balanced budget would be wonderful and all, but that doesn't change the fact that we owe money for things we have already bought and borrowed. Running a country is expensive and no first world nation is able to do so without borrowing at least some of the time. The fact of the matter is that if these assholes don't get back to work soon and DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS, we will be in arrears. If and when that happens the United States will be at the mercy of Moody's and other ratings agencies along with the countries that have lent to us. At that point, who the hell knows what happens.

In short, this will do nothing to save us money. It's only going to increase interest rates. Even if we didn't pay back pay to workers (furloughed or not), a shutdown of more than a week will cost us more in the long run because of increased interest rates on the trillions of dollars we have borrowed over the years.

To your second point, tell the people who will be going without pay/sent home because the assholes on Capitol Hill can't get their shit together. That doesn't just hurt those people, that hurts grocers and other business owners because a shutdown of more than a week means govt workers don't have the money to pay for things like food. The economy is an ecosystem. It doesn't exist in isolation and when one part of it gets fucked (like millions of people going without a paycheck) it has an impact on numerous aspects of the ecosystem. That's bad for everyone.
 
This anarchy debate is so tiresome. Yes, anarchy sounds great if you live in a rural community in Western Canada. No, anarchy does not sound great if you live near Detroit.

Why is Detroit so bad though? Government! War on drugs, minimum wage laws, all of their other laws & regulations which made jobs leave, etc..

The reason governments evolved at all, and the reason they have evolved differently is because people are different culturally.

I'd say they came about because of our early tribal mentality. They evolved because those at the top became wiser in terms of human farming. Slaves are inefficient workers. Then they gave us a little more freedom under feudalism where you owned a plot of land in exchange for your labor. Still though, they found that if you give an individual more perceived freedom in the right to choose trade, education, etc.. they become more productive, and thus generate more monies from which they can tax. That's where we are now..

Except now, with the advent of technology & the internet, more of us lowly wage slaves are connecting more than ever which is a threat to the establishment. The national branding campaigns put forth through media and education, with our flags, anthems, phrases, as a way to make governments seem a necessity, won't hold out too long. At least, I hope.
 
The USDA cut off access to their website. :rolleyes:

United States Department of Agriculture - Home

J4r2rS6.jpg


Does anyone have any idea what was there before? I sure don't.


Congress plunges nation into government shutdown


Congress plunged the nation into a partial government shutdown Tuesday as a long-running dispute over President Barack Obama's health care law stalled a temporary funding bill, forcing about 800,000 federal workers off the job and suspending most non-essential federal programs and services.


800,000? 800,000?


The White House was operating with a skeletal staff, including household workers taking care of the first family's residence and presidential aides working in the West Wing. A groundskeeper working outside Tuesday morning at daybreak said he was doing the job normally handled by four workers.


Oh, now I see.