On the behavior of the population during the shutdown
[Reprinted from a Facebook post today (10/3/13)]
SOURCE: Congressman confronts park ranger over closed WWII memorial (NBC News)
Why would anyone berate the first park ranger they could find? Does *anyone* think the ranger had even the slightest say in a government shutdown? Is it only because there were TV cameras and cell phone videos? Does this play well with anyone anywhere? Do some unfortunate people see it as "the people's man" getting in the face of "the government," when it's actually an elected lawmaker (whose job is to make the government work) accosting a park ranger (whose job is to follow someone else's directives)?
I can already hear the responses: from GOP, what do you expect? From Texas, what do you expect? From Congress. A politician, what do you expect? Bullshit, all around. None of any of those classes of people deserve a cynical "lesser standard" handwave and a shortcut to pigeonholing. There are no excuses for asinine stupidity!
I don't care if it's Bill Cosby, Kim Jung-un, or the god-damned Pope perpetrating this nonsense: no human being should be allowed to be so feeble in their basic decency and reasoning.
And please keep to yourself the comments that either cheer me on or take me to task: if I could have closed the comments on this, I would have. I don't need reinforcement or censure, I don't need sources or surveys. I wouldn't even have posted this on Facebook, except that it's where I started typing.
I need people to think about the ideal that government and social communication is not a zero-sum winner-takes-all blood sport, and to take it to heart. This whole thing makes me want to vomit from frustration and fecklessness.
SOURCE: Congressman confronts park ranger over closed WWII memorial (NBC News)
Why would anyone berate the first park ranger they could find? Does *anyone* think the ranger had even the slightest say in a government shutdown? Is it only because there were TV cameras and cell phone videos? Does this play well with anyone anywhere? Do some unfortunate people see it as "the people's man" getting in the face of "the government," when it's actually an elected lawmaker (whose job is to make the government work) accosting a park ranger (whose job is to follow someone else's directives)?
I can already hear the responses: from GOP, what do you expect? From Texas, what do you expect? From Congress. A politician, what do you expect? Bullshit, all around. None of any of those classes of people deserve a cynical "lesser standard" handwave and a shortcut to pigeonholing. There are no excuses for asinine stupidity!
I don't care if it's Bill Cosby, Kim Jung-un, or the god-damned Pope perpetrating this nonsense: no human being should be allowed to be so feeble in their basic decency and reasoning.
And please keep to yourself the comments that either cheer me on or take me to task: if I could have closed the comments on this, I would have. I don't need reinforcement or censure, I don't need sources or surveys. I wouldn't even have posted this on Facebook, except that it's where I started typing.
I need people to think about the ideal that government and social communication is not a zero-sum winner-takes-all blood sport, and to take it to heart. This whole thing makes me want to vomit from frustration and fecklessness.