Report on the Government Shutdown if It Were Happening in Another Country | Hacker News Reader

Report on the Government Shutdown if It Were Happening in Another Country

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40 pointsdenzil_correa17 comments

All the coverage of the government shutdown issue seems to ignore the fact that the ease of obstructionism in the US system was by design. There are valid arguments about the wisdom of that design, as well as that design's utility in the modern world, but it's sad that most of the coverage I have seen doesn't even address this.

This article, in particular, doesn't address the point of view that actively limiting the government might be a net positive (although his cabbie might bring it up if the answer to his question about lawmakers knowing what they are doing is "No.)

> that design's utility in the modern world

Is it the modern world?

I'd think it's more a function of an uncompromising and highly state-hostile political philosophy which could and has arisen at other times.

I guess there's an argument that technology allows a magnifying effect for extreme voices that might otherwise be marginal.

I don't know if you are responding to the point you reference. I was simply pointing out that obstructionism is easy in the US by design. You can disagree with the designers, or disagree that the design still works today. But you can't disagree that the design exists.

That was certainly a thought-provoking parody. More accurately, it should probably be described as "if it were happening in a Third World country". I doubt that if the US media were reporting on some government issues in the UK or Germany, they'd use language like "sleepy capital city", etc., just as a UK paper wouldn't use that kind of language when talking about the US.

For example, here's an article on the US government shutdown as actually reported from another country (the UK):

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/30/senate-defeats-...

And The Guardian even provides a helpful list of which government services would be affected:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/29/us-government-s...

Does the shutdown mean the government won't be able to print money and give it to banks?

Does it mean US troops will be withdrawn from foreign lands?

Will flights grind to a halt as no one can pass through TSA?

Will America be surveillance free as the NSA shuts down?

Or is the extent of the shutdown that tours of the whitehouse won't be given?

sequestration already took care of the whitehouse tours.

All essential government operations (military, intelligence, security) will continue. Non-essential employees (passport processing leaps to mind) will be furloughed.

Scary examples: The apparatuses of a police state stay, the ability to leave the country goes away...

Or is the extent of the shutdown that tours of the whitehouse won't be given?

"Due to staffing reductions resulting from sequestration, we regret to inform you that WhiteHouse Tours will be canceled effective Saturday, March 9, 2013 until further notice."†

The above action was fall-out from an earlier budgetary conflict, in which Republicans allowed sequestration (an across-the-board 10% cut in discretionary spending) to take effect, pursuant to the Budget Control Act of 2011. Sequestration was a poison-pill invented by the President and inserted into the BCA in the belief that the Republicans would never let it go into effect because of its effect on military spending. Well, they did.

†http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/tours-and-events

> Does it mean US troops will be withdrawn from foreign lands?

No, but it does mean that they needed to pass / sign H.R. 3210 to make sure the troops still get paid.

In the keeping in perspective view, Speaker Tip O'Neil shut down the government 12 different times and once was over the Fairness Doctrine. We survived and the memory seems to fade.

Apparently people voicing their concerns through representatives is an act of rebellion. The media sure can't get enough of this story. With inflated language, talking about collapse, teetering on the edge, rebellion, etc. This is government in action. They don't always agree and that's called democracy. I don't get all doomsday-prune-canner just because non-essential workers are gonna stay home for a few days.

It sounds like you missed the tongue-in-cheek tone of the article. It's quite interesting to me to see how the media would report on these events if they were happening in another country.

I agree that it was an interesting thought experiment, and definitely will make me think twice about drawing conclusions about the internal political issues of another country from an article in The Economist. But the article explicitly called Senator Cruz's filibuster a rebellion, which is simply untrue.

...which makes you wonder, when the media calls something a "rebellion" in another country, what is it really?

An interesting question, and one I'll keep in mind when reading about other countries from now on. Coup d'taut's by military organizations can probably safely be called rebellions, but purely political disagreements I will be much more wary about drawing conclusions.

Oh I got it. It was about as funny as a clown at a funeral. I guess people here think it was about showing how the media slants foreign events. But IMHO it's just another liberal rant about how the GOP are obstructionists.

>> This is government in action.

That's the part that isn't being reported. The choice to shut down the government is built into the US political system, by design. The arguments against shutdown should be based on merits, not a blanket statement that the government cannot be shut down.

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