What is this “Government” You Speak Of?

I’m rather horrified by conservative reaction to the shutdown. Not just because it demonstrates their toddler-level pettiness, but also because it demonstrates, graphically, that conservatives don’t understand what government is. This is the only way to explain their prostrate-on-the-floor, flailing, squalling reaction to closing of various public spaces.

Apparently conservatives wanted to think that shutting down the government was no big because in their minds it was embodied by a mustache-twirling black man who works for the IRS standing on the neck of a fine, upstanding rich white man who just wants to run his business free of burdensome government regulations, dammit! But the government is a lot more than Blackie McTaker. It’s also Public McSpacey. And a ton of other things that make this country fun and livable.

Yesterday I spoke to a man serving overseas in a war zone. This is a largely fun-free existence, as you may imagine. So the men and women serving overseas get their pleasure where they can. This includes the Armed Forces Network, which provides programming for those serving outside the U.S., so they can stay at least somewhat in touch with popular culture. The Armed Forces Network is currently no more. It’s non-essential. So now our soldiers are without even this small comfort. And, presumably, the people who run the network are now not drawing paychecks.

I also had to attend an orientation at a Navy base daycare. I was served, but not by the woman with whom I had made the appointment. She’d been furloughed. Another person not drawing a paycheck.

This shutdown isn’t a fucking joke…is what I’m saying.

And, ya know, government is government. You don’t get to spend 99% of your time demonizing it, then wail like a fucked walrus when one of the “good” services is suspended.