If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a dozen times: politics isn’t my thing. Even so, like most Americans (I assume), I have an opinion about what’s going on in our nation’s capital tonight. And also like most Americans (again, I’m making assumptions), I think what’s going on is totally ridiculous. And reprehensible. Repugnant, even.
I get that there are philosophical differences between the parties, though, honestly, I think it’s been a long time since the D.C. arguments were really much about philosophy. Rather than a philosophical debate, our legislature appears to be more like a playground sandbox engaging in a giant game of “Oh yeah?”, “Says who?”, punctuated by great big raspberries from both sides. I did say it was ridiculous, right?
Of course, I’ve got a little bit of skin in this game. As a federal employee, my husband is looking at an indefinite furlough, and we’re just getting things fully back on track after the last furlough. And things are iffy, even for me. Our firm practices almost exclusively in federal court, so if this thing lasts more than a couple of weeks, the courts will probably shut down, too, or at least slow down greatly. How that impacts all the civilian employees who have litigation pending is totally up in the air. So since I’m sitting here watching the nightly local news with a countdown showing just forty-four minutes remaining, I have to assume that hoping for the shutdown not to happen is futile, and instead I suppose I’ll switch my energies to just hoping it doesn’t last too long.
But it occurs to me that if there are any congressfolk who’d like to give themselves a little bit more job security, maybe they could step out of the sandbox, brush themselves off, and leave the playground behind. Because there are an awful lot of Americans who’d be grateful if at least a few of our elected officials would simply grow up.
