Zach Antoyan
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Zachary Antoyan is a political science senior and Mustang News liberal columnist. These views do not necessarily reflect the opinion or editorial coverage of Mustang News.
But I don’t wanna talk about the shutdownnnnn.
This past summer, I worked at a camp; it wasn’t any specific type of camp, it was just summer camp. Sometimes arguments or fights would break out between campers, and at times their squabbles were pretty funny. A lot of the time, arguments and fights break out between political parties, and all of the time their petty squabbles are detrimental, pointless and useless.
Campers can be in a fight one second and be best friends in the next moment, but unfortunately such is not the case for grown ups, which makes me wonder if we need counselors for them too. I’ve written on rhetoric before, I’ve written about congress functioning as a unit, but at the risk of sounding like our leaders and never making any progress, we’ll try to take some new and humorous perspectives on this shutdown thingy.
So far there has been a press conference from Obama and/or Boehner (whom I do not feel obligated to pronounce the correct way, due to funding of course) every single day of this shutdown. Because rather than actually talk to each other about the issue, they feel more obligated to talk to ‘the American people’ first. It’s strange, because I feel like they would rather come to us to complain than work with the other side.
It’s like we’re the middle person between two roommates that are fighting but are too passive aggressive to meet about it, which is more awkward than anything else. I can just see the sticky notes: “Dear Mr. Boner, please do the metaphorical dishes that you have left in the sink for the last week, and also could you tell your friends to stop being mean to me? Thanks a bunch, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.” Oh god, so many sticky notes…
These people spend more time talking at each other than with each other and one can only think about what the hell they are doing when they actually do meet. They’re always so vocal when it comes to speaking about the other side, or even about themselves, but the cross-party meetings and those between Boehner and Obama are always behind closed doors. What were you doing for the last three hours in the conference room? And no, playing Grand Theft Auto V is not an excuse … not this time.
I would imagine that these officials read to their children at night. But instead of the average “Goodnight Moon” or “Everyone Poops,” the children’s stories are titled “How to Run Your Country into the Ground: A Pop-up Book” … and now I’m wondering what that actually looks like.
Oh wait, this is what it looks like: “Let’s stop the excuses. Let’s take a vote in the House,” says Mr. Obama. “There’s going to be a negotiation here,” replies Mr. Boehner. Except the book never ends because they can’t actually come to a deal.
I was fortunate enough to see small children work together on the various activities we gave them at camp. At times it was truly inspiring because they were able to work within their limitations and work past their differences. What is happening now in Congress and in government is the utter disregard of teamwork, procedure and consequences.
All of a sudden, my roommate can’t get financial aid because the IRS can’t send her important documents, the relatives from Switzerland were stopped at the gate to Yosemite and told to turn around and a friend, just out of college, now has no way to pay for student loans because of furloughs. Whether the effects of the shutdown are close to home for you or not, the reality is that these are essential services the federal government provides. These are the problems millions of Americans are facing today, and hinging these issues on the funding of a Congress-passed, Supreme-Court-approved and already-in-effect law, causes too many more issues than what you, the hardline conservatives, are trying to solve for. The attrition from this lapse in government function is widespread, and frankly, we’re tired of it. Sit the %$#@ down, shut the %$#@ up and do your job.
This is Zachary Antoyan, starting to believe that our elected officials are actually lizard-people in disguise; plotting the downfall of humankind. Have a great week.