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Mr. Freeze

us government shutdown - it's happening

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Just found out we will still be imaging comet ISON with our satellites in orbit around Mars today, most of NASA shutting down didn't affect that thankfully. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity, it would've been the first significant loss from this idiocy if it were canceled.

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Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

-Groucho Marx

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The Net's going black! :O



EDIT: I'm not a liberation, the tea party are a bunch of idiot babies and I'm sorry for the havoc this is causing for people on the US government payroll.


I just really, really like Deus Ex

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Zed said:

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

-Groucho Marx


He's just jaded about politics, because Karl Marx beat him out in attaching -ism to his name.

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Bucket said:

A website crashed because of an increase of server traffic? STOP THE PRESSES


I wonder what will start working first:

GTA Online or the U.S. government. We should all start placing bets.

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Monitoring the entire world's electronic communication is work expensive.

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Ralphis said:

Why are there are over 800,000 federal employees?


Amateurs. In Greece there are over 800,000 state employees on a population of 10,000,000, with an economically inactive population of 7,600,000.

Dunno what happens if you also count each of the USA's States' public employees separately.

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Maes said:

Amateurs. In Greece there are over 800,000 state employees on a population of 10,000,000, with an economically inactive population of

Oh Greece...

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NiTROACTiVE said:

I've recnetly found about this, and it's looking very bad. The USA is pretty much fucked. Unless if there's some sort of miracle.
Oh that's nice. This world won't stop becoming ridiculous, won't it?


More taxes or cuts in spending. If you raise taxes, people will just not pay them. Detroit proved that. Time to quit spending, but who can stop? In fact cutting spending wouldn't matter.

The USA owes something like >>> 17,000,000,000,000

If the USA paid back $1 per SECOND at $86,400 per DAY it would take 539,066 YEARS. Its not possible to pay it back.

Better yet.... what stupid countries give us this money? What deals did the US make way back when? To top it off.... if we can't pay then what? War were declared? Other countries go bankrupt?

The USA has been in mega debt for 50+ years at $280,000,000,000. There's no stopping it. That's just how it is.

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geo said:

More taxes or cuts in spending. If you raise taxes, people will just not pay them. Detroit proved that. Time to quit spending, but who can stop? In fact cutting spending wouldn't matter.


Careful. Greece proved that you can do both with surprisingly little backlash: both inhumane spending cuts, AND hypertaxation. Despite people bitching and moaning that "they can't pay any more taxes", more than 80% of taxpayers ultimately did pay their taxes in full and in time, even if that required withdrawing bank deposits, resorting to loan sharks or pawning valuables. And that's after a 6-year recession and a 25% loss of GDP. People will jump through hoops just to keep out of trouble.

It's a sort of indirect nation-wide asset haircut, targeting everyone indiscriminately, and since they didn't receive a strong negative reaction that couldn't be quelled (quite the opposite, they got unexpectedly high compliance rates), they correctly concluded that what they are doing is viable, and thus will keep doing it.

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geo said:

More taxes or cuts in spending. If you raise taxes, people will just not pay them. Detroit proved that. Time to quit spending, but who can stop? In fact cutting spending wouldn't matter.

Nope and nope. Taxes didn't kill Detroit and austerity doesn't work.

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geo said:

Better yet.... what stupid countries give us this money? What deals did the US make way back when? To top it off.... if we can't pay then what? War were declared? Other countries go bankrupt?

Yes, the federal reserve is going to declare war against the united states...

The mere idea that war would be fought over this is beyond laughable tbh. War is not cheap and even in a dumb hypothetical where it would occur, then you have to ask what there is to gain in following the united states example in occupying foreign soil indefinably? No one would get their money back and they'd lose far more than they'd hope to get anyway.

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Kontra Kommando said:

I wonder what will start working first: GTA Online or the U.S. government.

The U.S. government works already (when asshole teabaggers aren't trying to kill it). You lose, pay up.

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End all foreign aid, its nothing more then bribery and the money money never reaches the people that need help. Cut the military budget in half. End the fed and stop bailing out the banks. Close all tax loopholes for the rich and corporate America. End the petrol dollar. Work on bringing the education system up to snuff. All of the above would help bring government spending down and lower taxes in the long run. Sure their will be some up front costs for a few, but they will quickly be paid for once some of the others kick in.

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fraggle said:

America's dysfunctional and toxic two party political system will continue until the electoral system is reformed.

Assuming the people there aren't too stupid to accept electoral reform, like they are here in the UK, heh. Still can't believe we were given a referendum to change voting for the better and people voted against it.

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Statue of Liberty is closed down :-(

2 party system? Our forefathers were smart enough to think of a government to have 3 branches to watch over one another.

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Who was supposed to be watching the judiciary while it came down with the same affliction that's plaguing the legislative branch?

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executive?

Basically its why parents shouldn't have 3 kids. 2 will always gang up on 1.

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The theory being that the would only 'gang up' in the one when it tries to grab too much power... Not sure how that's working out in the 'States, though.

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The 2 party system exists only to justify their party's existence. If you don't argue against the other party, then why does your party exist? Disbanding party-ism might be helpful in one way, but in a negative light, some people vote with the party, not the person.

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geo said:

2 party system? Our forefathers were smart enough to think of a government to have 3 branches to watch over one another.

But not smart enough to come up with a democracy with runoff elections which would prevent a two-party system.

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I like how the Republicans are freaking out how overboard this government shut down is. Like how a cameras and websites don't work now because of the shutdown. Well, web hosting costs money even if its pre paid somewhere. They're also spazing out that the national cemetery, statue of liberty and white house tours are being shut down, saying its the children that suffer.... yep not to mention the 800,000 government employees not getting paid.

Does that mean the FBI and CIA and army have shut down?

>> edit >> I just heard on the news that civilian employees of the military return to work today. Sam's Club is giving free memberships to military past and present. Maybe Sam's Club can get out of the shadow of Cost Co.

Amber Alert website is down too.

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Urban Space Cowboy said:

The U.S. government works already (when asshole teabaggers aren't trying to kill it). You lose, pay up.


I was actually coming here to claim victory for GTA online, since they release some patches for it over the weekend. I was finally able to play for a few hours last night. The government is still shutdown.

But its not just the tea bagger republicans, its also the democratic controlled senate. Both parties are to blame; gov't doesn't function well when its divided like it is currently.

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geo said:

The 2 party system exists only to justify their party's existence. If you don't argue against the other party, then why does your party exist? Disbanding party-ism might be helpful in one way, but in a negative light, some people vote with the party, not the person.


It be more traditionally american, if they did away with parties. Party politics are really an invention of the 19th century. George Washington warned Americans of the negative consequence of political parties, which he called "factions", would have on democracy.

George Washington said:
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.


http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/158945-the-alternate-domination-of-one-faction-over-another-sharpened-by

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Not really; political parties are simply conspiracies by groups of politicians to game the system in their favour. They will always exist as long as people have agendas and things they want to achieve. You could "ban" political parties but then those loyalties would simply be forged in backrooms instead. Much better to have a system where parties are at least openly acknowledged and we can see them for ourselves.

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge" certainly sounds like the two party politics that dominate America, though. If Washington had known what we know today, perhaps he and the other US founding fathers would have chosen a better electoral system that doesn't automatically lead to a two party system. Does anyone seriously think that the political views of 300 million people can really be distilled down to two distinct positions? Americans today ought to be calling for electoral reform to end this toxic tribalism that ruins their politics and is currently bringing them towards the brink of insolvency.

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fraggle said:

If Washington had known what we know today, perhaps he and the other US founding fathers would have chosen a better electoral system that doesn't automatically lead to a two party system. Does anyone seriously think that the political views of 300 million people can really be distilled down to two distinct positions?


IIRC Washington advocated against political parties and there is no mention of them in our Constitution. Political parties were not implemented until his retirement from politics (was that also his death?). Perhaps the conspiracy was inevitable before the county was even founded?

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You say "the conspiracy" like I'm a conspiracy theorist talking about some grand nefarious scheme. I'm simply using "conspiracy" in the general sense of the word: people working together to achieve some goal. In the case of a democracy, political parties are conspiracies to game the system: if people with common political views agree to work together and vote the same way, they can exert more power than if they act solely as individuals. One way or another people will always do that, regardless of whether it's called a "political party" or not.

Some countries have voting systems that explicitly recognise political parties (eg. party list systems) but it isn't necessary: modern voting systems like STV give you proportional representation and preferential voting without explicitly incorporating political parties into the design.

The voting system currently used in the US makes the two party system inevitable; with a modern system you'd have a much looser grouping of smaller parties, and that would be at least vaguely closer to what Washington wanted. Given that no real multi-party political systems existed when he was alive, it's hard to guess what his opinions might have been. And that's the point, really: the US is a 200 year old system that at the time was a revolutionary experiment in government. It got a lot of things wrong, and some of those still haven't been fixed.

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