The politics of hissy-fits...

Sigh.

I really don't want to write about politics today.

Actually, I don't really want to write about much of anything today. I've got horrible allergies, and for me that means that I feel like someone hit me in the middle of the face with a baseball bat. Well, as a matter of full disclosure, I've never actually been hit in the face with a baseball bat, so I can only imagine what it feels like. I have, however, been hit in the head with a baseball bat, and so I know how much that hurt. Extrapolating from that, I can imagine what it would feel like to get hit in the face. Also, my throat is sore.

However...

I have to say that I am very, very, very disappointed in the Tea Party Republicans and those who are so afraid of them in Congress that they went along with this stupid coupling of funding the government with defunding the Affordable Care Act. I'm disappointed that they would do this in the first place, and I'm even more disappointed that they are turning around and trying to blame the President and the Democrats for being the actual culprits in the government shutdown/slowdown/whatever you want to call it.

The Republicans are the ones who linked the two - the ACA and funding the government - in legislation. No one forced them to do that. They aren't willing to compromise, yet they turn around and blame the President and his party for not compromising. Which, of course, in the minds of the Tea Partiers, means nothing less than having Obama and the Democrats kneeling down and knuckling under and giving the obstructionists in the Republican party their way.

And, make no mistake, I'm not blaming all of the Republican Party for this, or even all the Republicans in positions of importance. There have been those in the party who have been trying to tell the Tea Partiers, the obstructionists, that they are not doing anything good for their country. But this small group (some estimates say that there are only 35 House members who are really dedicated to this course of action) will not listen, and are perfectly happy to hold the entire nation hostage in an attempt to force their agenda on a nation that clearly does not want it.

The thing is, the ACA was passed lawfully. It was signed into law by the President. It was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The Tea Party wing of the Republican party has tried somewhere between 40 and 45 times to defund or repeal the ACA and has not had the votes to do so any of those times. Yet they persist in their course. This says to me one thing: Their real aim is to be dictators and force their ideology on a country that does not want it.

This is not a course of action that comports with the values that the United States was founded upon.

Honestly, at this point, I can only conclude that the people who have pushed this course of action, Ted Cruz at the head of them, are acting like a bunch of five-year-olds who are convinced that if they just throw enough of a hissy fit, their parents will give them their way just to shut them up. I saw this sort of behavior on a more or less constant basis when I worked in retail. The kid would be screaming and crying and stomping their feet and, in order to get them to quiet down and stop being so embarrassing, their parent would give in and buy them the toy or the candy that they wanted. Which did (sometimes) shut them up for the moment. But, I can guarantee you, because the behavior was rewarded, they did it the next time they went to the store and they wanted something that it looked like their parent wasn't going to give them.

It's the same with the people who linked the ACA with funding the government. They are throwing a legislative fit because they haven't been getting their way. If the President and the Democrats back down and give them what they want now, the Tea Partiers will only throw a fit again, and take the country hostage again, the next time they don't get what they want. It is imperative that they not be encouraged in this juvenile behavior.

Ted Cruz and the others who have forced this shutdown on the country should be ashamed of themselves. They don't have the best interests of the nation at heart. They only care to take more power and wealth and attention for themselves, and the hell with the rest of us.

Yes, I am very, very disappointed in them. Not surprised that they would do this; it is in their character. They are, after all, authoritarians at heart. But, yes, extremely disappointed.