Who shut down the government?

I have found this question to be a great litmus test.

I know a lot of people who don’t want to disclose whether they are on the left or on the right, but the answer to this question instantly smokes out the liberals among us. Simply asking “Who caused the shutdown?” can help you figure out who is lying about their beliefs and will stab you in the back in an instant.

It’s important to know who the liberals are you have to deal with on a daily basis. Knowing who the snakes in the grass are is the best defense in “office politics.”

Well, that was the discussion I was having with Vermont lt. The first indicator was Vermont? really? But maybe there are a few exceptions there that don't eat Ben and Jerry's nut concoctions. The he said he worked for the government and knew there were smart people there. That really made me wonder where he was coming from. Even most government employees will admit it's a mess.

For me, a government employee should either have to work in the real world for a few years before or after their stint in government and no pension would be paid except for the armed services. I'm 62 and for most of my adult life it has been the same everywhere I go. Government is inefficient, arrogant, and usually incompetent. I hate to put everybody in the same basket because I have met some that were fairly sharp, but if they had any ambition, why didn't they leave? It's because they BELIEVE in government. I watched all my life as the Soviets, Cubans, and East Germans suffered under unimaginable hardship to prove government works. One of the biggest mistakes to come out of USSR was when the west found out they had no real supply of toilet paper. many idealistic Americans had their eyes opened about that time. It's one thing to read a book and quite another to live under it. Then Nixon did his price control crap and proved again the government was INCAPABLE of the simplest control to "help" the people. We have been teaching our children that socialism is "workable" but can't show one example where capitalism wouldn't work better. They throw Social Security and Medicare at us but change the subject when the budget shortfalls have to be fixed. If you take your Social Security data that you get every year and pretend to put your money and the employer match into an IRA @5% annually, we could all retire with at least twice and probably 3 times the money SS pays. And Medicare is a mess that is breaking the US and that's only for 65 and older, not ObamaCare. Galveston County Texas employees dropped SS and invested their own money. They retire early with twice the money if a media outlet would just go look.

This is a product of government education. It has been proven over thousands of years what human nature does to people when they get a little control over someone else. Even in America they are trying to tell us what to eat and how much and what hobbies are good and bad, ect. As we speak, our young children are being beaten up for making a gun from a POP Tart. Why, so the next generation will have a Pavlov reaction when the government confiscates our guns for our own good. So far, they haven't gotten that far, but just like cancer, it will be back.

I was still thinking about what you said with the litmus test. Another quick "tell" might be to find out their opinion of Ted Cruz. If they give you the pat answer that it was foolish and we didn't have the votes, then we know they aren't where we are. They don't understand civil disobedience. If they can't understand voting for cloture was giving in, then why not give in on the future? Cruz recently had a town hall meeting and had 104,000 at his meeting and they cheered him on. He is now the front runner for the Rep nominee. Conservatives are marking their territory and the near future should show who is who. Please, somebody go "mark" McCain and Graham.

I am waiting for Palin to mark McCain in public. She still feels loyalty for "discovering" her, but now he's just a drag. I would love for BOR to ask her on his show what she thinks of what McCain is doing to Cruz. Her whole career would be decided in 5 seconds.

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