Shutting Down

The duly elected leadership of this great country of ours has decided to pack it in and shut down, because they can't agree on much of anything.  I feel rather sorry for all those government employees whose paychecks are now being pinched by the ineffective squabbling between Republicans and Democrats, this is really not how things should go in our country.  I wish that things like this didn't always end up punching the working/middle class so squarely in the teeth, but they usually do.  I think we need to seriously re-evaluate the system, because apparently it's broken.  Here are some signs:
1. We spend a lot on War.  Our defense budget, which is consequently, not being cut off, because it's considered so essential that even Congress wearing their butts as a hat should not be able to mess with our military spending, was 4.4% of our GDP in 2012 according to the World Bank.  Now, any fool will admit that being able to defend yourself is a rather important thing for a nation that has made it's share of enemies, after all we can't all be Switzerland (0.8% of GDP in 2012).  Most of the nations that beat us in defense spending as a percentage of GDP are places like Lebanon and Sudan, where bullets are flying, and where the GDP is a significantly smaller number.  The United States makes a LOT of money, and our defense spending is something like 20% of the total budget of the Federal government.  This sort of skew made sense in a world where imperialism was the modus operandi, but nowadays we're at least trying to say that's not the case.  We're still spending, and setting our policies, as though we're trying to secure the spice trade routes (in the same parts of the world too, hmmm).
2. The rich are pretending like they're the victims of an unjust system.  You hear a lot of yelping about taxes from people who earn rather comfortable incomes.  If you listen to certain news outlets, you might be led to believe that a person making a six figure income is somehow being unjustly robbed by a bunch of shiftless poor people who just leech off the system.  However, I would offer the premise that, if you are making a six figure income, something in the system has worked out rather well for you, and you ought to be willing, if not eager, to invest in the security and stability of the system that allows you to drive your BMW down well maintained streets that aren't marauded by roving bands of hooligans.  If you think taxation is such an injustice then, by all means, take a job that pays you less than a living wage, provides no healthcare, and requires you to sign up for foodstamps and welfare in order to feed your children.  You won't have to pay any income taxes (They'll still get you for Social Security though), and you will experience the immense luxury that all those on welfare have been keeping greedily to themselves.
3. Reasoned dialogue is in rather short supply.  If you watch how some of the most educated, articulate and successful people (yes I'm talking about Congress) in our society have been talking to each other, you can hear Plato and Socrates screaming in agony from the realm of the dead.  I have seen high school debates use more sophisticated rhetoric than what is taking place in the United States Congress.  A Yeats poem once said that "the center cannot hold," and that is being rather graphically illustrated in the halls of power at this very moment.  The ability to put aside personal preference, political expediency and general common sense for the greater good has somehow been undermined, and what we are left with are fragments of a splintered dialogue, where talking points are substituted for rational discourse.
4. The world, or even our nation, is not a better place because of the way things are.  We have such power, such wealth, such stability and freedom, and we're not using it to make the world better.  You can say it's not our job to improve the world, but that's just selfish.  You can say we're trying, but we're primarily trying to do it through force, and that's just backwards.  We are a living experiment in diversity, rationality and freedom, and we should take that very seriously.  If the grand social experiment that is the United States fails, then I think humanity will be the worse for it.  As much as some people seem to hate us, I think their hate is amplified because at the core they see what we could be, if we could just get over ourselves.  When I look at what's going on in our government I feel the same as when I'm frustrated with one of my children because they're just not trying very hard, or they're letting their petty squabbles get int he way of realizing their full potential.  I want to send Congress to bed without dinner and hope that they wake up with enough hunger to realize what they are wasting.