None dare call it treason. So I will.
The House GOP's newly announced strategy to defund Obamacare is nothing less than treasonous. It goes beyond gutting a duly enacted law, one that has been upheld even by a definitely Republican Supreme Court. If the House GOP can't get its way about defunding Obamacare, it threatens to first shut down the government and then force the country to declare bankruptcy even though it is not bankrupt. The latter would be accomplished by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. This is a way to absolutely destroy our country, and it is treason.
We've been here before. Last year. And 2011. Each time the the GOP House used the threat of not raising the debt ceiling as a way to extort meat-axe budget cuts. The first time they tried this, the world held its breath because plunging the USA over the cliff of defaulting on its debt would not only destroy our economy but that of the entire world. The great underpinning of the world's economy is the American dollar. The "full faith and credit" of our country supports all the world's transactions. Tarnish the strength of the dollar or destroy it and the economic engine of the world would freeze up like a car engine without oil.
Only an idiot would consider doing such a thing. Or a monster. It's an easy way to do exactly what the terrorists did on 9/11. It's an attack on the economic engine of America just as 9/11 was an attack on the World Trade Center and Wall Street. The difference is that far more people will die if the GOP carries out its attack. America's economic stability isn't just the oil that runs the engine of our worldwide economy; it's the transactional means that makes business and jobs and paychecks possible right in your hometown. Without jobs and paychecks, people starve, children can't get medical treatment, and people will freeze this winter for lack of heating fuel. And it will be happening to you.
The GOP crazies can't grasp that the debt ceiling is not just about money. Money itself is merely a symbol. It has no intrinsic value. The sole value it has is that it represents a promise and trust. We've all promised to honor it as a "means of exchange", and we all trust that the promise will be kept. What bolsters the promise is the reliability of the USA. Failing to honor our national debts is equivalent to shredding the dollar. Once people here or abroad start refusing to trust America financially and don't want to accept the dollar any more, we are all toast. We couldn't even switch to a different currency as the international oil for the world's economic engine because, if the dollar collapses, all currencies would be suspect, as would all "pay later" agreements. We'd be back in the Middle Ages with "business" chiefly in gold and silver coins on Market Day in the town square. Or by barter.
So do you want to try bartering with the pharmaceutical company that makes your child's epilepsy medicine? Just how would you go about doing that?
What the GOP crazies threaten is actually worse than treason. It would not only destroy our country by destroying its financial standing. It would murder people. It would make the Great Depression look like a day in the park. It would bring chaos and violence and death.
In a way, that's what the GOP crazies really want, isn't it? They want apocalypse. Scratch a true Tea Partyer and you likely have a fundamentalist so-called Christian who believes Armageddon is coming soon and is really glad about it. An economic Armageddon probably sounds like righteousness to them, i.e. Judgment Day on those who have debts.
The end-of-the-economic-world scenario also suits another deep streak in the GOP crazies: veneration of the principle of survival of the fittest. They of course believe themselves to be the fittest so they believe they will survive economic chaos while the rest of us perish. I imagine they also long to use all those weapons they love to stockpile. And what more exciting way than in defending their survivalist food stores from the onslaught of the starving? Theirs is definitely a bunker mentality.
President Obama has said he will not bargain with the GOP crazies in order to get the debt ceiling raised. I think he means just that and I say, "Good!" I hope they too realize he means it and back down from their nutcase position, just as the Russians and the Syrians realized that Obama is in fact one tough dude and they'd better give up the chemical weapons.
Meantime, if you start hoarding canned goods, don't forget the can opener.
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