The Self-Preservation Machine

A growing number of Democrat and GOP establishment types are now expressing grave concern—almost panic—over the partial government shutdown. Their trained hamsters in the media follow suit: Every line at every airport—shutdown! An isolated case of food poisoning—shutdown! The Superbowl may be affected—shutdown!! and on ... and on. But for the vast, vast majority of Americans, the shutdown has little or no effect on their lives. And that's really what the establishment's hysteria is all about.

Roger Simon touches on this when he writes:

... the shutdown should be about much more than the wall and border security. Serious as they may be, they are what the shrinks call the "presenting complaint." The real issue is the function of government itself -- what's important and what's not. A shutdown can serve as a living laboratory for examining the question of what is actually worthwhile that is missing because of that event. I daresay that most outside the Beltway would be hard pressed to find anything. (A fair number of these people can get around the National Parks by themselves, especially in the days of GPS.)

Both sides fear shutdowns not just because of that nauseatingly tedious inter-party blame game, but more importantly because it exposes this bloat and who caused it (i.e., who paid for what). This is the Deep State in action, in the off-chance anyone hasn't noticed. What has been created by our government over decades is a self-preservation machine immune to the normal capitalist processes of creative destruction that have largely improved society over centuries, enriching almost everyone and extending life expectancy.

At it's core, the worry about the shut down is worry that the average citizen just might recognize that big government can be paired back—way back—and that nothing much will happen if it's done intelligently. That causes hysteria among Dems and some in the GOP. After all, if government gets smaller, their influence and power shrink and if that happens, well ... IT JUST CAN'T HAPPEN. The "self-preservation machine" must prevail.

After all, the last thing that Washington elites want the rest of us to ask is: "What's important and what's not."