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"The government shut down just shows that our government doesn't function correctly!"  That's one interpretation, the other is that when a car starts to smoke, you pull over and fix it, you don't keep going till it explodes, though I recognize the explosion makes for better TV.  What you're seeing is the ordinary back room realigning of interests and powers, but this time trying desperately to hide from a voyeuristic media that caters to a demographic, i.e. you, that believes that never more than three at a time colorful but poorly understood #issues will eventually get us to Mars.  "We shouldn't go to Mars."  You got your wish.

Americans, by which I mean a populace propagandized to the Left or Right or Middle, cynically believe that "wanting to get re-elected" or arrogance or ideology is what's to blame, as if 500+ career Machiavellians are too stupid to know what an underemployed theater grad knows.  "They should just do the right thing!"  Who will let them?  You?

The shut down was the inevitable consequence of a government not permitted to compromise, smothered by the oppressive gaze of a kamikaze media that will kill itself and your country just to get a headline today.  I'm starting to wonder if the reason it is always pretty white girls who get kidnapped is that the media is the one kidnapping them.  And you blamed Bear Stearns for being too focused on short term profits?  CNN's time horizon is your next micturition.   The media demands partisanship, conflict, opposing sides, but despite having 24 hours to fill will never, ever explain the interplay between complex issues, preferring to feature them in segments while hyping them to a crisis.   Imagine trying to have sex always on camera, and always with a goat, and always with some know-it-all screaming at you, "get hard now!  NOW!  8 seconds left!  NOW!  What's wrong with you?!"  Jesus, can I take a minute and do this privately?  "Transparency!"

If Senator X "makes a concession" the relevant media will proclaim him a loser and a coward, they don't want representatives, they want cage fighters.  There's no reward for compromise and there's no safe place to attempt it, either.  This is 100% your fault, "I can't believe how stupid these people are!"  It's great how you can't find employment but have time to micromanage the U.S. Senate. #outrage

If you want to know what political career disaster looks like, have an infinitely leggy ex-sorority girl in flesh toned Manolos sitting behind a glass table in perfect lighting announce to 50% of America that you were beat by an old woman from California or an old man from Ohio.  "Ha ha, what a cuckold!  Back to you, Kent."   You blame Congress?   They are the ones who "don't get it"?  When a representative democracy gets crippled by what amounts to a 3x3 magic square, it's not that they can't figure out the solution, the solution is easy, the answer is 15 and the five is a gimme, we just need someone to dare allow himself to be filmed putting the 1 on the left or the right or the center so we can finish the other 13 numbers and go bomb Syria.   "Wait, what?  I don't understand."  Yes, that's my point exactly.

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"All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth."

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...Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to the keeping of peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles—which can only destroy and never create—is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war—and frequently the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

Some say that it is useless to speak of peace or world law or world disarmament—and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitudes—as individuals and as a nation—for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward—by examining his own attitude towards the possibilities of peace, towards the Soviet Union, towards the course of the Cold War and towards freedom and peace here at home.

First: Examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade—therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable—and we believe they can do it again....

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artu said:

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It's not being an intellectual which makes you socially impaired, it's the lack of desire to be desired.

      - A friend's facebook status, I dont know if it's original or quoted from some other source but Google search gives no results.

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