The Republicans and Democrats seem practically hysterical about a government shutdown, which will not in fact affect the daily lives of most Americans. But while Democrats hold the government hostage to provide free healthcare on our dime to illegal aliens, it might be worth noting that part of our problem is that we allowed government and its functions to bloat beyond all sense and proportion.
First of all, many activities that are considered essential, or that are funded separately, continue to operate, including healthcare, national security, air travel, some federal courts, postal services, and entitlement programs such as Medicare— not to mention Congress. That is probably why Republican voters usually support shutdowns rather than accept increased spending.
However, we can learn another lesson from the shutdown hype — namely, that we didn’t keep the federal government strong yet strictly limited as the Founders aimed to do. Rather, we — by which I largely mean Democrats like FDR and Lyndon Johnson, but also some Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower and George W. Bush — forced the federal government into so many areas and sectors of society, hired so many government employees, and generally ignored the Constitution that now there are millions of people who might find themselves inconvenienced by a government shutdown.
The federal government, constitutionally speaking, should not be involved at all in healthcare, education, national parks, and dozens of other areas. But it is. And of course the issue is that when millions of people are dependent on the federal government and taxpayer dollars for food, housing, education, healthcare, and so on, inevitably any government crisis will affect countless people.
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St. Jerome once made an observation that many writers and thinkers of the Judeo-Christian tradition have made in various forms: “What a man desires, if he worships it, is to him a god.” This can be just as true of politics as of different types of spirituality. The Democrat Party is a pseudo-religious cult. Its most devoted adherents will always, without exception, hysterically defend everything their leaders do and vote for them no matter what, while blaming all problems on their political opponents.
LGBTQ ideology is a sort of false religion, where even nature itself has to be redefined to fit in with perverse theories. Abortion activists, as the great Rush Limbaugh observed, treat baby-killing as a kind of demonic sacrament.
And unfortunately, the federal government has become in a way the center of a pseudo-religious philosophy. No matter the crisis—real or fake—whether a flu virus, bad weather, job loss, academic loans, housing shortages, or anything else, too many Americans’ first reaction is not, 'What are we going to do about it?' but, 'What is the federal government going to do about it?" We saw the culmination of how dangerous it is to over-rely on government during the calamitous COVID-19 lockdowns. Many Americans woke up after that, but not enough.
Regardless of the Democrats’ outrageous behavior, and regardless of which specific government programs and agencies are still functioning today, America would certainly be much better off if we returned to our founding ideals of individualism and constitutional limits on government rather than the modern socialistic reliance on government for practically everything.
And as usual, Babylon Bee hits the nail on the head:
We've Compiled A Comprehensive List Of All Essential Services You'll Lose In A Government Shutdown https://t.co/hXpryxge5L pic.twitter.com/2H8Y327lD7
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 1, 2025
