The Government: Closed Until Further Notice

Los Angeles, California – The showdown to slowdown the shutdown is now over. One of the members of the house, at midnight on Monday stated “It is now midnight, and the great government of the United States is now closed.” One senator said the government was completely shut down, another lawmaker said that the other side of the aisle lives in a parallel universe, and yet another from the other side said that it was like Alice in Wonderland. In Washington we are told by the Washington Post that multiple veterans broke down the barriers of a war monument, closed due to lack of funding because of the shutdown, to pay tribute to their fallen comrades, although no one seems to know who did what, and the President said the Republicans are trying to make an ideological point.

One Rep. from Michigan said that the American people would get better government from Monkey Island in the local zoo then they would from their Federal Government, according to the Associated Press.

So we see that in government there is a lot of talk going on right now. And there is usually a lot of talk. Emotionalism. Excitement, fear, hope, madness, from all corners of the political realm. That is why our Constitution is our nation’s great safeguard. Because men are not angels, and they let their heads get away with their reason. The constitution is the bulwark behind which our liberties reside. If its wall are breached, it must, in the end, be to arms.

There is talk about America and the debt ceiling crisis, but it is not likely that the government will default on its debts. And if it does, the world will not end. The world lasted over fifty-five hundred years without us, and will continue to do so long after we are gone.

This is a great nation, a nation full of people and ideas and beauty and industry. I have travelled from sea to shining sea, I have seen the amber waves of grain and I have climbed the purple mountains, in all their majesty. There are still a few righteous in the city.

When John Adams, the second president of the United States was elected, some predicted America and its liberties were forever gone. When Andrew Jackson, just over twenty years later was elected, other predicted the same thing. Our nation has through one crises after another, from the tax on tea just before the Revolution to our current government shutdown. We have survived nearly a dozen wars, one of which ripped our nation in half. We have gone through the Great Depression, and stock market crashes. But our nation is still here, because all those things were just crises.

Rome, the empire that lasted over 2,000 years, had one crises right after another, and the empire seemed to always look as if it was on the edge of collapse. When that happens, when we are afraid of everything falling apart, that is the last time to run around screaming, because in your wild career you might knock down the walls that guard our liberty.

It is a time for thought, and careful planning. It is a time for the men of wisdom to sit down and talk of what must be done, and hen to do it. It is a time to ask of God, with Solomon, for wisdom, for who can judge this Thy people that is so great?

Andrew C. Abbott