Did Republicans Shoot America in the Foot?

       After reading this article Republicans Shoot America in the Foot I find myself pretty ruffled, which shouldn't come to a surprise since the author is the president of a union. Leo Gerard, the person who wrote this article, is president of the United Steelworkers union and was also appointed to the President's Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. As you can see from some of his previous works such as "Get your GOP hands off my medicare," this article is going to be full of hatred and slander: and it is.
       The article is primarily about the government shut down, and of course how it's all the big bad heartless GOP's fault. It's full of emotional based appeals about all the workers put on furlough, how badly it affected the fiscal structure of the government, and some primary sources such as restaurant owners near national parks. But it is also full of random tidbits of slanderous remarks towards the GOP which are just unnecessary. I'm not trying to justify in any way that what the Republican party did was right, but at the same time I don't have any squabble with it. What I do abhor though is how almost every paragraph ending in a pure hate statement such as "To the GOP, job losses are just collateral damage." or "It's one thing for the GOP to blast itself in the foot; it's unconscionable for Republicans to shoot America." 
       The article didn't have any information that hasn't been covered on every news station in America these past couple of weeks. I believe Leo Gerard wrote this only to get himself off on his own bias towards a group that doesn't share his own beliefs. I just can't take this article serious with sentences like "To Republicans, governing is a fistfight, a war. It's about destruction" and "It's gunning down America." I guess it's just my personal opinion but if you want to persuade me don't only use pathos based arguments when it comes to politics; I'd rather see facts and arguments based on logic, then maybe even a solution to the problem to make me say,"hmm, you know what man, you're absolutely right." 

America Was Designed For A Stalemate

          Francis Fukuyama has written an opinion article in BBC news (opinion article), explaining his analysis of why the government has shut down, and why it's broken. I have many agreements with this article with only a few disagreements. Fukuyama really puts reasoning into perspective by comparing our governmental system with other developed countries' democratic systems. The majority of the article is him bashing on republicans, but also explains why our whole governmental system is designed to cause these problems in the first place.
          The first problem he issues is that the U.S. "features a legislature divided into two equally powerful chambers, each of which may be held by a different party, alongside the presidency." Of course this poses problematic because both parties have different ideologies so there's a lot of room for disagreement. I like how Fukuyama then explains how in the 20th century, although there was still the same issue, the two parties shared some ideology overlap so it wasn't as problematic; whereas recently, the two parties have drifted much further toward their designated side of the spectrum. He then gives the voice of two political scholars who state that this problem creates "governmental paralysis," which I believe to be true. 
           Next I want to mention that Fukuyama uses the term "vetocracy" many times throughout this article. I personally had never heard the word vetocracy before, but I am so glad I know it now because I believe it fits our system style just ever so properly. My favorite quote from this article involving the idea of vetocracy is, "Our political system makes it easier to prevent things from getting done than to make a proactive decision." 
             Fukuyama then goes on to show how our once inspirational democratic structure now just looks inadequate by comparing it to other developed nations. He also compares our health care system to other countries' which really shows just how ugly it is by saying, "our health-care system was highly dysfunctional, costing twice as much per person as the average among rich countries, while producing worse results and leaving millions uninsured."
              I just really like how he explains how our system is broken by explaining it in a way I personally haven't seen before. My only complaint about this article is how he never proposes a solution. He just talks down on our system but never explains a way to fix it. Other than that, I found this article very informational and interesting.