The Shutdown Ends

The shutdown has finally ended, much to the relief of the American people and to the thousands of federal workers who had been furloughed during the crisis. In terms of partisan politics, the Democratic Party certainly ‘won’. In polls Democrats are consistently ahead and liked a lot more than the Republicans.

Hopefully the Democrats and Obama have learnt a lot from this crisis. They finally said no to the Republicans and refused to negotiate with their brinkmanship tricks and look how well it turned out. They won the policy fight and devastated the Republican Party’s popularity. Perhaps in the future Democrats will start winning instead of losing consistently.

Unfortunately some Democrats have taken this win too far and headed into rabidly radical territory. A petition has been set up that’s been going round on the liberal blogs and facebook page calling for the arrest of Republican leaders on the charge of sedition. The petition, started on moveon.org, reads as follows:

“I call on the Justice Department of the United States of America to arrest Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and other decision-making House Republican leaders for the crime of seditious conspiracy against the United States of America.”

Republicans absolutely need to be punished for what they did to the United States when they shutdown the government, but you can’t do that by arresting them – you do it through the ballot box. Arresting politicians for sedition has all the hallmarks of a dictatorship, not a democracy. Anyone who signs this petition cannot call themselves a liberal or a supporter for Democracy. If you really feel that strongly about what the Republicans did, then volunteer to help the Democrats in 2014 or organise a petition to have them recalled. Arresting them is not the answer.