"Quo usque tandem abutere, Catalina, patentia nostra? (How long, Cataline, will you abuse our patience?) -- Cicero
Conservatism has much to offer, but it is not a governing philosophy. Its proper role is to trigger "sober-second-thoughts" about policy. Designed as it was, according to its intellectual father, the late William F. Buckley, Jr., to "stand athwart history," conservatism does not really get the country anywhere. It has blocked or delayed virtually every technological improvement from the morse code in the 1850s to stem cells in the 2000s.
The key word in its "sober-second-thought" role is "sober." There is nothing "sober" about shutting down government depriving soldiers, veterans, elderly, children, researchers and so forth of needed services. There is nothing "sober" about even using the word "default," much less teetering on the brink of it.
It appears, now, that 25 (perhaps even 175) members of the GOP who are willing to break from their jihadi brethren, and vote for a continuing resolution ("CR"). But Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will not allow such a bill to be voted upon.
Why not, then, a discharge petition? With 218 signatures, the clean CR passed by the Senate can be voted upon on the House floor. The president can then sign it, and the government shutdown will, for now, be over.
And, then it is on to the next bit of jihadi nonsense, the debt limit.
And, just so that no one ever relaxes and provides citizens and businesses the "certainty" the right-wing has always said the latter requires, after the debt limit, we come back to the CR again.
Any doubt that conservatism is not a governing philosophy ought to be dispelled by the autumn schedule of phony crises the GOP has wasted its time, and certainly ours, manufacturing.
How long will they abuse our patience?