The government shutdown is now offically unAmerican – football games may be cancelled

 

Navy-Air Force game may fall victim to federal shutdown
[Via USAToday]

The government shutdown might affect college football this weekend and is already having an impact on other sports.

A decision will be made by noon ET Thursday on whether to postpone Saturday’s sold-out game in Annapolis, Md., between the Naval Academy and Air Force, according to a release from Navy. The game also is planned for national TV coverage on CBS (11:30 a.m. ET).

[More]

The Army-Navy game this weekend may be canceled. The politicians in Washington, especially the highwaymen of one party,* may be responsible for the cancellation of a football game.

Oh, the humanity. Today’s highwaymen continue to hold a pistol to our ear. Now we may lose a football game. Who would ever have imagined?

It used to be that only natural disasters or America’s enemies could result in a football game being cancelled. Now we actually see Americans helping to cancel a football game.

Who would have thought that 51 years after an external existential threat to America in October  1962, we would again enter an October with an existential threat  – from inside America?
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*I talked about this here. But you cannot read the Cooper Union Speech at the link I have used because the National Park website is closed. So, not only may a football game be cancelled but those highwaymen have also destroyed part of the Web. Thanks.

You can read the whole thing at another site, one that the government shutdown should not effect. It is actually one of the most important American speeches that people do not know about. It clearly lays out the differences between North and South, it makes logical appeals and rational arguments.

It is the speech that arguably gave us President Lincoln at a time we needed exactly that sort of leader.

And it demonstrates so much similar rhetoric between the parties then and the parties now. The terms used against Lincoln and the Republicans is similar to that used against Obama and the Democrats. The main difference is the topic and which party is holding the pistol. A few simple “search and replace” cycles and the speech could be read today.

Here is what Lincoln said in describing the treasonous criminals (14 Senators were expelled for treason) of his day:

Your [his opponents] purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

[…]

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool*. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”

In his Cooper Union speech. Lincoln demonstrated that the Republican Party felt that slavery should be controlled at the Federal level. We fought a civil war against the highwaymen holding a pistol to our heads over this point.

Will another such war arise because of the antics of today’s highwaymen? It could happen if more football games are cancelled.