[gnr61]

in order to keep a tenable model of democratic governance we agree to certain norms in the process of putting legislation into law; should the shutdown prove in any way successful we are looking at an ugly precedent: the capacity of the minority (in this case one half of one third of the government branches) to repeal or demand the alteration of already-passed and supreme-court vetted legislation it doesn't like by threat of stopping things that should *also* fall into givens of governance (ie. raising/abolishing the debt ceiling, actually *running* the government), which can't be bargaining chips lest the whole thing fall to pieces.

this isn't a matter of "they refused to negotiate." some functions of government cannot be seen as valid for leveraging by the losing party; this REALLY can't be spun as anything other than hostage taking.