I know that some out there are blaming President Obama for the shutdown, and saying that if only he’d negotiated more (i.e. capitulated to unreasonable demands and terrorist-style hostage-taking measures) Congress could have averted this.

Horseshit.

For those of you still confused, let me offer an analogy that I think hits pretty close to accurate and that you may understand better:

Imagine that you work for a big company that has had a plan in the works for a couple years to change the health insurance plan. There was some major debate and contention over it, but ultimately, management and employees agreed on the plan.

Still, a few people who really hated it wasted the company’s time with dozens of meetings trying to get the plan changed back to the old, shittier system. Their efforts failed.

So, a few days before people are supposed to start signing up with the new health insurance plan, the minority of people dead-set against it threaten to shut down the company.

And, indeed, in an alliance between the human resources department, the accounts payable department and a few executives, that small number of people block the entrances to the company, shut down the IT department, refuse to release paychecks to much of the company and refuse to pay a lot of the bills. They declare that they are perfectly willing to let people not get paid, ruin the reputation of the company and possibly fundamentally damage the ability of the business itself to recover.

A few dozen people.

Shutting down your company and cutting off paychecks to you and/or people close to you.

Willing to let the company metaphorically burn to the ground, affecting your future livelihood.

All over a healthcare plan they don’t like but that the majority gave the green light to.

So, if you’re still supporting the people in Congress who’ve ensured this shutdown because they want to shut down the Affordable Care Act, I guess you’re not one of the rank and file workers in the company.

You must be one of the collaborators who’s happy to see chaos because you didn’t get your way.

In other words, you’re a petulant child.

I’ve put up with a lot of useless and damaging crap, like the failure-ridden No Child Left Behind Act and the civil liberties-taking USA Patriot Act that President Bush put into place, and I never would have supported a government shutdown to de-fund or delay either one of them.

That’s because I’m a damn adult, and I accept I can’t always get my way.

It’s high time for a lot of other people to grow up, too.