Each time Washington flirts with a government shutdown, the ruling class descends into hysteria. Politicians predict calamity, bureaucrats issue warnings of chaos, and the media blares that civilization itself teeters on the brink. But truth, as always, is the first casualty of panic. A temporary halt in government operations is not a national tragedy; it is a mirror held up to a bloated state, forcing America to see how much of its daily life functions perfectly well without the omnipresent hand of Washington.

Let us begin with what is just and moral. Those who defend our lives like our soldiers, police, and first responders must be paid without question. They embody the principle of duty freely chosen, of courage in the service of freedom. They cannot "shut down" their posts when politics turns petty, and they should never be used as bargaining chips by those who mistake government power for moral authority.

Beyond that essential duty, a pause in the federal machine could serve as a cleansing breath for the nation. For decades, the bureaucratic state has swelled beyond recognition, a vast apparatus detached from productivity, from reality, and from the people it claims to serve. Most Americans would not notice if entire agencies went dark for weeks, because the true engine of America is not the Department of Commerce or the EPA.........

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