You're on a desert island. Two individuals control the means to acquire say, fishing hooks for the others. This wouldn't kill everyone to not have, but the lasting effects of its absence would eventually snowball. One individual who has the string required decides to hold them back until the person who makes the hooks agrees to their demands. These demands seek to counter previously agreed upon tribal/community legislation to improve conditions for perhaps 15 per cent of the island's population. At this point you could muddle the analogy further but let's keep it simple.The string maker has threatened fishhook productions at the expense of preventing IslandCare. The hook maker refuses to cave into the demands because of the following reasons:
Ok, that was an interesting analogy... So lets look at potential outcomes here.
A. He refuses to cave in to the demands of the string maker and says "there will be no negotiations, I'd rather let the people starve".
Does he deserve equal blame? No, of course not. Does he deserve his fair share of the blame because he's now contributing to the problem and the people are suffering? Yes.
B. He doesn't cave in to the demands BUT he publicly acknowledges that he's going to the negotiation table. This makes the string maker look like a putz, and results in the people putting pressure on the string maker to the point where the string maker has no choice but drop his demands.
So by this kind of logic, Bush should have negotiated with the Taliban. Since even though he's being put to the screws to either sacrifice his keystone piece of legislation or government debt, it's somehow Obama's responsibility to "stop contrbuting" to his own Sophie's choice.
Sure, if you're going to apply a loose definition of "terrorist" like a few others have before you, this kind of logic works. Completely different situations, no matter how much you want to bunch them up.
I think it's ethically irresponsible for a president - any president - to maim already passed laws (and basically undo his job in the first place) because the other side intends to use public credit and default as leverage. I'm not saying I want the country to default; as it is, the reprocussions may be severe. No, I'm saying I don't fault the president for refusing to bow to Republican blackmail. What they're doing is reprehensible and it should not be rewarded. If the government defaults, the Republican party basically ruined its own future along with most of ours.
Nobody said cave. We are saying "sit at the table, show the nation you're the bigger man in the negotiation, even if you KNOW nothing will come out of it". If the government defaults, he would have contributed to it because as the president, while you aren't expected to back down or cave, you are held to a higher standard and must show some kind of leadership, which he isn't doing in this case.
See above. Letting the Republicans win this game of chicken has longer lasting reprocussions than does the imminent threat of default. For one, it will allow miinority parties to murder passed laws at every opportunity. Don't like a bill that makes your big business interests take care of their employees? Hold the budget hostage. Don't like any health reform that doesn't favor pharmaceutical companies and hospitals? Hold the budget hostage. Hey, don't want to have a cap on how often you can vote your own raise into effect? Hold the budget hostage!
Again, it's not blinking in a game of chicken, it's beating the Republicans' at their own game. Personally, there's nothing worse than a default. No repercussions are worse at this point. If the Democrats caved in, I understand your point in that it's setting a horrible precedent. But this isn't what is being asked, nor debated.