Nope, it's a single socket 12-core Xeon at top end.

Agreed. I've been using linux since 1998, and I'm still a noob compared to many here.

Most robbers don't pay to fix the homeowners homes. Nor do they pay for the homeowners to install security systems, or hire a security guard to patrol the premises.

Yet.

It doesn't end when they become adults. It's just as common in offices and social situations. They just try to hide it better from guys.

I'm pretty sure in 1998, I didn't have a quad core 1.2GHz machine with 2GB RAM, and integrated graphics, which could run for 12 hours on a self contained battery, while also maintaining wireless communications and constantly keeping me connected to the internet.

Sorry, those aren't designated Free Speech Zones. (No, I'm not kidding).

How long do you leave them with no one on call, and no one responding to pages, no one monitoring the intrusion logs, no one updating software, and no one looking for exploits and compromises? How many people could be infected by a 0-day dropped on a government website left up for weeks with no one even watching the cookie jar?

Sysadmins are seen more like janitors by most management than police. You're not protecting it, you're cleaning it up. They'll pay more people to guard it and keep people out than they would have to keep it open and cleaned if it means that they can follow the letter of the law instead of the spirit.

Then that answer would be yes. Because if they were openly planning it, and got elected, then that's the job they were elected to do. Same logic that was applied to the people approving of Obamacare because they re-elected Obama.

Also, a static page can be served by many load balancers, if the servers behind them are all unavailable. Standard procedure. In addition, if they had left the sites up during the shutdown, and they had been compromised, how many people do you think would have been infected by an unpatched 0-day left on a government site or 3 for 21 days or more? How many people do you even think would have thought before clicking "OK" to accept something? With no sysadmins to watch logs, catch intrusions and patch software, it's much better to just shut it down.

Highways are run by the states, funded by the federal government. Go drive down I-10 through Louisiana, and you'll see the difference the state makes. The military? That's not run well, we've gotten our asses kicked for the last decade by people with tech from the 60's and 70's, for a cost only slightly less than Social Security or Medicare. The police? You mean the mobile tax collection force that are run by the local governments and not the federal, which don't actually investigate property crime, and instead hope it falls into their laps? That police?

And if it gets compromised? And there aren't any sysadmins watching the logs and updating the software? And you don't know how long they're going to be gone? How many people do you think could be compromised by an unpatched 0-day up on a government "trusted" website for 21 days?

I do have kids. While i understand that they're not mini-adults, they're not completely empty-headed either. You do it with them for a while, get them used to it, and then do it with them periodically after that. Just like anything else, you teach them by example, you don't just tell them the words and expect it to stick.

They likely pay a company to do the mailers for them, which doesn't have access to any of their DBs. At most, they'll include a list of addresses to exclude based on current customers, but most don't even bother to do that.