Or rather, why capitulation isn't compromise, and why Republicans need to go back to both high school English and high school civics to learn what those words mean and how they apply to the governing process.
See, the reason that the bank being robbed is not responsible for the hostages getting shot if they don't hand over the money is because the law does not want to encourage bank robberies by making them easier to accomplish and get away with. And that analogy applies to the current shutdown crisis, too. The Republican-controlled House took government functionality hostage, and demanded the Senate hand over ACA defunding measures. The Senate refused. Republicans shot the hostage, and now they and Rupert Murdoch's minions over at Fox Noise and CNN are trying to blame the Senate (because 2014 is not that far away and laying off -- yes, that's what "furlough" really means in practice -- 800,000 people is kind of a dick move and they know it).
The current problem with compromise is that those in charge of the House don't actually want to. Or at least they don't want to compromise in the way the word is supposed to work. In House Tea Party Republican Fantasyland, "compromise" means "give us what we want, full stop." And this is plainly obvious when you do the math. A simple majority in the House right now is 218 votes. There are 201 Democrats, and about 20 Republicans who have publicly indicated that they would vote in favor of a continuing resolution that leaves the ACA alone. Boehner refuses to bring it to a vote not because the votes to pass aren't there, but because they are and he's under the delusion that he needs the Tea Party's support in order to keep his leadership role (not even bothering with a joke here, it's easy enough that you can make up your own).
This becomes either doubly hilarious or doubly sad when as far as the American public is concerned, they have zero fucks to give about the Tea Party. Sad because this demented tantrum is costing millions of people badly needed assistance and paychecks and hurting an already struggling economy, and hilarious because it's like watching Mean Girls, in reverse, with a cast of men who are more than old enough to know better.
Compromise, in the real world, involves concessions that both sides can live with in order to resolve a conflict. When one side refuses to make any concessions and demands concessions they know will fuck over not just the other side, but a shitload of other people (many of whom will die without healthcare coverage they can afford), that's not compromise. That's terrorism. Just not the kind that uses trucks full of fertilizer. If House Republicans had the Senate chamber and every major city in the country wired to explode if they didn't get their way, we'd be calling it terrorism. Using the same tactic without the explosives doesn't make it different.
The irony, of course, is that this is the part where those of us on the left can quote the only intelligent thing that ever came out of Bush 43's mouth.
We will not negotiate with terrorists.
