Specifically, what ‘slogans’ have they been using that sound oh! so much like fascist slogans?
A legal definition of ‘Homeland’ is found in the Homeland Security Act. Nothing exciting. Includes CONUS, DC, Puerto Rico, all those islands, and, “…any possesion of the United States.”
We have some special forces in the Phillipines. I can’t think of any other now independent nations that rely on the US for defense. (Technically, Japan, I suppose, but they can take care of themselves now.) Regardless, who asked for help and didn’t get it?
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You’re kidding, right? Do you understand just what the DHS does?
Brutus: The Philippines does not rely on the US for defense. They have their very own Armed Forces. The former territories which do are the Federated States of Micronesia (just to name one). My point in that question is: they’re now a separate country, so how can they be considered part of the “homeland.”
No, I’m not kidding. What I’ve seen the DHS do is get a bunch of other agencies, that were doing their jobs (Coast Guard, for example), moved into them.
They should be of help. In addition to that, there are any number of programs that add a searchbar to your browser. I’ve been using Google’s own, a very simple utility that also adds the capacity of highlighting and right-clicking text right into a Google search – a real time-saver.
Originally posted by BoringDad
No one in America EVER mentioned the word Homeland to refer to their country before this act.
Yes, a wager in this case would be so meaningful. So I can see why you would make vague hints to get me to put my money out before actually giving some information. So yes, I’ll bet $200,000,000 that no-one in the US routinely used the term “Homeland”.
Slightly different wording than my original? Sure. But I thought that I had loaded the original with enough over the top rhetoric to make it clear that taking me word for word was not likely to achieve logical results. Note, before you ask, I do NOT actually have the entire US over for tea routinely.
But I did also find this interesting paper, talking about the ‘Iranic/Persian’ origins of Croats. I suppose you need to be a Croat to find that even vaguely interesting. (Homeland+google=All sorts of odd stuff!)
For you federal-state kine of folk, you should be pissed off that the DHS subcontracting your state, local (and hopefully, pending amendments) tribal emergency response teams to perform what is a constitutionally federal job, one of the most fundamental tasks the federal government is supposed to uphold. Some of you might remember that bit about the common defence…
And they’re underfunding it, thanks to that giant tax cut from which most you will not noticably benefit in the long run.
You’re subsidising the federal government for your own protection now, and the employees of that department, something like eight out of ten of whom do not work in Washington, D.C. (according to this week’s Washington Times), are not allowed to collectively organize. Others will tell you that’s a good thing, and in a sense it is, because the very employees of the department that was ostensibly designed to defend themselves are defenseless themselves.
Everybody has a personal stake in their jobs now, rather than your actual safety. What ever will they do to legitimize their jobs?
Scare you, maybe?
They will care no more for America as a whole than you do. I’m an American, and I think I’m a good one. I say this: good luck to us all.
My local and state LEOs damned well better cooperate with the Feds on this one. Terrorism is a rather new and unique problem. I do not want the sort of territorial pissing to go on that allowed this in the first place. (Remember the police cruiser footage of the 9-11 hijacker that pulled over for speeding on his way to the airport? That officer didn’t know that said speeder had overstayed his visa. Maybe could have stopped one right there; Maybe more.)
Regardless, the alternative would be to hire enough DHS personnel to do not only their current job, but also the job that local LEOs are currently doing. Unfeasible to the nth degree.
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Never enough money to go around. Never ever ever. When has a government agency ever said, “No sir, we have plenty of money. We do not want more!”?
I’ll keep my money, thanks. There are all sorts of non-life&death expenditures that the gov’t can cut, if it needs a short-term cash boost.
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Oh fuck, unionized? Are you kidding? Performance is all that matters, especially for the DHS. I want the DHS to have the ability to hire and fire, as they see fit. No union should have veto power over our national security. I certainly don’t see how a union is going to do anything but interfere with DHS officials from running the agency as they see fit.
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I have a personal stake in properly maintaining Oracle boxes for our client. If I do not do a good job, measurable by things such as down time (depending on its cause), I get shitcanned, pure and simple. Never been fired in my life. I certainly don’t need or want some middleman, taking a cut, stand between me and my employer.
I expect the same out of any employee. You do a good job, you keep your job. Get a raise. Good stuff. You do a shitty job, or a worse job than your coworker, you don’t get a raise. You don’t get a promotion. Or, you get fired.
Most of all, I don’t see any danger of workers fabricating a threat to keep their jobs, as you seem to be suggesting. It certainly isn’t the norm in the non-unionized workforce, let me assure you.
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Yes. Probably not in the way you were intending, though.
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If they care about America no more than do I, they will do a fine job.
Hell no! I work with DHS for a living, and believe me, we can’t even get their fucking mailroom to triage properly; the last thing this country needs is local law enforcement deputized to multiply the opportunities for screwups. Immigration personnel routinely get basic points of law wrong. Yes, this country’s immigration laws are sometimes needlessly complex and byzantine; there are several dozen different documents which, when used in various combinations, can tell you a person’s immigration status, and quite frequently even the people who are already trained to enforce the laws get it wrong. And the best part is that often, even if you present them with a copy of the document showing exactly why they are wrog, they shrug their shoulders and go about their business anyway.
Do you really want to add hundreds of thousands of completely untrained and inexperienced people to the mix? It’s one thing to hold someone long enough to check the meaning of a document; if there were a skeleton 24/7 staff of BCIS officers set aside to coordinate with local law enforcement, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. (There isn’t right now, that I’m aware of.) But should we deputize local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws? No way in hell.
And that’s even aside frm the usual arguments regarding the damage it would do to law enforcement’s relatioship with local ethnic communities. If someone in dubious legal status witnesses a crime, are they going to report it to the cops if they’re worried about being deported? No, they’ll protect their own skin. What does that cost national security?
Eva, I am not saying that local LEOs should be the primary enforcers of immigration law. But I do think that local jurisdictions should have some degree of power to enforce immigration laws. At the very least, they need access to DHS immigration records. (Which I hope at least the bigger PDs have. Our local PD has to jump through hoops to get the information.)
DHS needs to improve the immigration system, Since immigration is now DHS’ perview. They need to make recommendations to congress on what needs changes. Easier said than done, of course, but things need to improve, no? I see no reason to expect DHS to continue with business as usual, if business as usual sucks half as bad as you say it does.
P.S. I can’t find anything about Ziad Jarrah or Mohammed Atta having an expired visa, so I suppose my memory is faulty. Both were pulled over before 9-11, and I could swear that one or both of them had bum visas or something. Guess not.
Why thank you for proving my point for me. Yes, you may have me on exact wording. This is a referral from before the new department was named. But it certainly reinforces my main contention that referring to the US as “The Homeland” is a new developement, invented by the same groups of people who have pushed it on us in the Bush administration. Definitely NOT a usage by the American people.
So when one has a quasi-governmental job, they are no longer considered ‘American People’?
Anyways, I like the name. My circle of friends likes the name.
‘Department of Homeland Security’ rolls of the tongue. Just no pleasing all of the people.
There has never been any common usage of the nazi-esque term, “homeland” by the American people (and no, government propagandists do not count).
This is really a hijack anyway because the point was that this administration uses doublespeak to seel policies to the public which are actually do the opposite of what their names would suggest. The “Patriots Act” is a full scale attack on the the US Constitution. “Homeland Security” is all about removing privacy and civil rights from American citizens. This tactic obviously works very well for unquestioning sheep like Brutus and his circle of fucktard friends. But smart people see right through it.
Diogenes, Thank you for making those points. Saved me some typing. I am not used to the pit so I might not have had the foresight to insult Brutus’s circle of friends. Perhaps he is part of Stormfront and so is used to the term?
Quasi-governmental jobs are the places NewSpeak is developed, so I would agree that they are not indicative of the American people. Plus I’ve never had Armitage over for tea.
(I assume that the administration uses doublespeak to sell policies rather than seel them. Unless of course you meant that they seal policies, thus keeping the real agenda sealed away and hidden from the people. Or perhaps they “seal” the policies, indicating that they bludgeon the baby policies and use the fur from the repressive policies to make hats out of.)
Cute. You get that line at one of your NAMBLA meetings?
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No, the point is that clueless morons will use any excuse to make Reederesque attacks on the Bush Administration. Your pea-sized brains are limited to comparing whatever Bush does to 1984 or Nazi Germany. That is tantamount to admitting you have no real complaint, but need to complain regardless, so you whip out the only idiotic comparisons you are capable of making.
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If you have something to worry about from the Patriot Act, you need to reexamine your own behaviors. To 99.9% of America, the Patriot Act is nothing but a tool that will be used to lock up terrorists. And their supporters. But hey, if GW approved it, it must be bad, huh? Throw up some generic crap about ‘eroding liberties’, wave your hands, and poof! You still don’t have an argument.
You are starting to sound like a caricature of yourself.
Nah, at those we are too busy talking about the young boy your Dad is dating.
Heh. This Pit thing can be fun!
But see, the spirit of American Liberalism is that we care what happens to more than just our circle of friends. Yes, to 99.9% of America, nothing will change due to these acts. But 0.1% of America is in real danger of having their civil liberties stomped. I would not want to be a recent immigrant from the Middle East right now. If we’re trying to extend American justice and Freedom to the world, we should certainly make sure we have it down pat here in America. Liberty and justice for all , don’t ya know.
