An old man walks up to the Marine Guard at the White House and says “I’d like to speak to President Hillary Clinton.” The guard looks puzzled, then says “Hillary Clinton isn’t President, and she doesn’t live here.” The old man turns and walks away. The next day the same thing happens. “I’d like to speak to President Hillary Clinton, please.” “Hillary Clinton isn’t President, and she doesn’t live here.” This goes on every day for a week. Finally, the guard loses his composure and says “What’s your problem? Don’t you understand what I’m saying?” The old man looks up at him and replies “Oh, I understand you perfectly. I just love hearing your answer.” The Marine snaps to attention, salutes, and says “See you tomorrow.”
Oh, and “Homeland” is just wrong on so many levels.
But they will be “leveraging their contacts” in Iraq. Which of course does not run counter to the party line that the war in Iraq is actually making us safer.
Quite frankly, I don’t think anyone has a fucking clue what is going on in al Qaeda, and all of these intelligence estimates are Cover-Your-Ass-Wild-Ass-Guesses of the worst sort. Not to mention Chertoff’s magical all-seeing-all-dancing gut.
When Bush’s four years are up, you will only be four years away from the country that elected him in the first place, and I think it would be naive to think that there will be a 180º shift in attitude come your next election.
In other words, I think the word “homeland” is bothering people so much because it is an indicator of where your country is and where it’s going, and I would be awfully uncomfortable, too, if I didn’t want to live in a developing religion-driven authoritarian state. Hmm, religion-driven authoritarianism; why does that sound so familiar?
My own objection was that aside from the vague similarity to der Vaterland, the term had been explicitly used for the “reservations” employed by South Africa.
Homeland rather than state, home office rather than head office – these sort of terms attempt to usurp the profoundly deep emotional bonds we have with our families. That’s an offensive thing to do.
For me, it’s not so much the quasi-fascist resonance (although, yeah, that rankles too) as it is the obvious greasy thumbprint of marketing. Isn’t that one of the elementary real-estate tricks, to refer to property as a “home” rather than a “house” so that prospective buyers will be more predisposed toward positive associations?
Department of Homeland Security… Why the hell did they not just give the Department another one of those bureaucratically neutral, descriptive names that everyone will just collapse to a convenient initialism anyway? FBI, CIA, NSA… We’re used to them. They’re not lovable, but they serve a purpose.
But that’s not enough. Names themselves must have intrinsic spin. Homeland Security. The PATRIOT Act. Transportation Security and their “VIPER squads.” This sort of Orwellianism by way of Madison Avenue is nothing new, but I 've gotten the sense that it’s achieved an unparalleled priority in this administration. Which might not be so bad in itself, if they weren’t so dead set against sharing any information about what they actually ARE doing. I’d much rather the government let me know what’s going on, and then let me decide if I want to coin fuzzy nicknames. Don’t try to convince me that I like it by massaging my impressions through advertising. I like my government stodgy and unstylish. Leave the focus groups for the toothpaste and movie industries.
I hate the term as well, and have since the day Bush first uttered it. Probably because it does sound vaguely fascistic. It also has isolationist overtones. “Ve must retreat to ze homeland!”
If you consider an election to be a type of statistical point, then the last measured statistical point of how much citizens of the U.S. like Bush and his policies was taken in 2004.
Disregard the danger at your own peril. I would say it doesn’t make any difference to me, but you guys are awfully close and you have a very large army and no compunctions about invading other countries.
I’ve never quite understood the point to having a Department of Homeland Security, anyway. Even if you don’t like the word, isn’t that what the DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE is for?
Yes, I know they wrapped other things into Homeland Security that weren’t part of DoD. But if you needed all the parts for defending the country in any place, the logical place would be the Department of Defense.
It’s very much akin to having a Department of Justice and a Department of Law Enforcement. Or having a Treasury Department and a Money Department, or a Department of Labor and a Department of Working And Jobs.
I agree. The name has always given me the willies. I’d prefer a more honest “Department of Domestic Security,” but that would raise too many flags about Orwellian police states. So, instead, we just get the substance (or the beginnings of the substance) without the name.
Of course, I still want to see someone have the chutzpah and honesty to return us to having a Department of War, instead of one of Defense.
ETA: RickJay, can they have anything related to domestic law-enforcement even umbrella-ed with the DOD because of Posse Comitatus?
Liberal, assuming you’re talking about my junior senator, Hillary Clinton, that’s pretty damned unlikely - until she started campaigning for the Presidency, she’d been pretty consistent about lobbying about expanding Homeland Security to include a mandate to patrol the US-Canada border with at least 5000 more people for the Northern bureau.
It’s quite possible I’ll end up voting for her for president, but don’t have any illusions about her.
Nah, you guys should be just fine. You don’t have any readily available oil reserves that we need, and as far as I know, you’ve never threatened to kill a sitting US president’s father.
Now, if we find ourselves in need of snow and/or poutine, well… all bets are off.
