One of Bush's major errors

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Tuesday, June 17. 2014

One of Bush's major errors

One of Bush's major errors was creating the Dept. of Homeland Security. Something like that was bound to become trouble in the future. It has produced a police/surveillance state which, I would suggest, no American wants: Has the Dept. of Homeland Security become America’s standing army?

What do traffic cameras on my semi-rural Main St. have to do with preventing another 9-11? Nothing, but they are getting a nice shot of me waving crazily at the camera as I park in front of the hardware store to buy a door hinge.

"Just stopping in to get a door hinge," I shout out to the camera as I wave. "Harmless errand."

You do not have to be paranoid to get creeped out by this stuff, and the NSA. It's not American. I would abolish it all. The FBI was enough.

Posted by The Barrister in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects, Our Essays at 15:06 | Comments (13) | Trackback (1)

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#1 W. C. Taqiyya on 2014-06-17 15:29 (Reply)

And what's with all the governmental agencies acquiring their own SWAT team: The Department of Education, Agriculture, and of course the EPA, as well as many others? Makes no sense whatsoever, unless the government is desperately afraid of the vast Right Wing Conspiracy, as they seem to be. Are we being naive?

Yes, Homeland Security was an error. I don' t think you can make government agencies more efficient by combining them under a new bureaucracy.

#2 The Elephant's Child (Link) on 2014-06-17 17:00 (Reply)

the original idea of a clearing house for information, making it easier for agencies to share data on terrorists they were monitoring/hunting was a good one.
And making it independent of all of them, so there'd be no turf wars about agency A not wanting to share information with agency B because the clearing house is operated by agency C was also a good idea.

If only it had stayed at that...

#2.1 J.T. Wenting on 2014-06-17 22:57 (Reply)

I honestly can't tell yet. What if some time before Dec 7th 1941 the U.S. had read the obvious signs and protected Pearl Harbor? What if the Jews in Europe in the early 30's were to organize and act more like the jews in Israel? Sometimes when something works it's hard to see what it prevented. I am not in favor of the DHS or the way the NSA actually works and I am very opposed to the massive amount of money wasted and the militarization of the fed and local police forces. I think I could do it better then the federal government is doing it. I think probably half of the people in America could do it better then our government has managed it. But I think it may be necessary. It may simply be more evidence of the obvious fact that the federal government is incredibly bad at managing anything and also confirmation that we shouldn't let them manage our health care. But in some form we need to manage the risk and counter the threat that the terrorist present. The problem is it all looks more like a chicken running around with it's head cut off and does not look like Homeland Security.

#3 GoneWithTheWind on 2014-06-17 17:55 (Reply)

Those problems were not in the USA. Nothing to do with Homeland Security.

#3.1 Bird Dog on 2014-06-17 17:58 (Reply)

I may have rambled and not been clear enough. The Department of Homeland Security was created as a response to 9/11 which of course was in this country. My comparisons were valid. I bet if you could go back in history and resurrect the six million jews and ask if they should have worked together and created a department of Homeland Security (or European Jews Security) they would all vote yes. And that is the point. Was it an error to create Homeland Security? I don't know, but I think not. The error was not in more carefully defining it's duties and restraints. But you must concede that all that they have to do is stop a single nuke from being exploded in Manhatten to make it the most brilliant action of any president ever. My gut tells me that we will get that chance to find out. I think that a nuke set off in NY City is every terrorists wet dream and there is more then one active effort to make that dream come true. The bad news is my gut also tells me that the Homeland Security will miss it and instead be feeling up grandma and embarrassing wheel chair bound citizens in the airport and remain totally clueless of the attack when it comes. But even if Manhattan is reduced to rubble by terrorists some day it will still prove that "creating" homeland security was a smart thing to do. The fault will be in the management of it.

#3.1.1 GoneWithTheWind on 2014-06-17 20:57 (Reply)

All agencies and laws should have a sunset clause. Max of eight years.

Because the evil men do oft live after them.

#4 John the River (Link) on 2014-06-17 19:32 (Reply)

The whole terrorist thing is, for the most part, a red herring. Based on numbers from the national terrorist database, and numbers from the CDC -

Your odds of getting killed by your doctor while in a hospital are 709 times higher than being killed by a terrorist - if you take out 9/11 which is a statistical outlier it's 65,000 times.

It's obvious that the correct response is to spend billions on terrorist and none on fixing the doctor/hospital problem.

You're 140 times more likely to commit suicide, scary huh? Solution - TSA, DHS, NSA spying, IRS targeting, cops shooting bystanders because that's how they're being trained.

No, the reason for all the heavily armed government is to handle civil insurrection - which big government is working very hard to cause. They call it domestic terrorism to work on emotions - it's not. If you go to church you're a domestic terrorist suspect, if you speak out against the police state, your a domestic terrorist, if you use encryption to protect your privacy, your a domestic terrorist. If you support the constitution you're a domestic terrorist.

Much easer to get the state sponsored thugs to shoot you when they label you a terrorist as opposed to say being label - the opposing political party.

Sadly - a lot of americans do want this. Because they believe they're under constant treat, it's what they're told every day. They live in fear and they're happy to trade away everything for the illusion of safety.

When it comes to fruition they won't want it anymore but that's the way of the world - be careful what you wish for - you might get it.

#5 Not Rick on 2014-06-17 19:54 (Reply)

This comes from the perspective of small town/rural living perspective, where everybody who cares knows what you do and generally don't care except for gossip value. So, traffic cameras (which are non existent here) don't bother me (or than cost vs benefit) nor do the myriad private cameras I see when outside the home.

What is bothersome is the temptation for a bureaucrat somewhere to bring back the old days when Hoover used blackmail dossiers to get what he wanted. Another are the various Utter Top Secret lists (no fly, domestic terrorist, international terrorist, I hate you and you) that are being compiled without notice and seemingly immutable. Then there's the problem of bureaucrats creating problems to justify their budget increases, etc.

Dismantling DHS might be a start but always room for a clean sheet of paper and restart.

#6 walt moffett on 2014-06-17 22:09 (Reply)

IIRC, Bush was initially against forming DHS stating that we did not need another bureaucracy. The Dems pushed it and Bush gave in and voila !

#7 Marv on 2014-06-17 23:05 (Reply)

I was against the formation of the DHS from the start.

The last thing we needed was another bureaucracy as they have a tendency to do nothing but consume salaries and expand their reach. It also became clear that the DHS was going to be an avenue to distribute pork all around the country. For example, there is even a terror attack disaster coordinator for friggin' southwest Nebraska/NW KS(!). Should the jihadis ever strike the 9 white Americans and illegal alien that live here, he is the go to guy to coordinate the response.

I figured there would be mission creep at the agency over time as the real terror threat is just not large enough to support a boondoggle of this magnitude, and I imagined they would move in unforeseen directions, but I never dreamed they would redefine the terror threat and target the Bitter Clinger demographic. Once again a bureaucracy is targeting the people least likely to push back. It's safer and easier that way.

They are out of control. No one is exercising any supervision over them. Once again the GOP is either lazy, apathetic or just inept, and they fathered this bad boy.

And they want me to vote for them?

#8 feeblemind on 2014-06-18 01:23 (Reply)

>>>For example, there is even a terror attack disaster coordinator for friggin' southwest Nebraska/NW KS(!). Should the jihadis ever strike the 9 white Americans and illegal alien that live here, he is the go to guy to coordinate the response.

-----

To justify their existence, there WILL be terrorists in that area. They will set up some unsuspecting - mentally ill or low intelligence being, or drug addict in a sting operation in order to "catch" one and foil a ginormous plan.

The Fish and Wildlife people do it with poaching - setting up dummy deer to bust drive by hunting, set up as buyers of illegal bear parts, etc. And ATF and all other agencies have their own particulars in their field. Because integrity is not part of their job description.

Every regulatory agency that I have come in contact with (and it's many, in addition to the stories I hear from customers) have quislings that give outrageous regulations that must be abided by (and contradicted by another similar regulatory agent from another part of the bureacracy ) in order to fund and justify their existence.

I love the DEP woman who told me tires are a hazardous waste. I guess that didn't include the tires on the vehicle she drove up on.
And chillingly, she looked at my coal-ash pile from my furnace and also called it "hazardous waste."
If I was a little quicker, i would have asked her why government buys fly ash as "clean fill" for their superfund projects. Never mind that it is also used to make building products like sheet-rock.

In the eyes of the bureacrat, we are all criminals.

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Tuesday, June 17. 2014

One of Bush's major errors