Let’s all have a party and send thanks and praises to the heavens! The Department of Homeland Security is history! It’s going to be shut down, never to see the light of day again. Wait, what’s that? It’s not actually going to cease to exist? Ah, rats.
Yes, at this point we’ve all probably heard about the looming DHS shutdown. As Democrats fight with Republicans and Republicans fight among themselves (basically, everyone is fighting everyone) the Department of Homeland Security is facing a potential shutdown. If an agreement can’t be reached by the Feb. 27 on how the department should be funded this year, it will be “shut down” until both sides can come together and figure something out. So basically, it will be shut down until hell freezes over, which sources tell me may or may not happen within the next 10,000-15,000 years.
So, what exactly would the DHS shutdown mean for the average Joe? Pretty much nothing unless said average Joe works for the DHS. Basically, the only thing the shutdown would do would be cutting off the paychecks of a bunch of government workers. When I hear “DHS shutdown” I think of popping open champagne bottles because we can finally get on an airplane without some government-paid employee sticking his hands down our pants and groping our private areas. But no, that isn’t the case at all. In fact, the TSA would still be fully functional in the case of a department shutdown.
As was pointed out in a report on the Huffington Post, TSA agents, border patrol and coast guard officers would still be performing their duties if the department was to shut down. Of course, employees would no longer be getting paychecks and the various training operations with local law enforcement and firefighters would be cancelled. Now, there’s a nice thought. Perhaps there is an upside to this whole situation after all. Sure, on the surface, the Department of Homeland Security training with local police and fire departments seems like a harmless concept but considering the “enemy” in many of their past training operations have been common, law-abiding citizens, I think I’d be okay if they decided to stop training for a while. In fact, let’s take a walk down memory lane and look at some of these “training exercises” the DHS has conducted in the past, shall we?
A video of a DHS training exercise posted to YouTube in 2012 shows an exercise in which the DHS appears to be training for some sort of zombie apocalypse. The most bizarre aspect of this exercise is the fact that the “zombies” the DHS is training to mow down are dressed in everyday street clothes. They’re just humans with zombie masks. So, what would be the benefit of Homeland Security training to mow down hoards of people in street clothes? That is, unless they’re planning to … you know … mow down hoards of people in street clothes.
As if that isn’t enough to raise some questions about Homeland Security’s motives, in 2013 it was reported that they had ordered shooting targets depicting pregnant women, old men and even young children! After an uproar, the company who sold the targets to the DHS posted an official apology on Facebook regarding the “offensive nature” of the targets.
But the bizarre record of the DHS and their apparent war against the American people doesn’t stop there. The department has ordered billions of rounds of hollow point ammunition in various calibers over the last several years. Keep in mind that Homeland Security is a DOMESTIC department and hollow point ammunition has been outlawed in international warfare. So, any way you look at it, these bullets are intended to be used on American soil. It should also be pointed out that hollow point ammunition is not typically used for target practice as it is much more expensive than standard full metal jacket ammunition. So it’s likely that they won’t just be TRAINING to shoot women and children with this ammo.
So, to put it simply, the Department of Homeland Security is one of the worst things to happen to this country in the last twenty years. But will this “shutdown” do anything to stop the erosion of civil liberties that this department has caused? Will it do anything to stop their apparent war on the American people? Probably not.
