Comments on The Secret History of the Secret Service

It doesn't seem that similar. Why didn't they just create a new agency?

The thing we need to figure out is why chaz always makes connections between things that he seemingly writes on paper and pulls from a hat.

Nothing connects it. Same agency, new mission. Doesn't mean a thing. If my job is to make sandwiches and to also to clean the restrooms, does that make sandwiches and toilets connected?

I know, let's create the Homeland Insecurity Agency, and assign Sen Clinton to run it to protect President Obama ... oh, wait, no, that's like hiring the fox to guard the chickens ...

And the Secret Service still handles counterfeiting.

Wow, 11:30am and Chuck's already reached the rambling stage of shitfaced. Must have been a liquid breakfast.

Other police agencies have a mission that centers on the safety and security of the public. The Secret Service exists to protect the authority of the the government alone. They can protect the state's currency and the state's leaders without ever being distracted by having to also worry about protecting the public.

Also there's nothing secret about this. The Secret Service is still responsible for counterfeiting prevention, as well as politicians' security.

Hmm, yes, there must be some sort of dark conspiratorial reason why they would try to keep the president from being shot. Doesn't add up. Trilateral Commission, Mars Explorer, what's the frequency, Kenneth?

It's simple analogy and replacement: THE PRESIDENT IS AUTHENTIC MONEY.

I love how Chaz makes marxists seem not only woefully ignorant, but also like conspiratorial loons.

it wasn't a real anarchist.

Geez if you want to go all conspiracy theory try for the ATF bureau instead. They were part of Treasury, now part of Justice thanks to Homeland Security (though tax and trade functions remain under Treasury).

Nobody has any argument other than ad homeneim and begging the question. There is no special reason or meaning behind why these two missions exist in one agency because:

1. Charles is fool
2. Because the is NO SPECIAL REASON. It means nothing.
3. (repeat)

Those aren't very strong arguments.

How many other government agencies have two mismatched missions thrown together for no particular reason? BATF is the closest I can think of, and that one makes a fair amount of sense -- there are a special set of Federal laws for these three products. After the creation of Homeland Security, why wasn't the opportunity taken to rationalize this historical anomaly? There must be something compelling counterfeiting and assassination to be so close.

If only we could find a Marxist, maybe we could solve this "mystery".

elenchos, why must there be a connection only other than chaz said so?

the idea that because you can't prove the non existence of a secondary and dubious connection means there has to be a secondary and dubious connection is poor reasoning by anyones metric, especially yours.

and you remember when chaz suggested that a brother purposely ran over his adopted sister adn it was covered up?

and chaz put forth the proposition that it was true based on the this criteria:

a. he thought of it
b. we couldnt disprove fully that was actually what happened

First off, BA@15 ... you have no soul. Second, we're not talking about trying to explain a random event here; we're talking about a conscious act on the part of government officials. It's entirely possible that Congress rolled some dice, or spontaneously and randomly decided to take these federal officials over here and move them over here instead to this entirely unrelated project, but such moves typically occur for some reason, even if it's a bad one.

The reason that the secret service does protection is that when McKinley was assassinated, there were really only two government law enforcement agencies that could do it. The US Marshals and the Secret Service. The FBI would be the more logical group to do it, but it didn't exist yet.

And that is why no one listens to Marxists.

Bellevue, if you have nothing, don't post. Digging up old disputes with Charles is yet more ad homeniem.

Andrew: OK, then why not the US Marshals? Did they just flip a coin? And again, why was this job never given a more logical home, like the FBI? Haven't there been opportunities?

The US Marshals had too much work to do. They didn't want the job. By the time all the other agencies that could do the job existed, the Secret Service had already been doing it for a while, so why switch?

If you really want the details, wikipedia has a nice entry.

it doesn't matter if the event is random or not because the entire connecton he makes rests on the absence of knowledge and adopting his worldview as the correct one without any backing.

a marxist views this as the solidifying of capital and political power being forever intertwined. and that was the intent of the decision to give additional duties to the agency.

deriving reasoning by outcomes based on an overriding outlook of the world is piss poor reasoning

Also, the secret service STILL handles counterfeiting, as well as some identity theft cases. Naturally, these are all different divisions of the same expanded agency, which includes jobs as diverse as Sniper to EMT.

But what Andrew @18 said is exactly right. Besides the USSS and the Marshals, there wasn't really any other agencies at the time that fit the bill. I don't think Forest Service or the Postal Service officers were considered.

I see what Charles is going for here, and the fact McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist I guess ads to it somewhat. But that fact that a branch of the Treasury Dept. took over protection for the President is about as solid a metaphor as connecting that department subsequent printing of the Buffalo nickel, and that he was killed in Buffalo, NY.

elenchos, attacking chazs credibility when he used it to push an argument can only result in claims of ad hominem by people who believe in his credibility as a thiinker.

I see Andrew beat me to the real reason. Might I suggest in the future that instead of writing something as soon as pops into your head, that research is done. A lot of time that research will answer the question you had.

What Andrew @21 said. Before they were assigned to counterfeiting, the Secret Service was basically like the FBI and CIA rolled into one.

@25- I agree. And, if that research is as easy as reading one Wikipedia article, then there really is no excuse.

I'm pretty much a Marxist and this story doesn't mean squat to me. Try again.

Marxists and anarchists hate eachothers anyway.

The thing we need to figure out is why Bellevue Ave hasn't yet been put into Bellevue Hospital. Stupid, stupid hater!

Charles' first assertion is correct, as this comment thread has proven. A Marxist is going to wonder why this came about. And naturally a reactionary is going to take great offense that such questions are asked, and is going show great contempt for those who would ask them. Asking these kinds of questions is harmless, but some people think it's a threat to the status quo.

I'm sorry to all of you who are so irritated by this. You feel like it's a personal attack on yourself, but that's a phantom.

Is there something we must decipher? We must. Just passively accepting the way things are is cowardly and irresponsible.

And the question still hangs in the air: Now that we do have the FBI, ATF, DEA and all of these agencies are under the central control of Homeland Security, why is counterfeiting still the job of the secret service? At one time maybe it had to be this way, but again and again the opportunities to fix the problem are not taken. Why?

@30, I'm not so sure people are threatened by the questions, as much as see them as silly. Marxism is very much a faith position, and like all faith positions, sees as important questions others correctly regard as irrelevant.

elenchos, you do understand that long established bureaucracy is rarely consolidated into other bureaucratic agencies right?

Why do I think chaz is useless and irritating when he "asks" questions like this? glad you asked!

1. often times he is not asking a question. rather, he already has a set conclusive answer for an event or circumstance and is merely trying to lead us into agreement with him on it.
2. often times the questions he asks can easily be researched on his part but he likes to indulge in complicated and fantastic explanations for them.
3. his use of language for reinforcing the merits of his questions resides in one way directives that the readers are supposed to take at face value. why "must" we ask a question based on chaz's prodding?

finally i take issue with the idea that we find his questions idiotic or his premises idiotic based on fear of the status quo being shifted. we shoot them down because they are often so poorly constructed or supported or researched and that we expect better from him.

It's hardly secret history. Perhaps unknown to you...

Certainly it's totally due to racism. Everything's due to racism in Chuckyworld.

This thread restores my faith in the SLOG.

Dear Chaz:

No, there's absolutely NOTHING we need to decypher here.

@2:

I don't think it's a HAT from which Chaz pulls these things, but rather another part of his anatomy more associated with pants.

@11: Wrong. Leon Czolgozs was absolutely a real anarchist, a student of anarchism and an associate of Emma Goldman. His last words were "I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people — the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime." Messed up & lonely, sure, but devoted to the cause. I raise a glass to Buffalo NY, home of the brave.

Gurldoggie, to link braveness with assassinating a president or political figure with different political ability and beliefs than yours lowers the bar of what being brave is.

I define a brave person as that rare individual who is able to follow his or her belief system to a course of action despite a threat of danger or pain. Whether or not you or I consider his ideology to be just has no bearing on the matter.

gurldoggie, think long and hard about the implications of that definition and whether being brave is a character trait we should value.

Marxists I can take.

But Marists ... now there's a whole nuther ball of wax.

Dude, I already answered that one. Valuing "bravery" for it's own sake is close to meaningless. You can't call "bravery" a good trait at all until you examine the cause behind it or the ends it produces. Same goes for empty signifiers like "passion," or "moral values." The World Trade Center pilots were "brave." Rush Limbaugh is "passionate." GWBush has "moral values." I happen to think that Czolgozs was an interesting character from a fascinating time period. It's a shame he offed McKinley, who was a decent prez and a pretty progressive leader at the time, but he believed passionately in an ideology that I'm sympathetic to, and he acted accordingly. I got no trouble using the word "bravery" to define his actions.

So you don't consider whether the action to be just or unjust when you label a person brave. Simply fighting for what you believe in the face of harm or danger qualifies. @39

You also don't assign a moral value to being brave without looking at causes for and results of it. @42

Correct?

So being brave can have good or bad outcomes depending on who you are and what you support and what your morality is.

I reason that it is kind of silly to support or respect a concept (bravery) that is amoral if its widespread application results in actions you would see as immoral (murder).

*sigh*

Ridiculous.

Maybe the government thought at the time that the secret service would be the only agency who could protect the president from being run over by blonde teenagers in SUVs. And no, I don't feel like letting it go.