No. Seriously.
If you want me to take the enforcement of financial law and the punishment of financial crimes seriously, does naming the financial criminal law enforcement network "FinCEN" make sense?
(That's FINancial Crimes Enforcement Network.)
Am I the only person in the world who's going to read that "finkin"?
"Fin-sen" doesn't really make sense, since the "C" in "crimes" is hard.
And if you want me to take my legal responsibility of reporting my foreign bank accounts to the US government seriously, does naming the report "FBAR" make sense?
(And that is Foreign Bank Accounts Report.)
I'm pretty sure the first time you saw FBAR, your brain wanted to insert the "U" between "F" and "B".
Yeah, I tend to lean to the idea that the current US government is Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition. Trump is a loose cannon, but we need a loose cannon right now, particularly after the total mess of the Biden non-administration.
But Congress is digging in their heels.
Another stupid acronym -- ICE.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Okay, it sort of makes sense, until you realize that the natural tendency to associate freedom of movement with freedom itself tends to give the Immigrations department a bad image no matter what you call it.
So something nondescript like INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services) was actually a good name, in spite of the minor irritant of the sometimes situational irony in the word "service".
ICE, on the other hand, is just not going to inspire anything but contempt. Or perhaps temporary comic-book admiration, followed by contempt.
Not respect.
Not confidence.
Not cooperation, ultimately.
What is it with the government using such names? Are they trying to inspire contempt and worse?
When you read the laws behind these, the laws themselves are so confusing as to undermine any confidence in the law that had been left beyound
I think there are, in fact, some members of our government -- no, many members of our government -- who intend to do exactly that, intend to destroy American confidence in their government, so that there will be a revolution, in the which they think there will be a vacuum that they can step into.
Before, we assume, the hundred thousand other wannabee little Napoleons can shove into the gap.
It's hard for me to think of any other reason for such naming.
Now, before you go blaming Trump for this, it all happened before he even started talking about running for president.
The people to blame for this have been around for a while, a lot longer than the current administration. Many of them would have been in Congress about the time of the original "Patriot Act". They would be the same people who gave you plenty of other reasons to be confused about what the role of government is or should be.
We are being played.
