Before I get ad hominem attacks, read the tag of this thread. Yes, this is just my opinion as a citizen of the State of Firestone. I am not attacking anyone actively within this department.
I’ve expressed disagreements previously with this department’s creation. For those who do not know, this department is established through “A Bill to Establish the Firestone Department of Defense”. Ironically, the main creator of this legislation also became this department’s first Secretary.
Now, you may be wondering why I care about this. Seeing as this is a department, it obviously requires employees to function. In addition to that, if the Secretary position is vacant, the Governor would have to nominate a new individual that has to pass the senate via confirmation in order to achieve the actual said position. The point is, this department does take our government’s time (i.e. nomination, confirmation) and resources in regards to people interested in employment. This is why I bring this department’s purpose into question.
The aforementioned legislation establishing this department, in my perspective as a former legislator, is quite unorganized. Section two mentions various duties without fully expanding on them, almost like the department is destined to go on a power trip. Albeit, you can see some sort of purpose after reading this section in its entirety. However, in terms of its applicability to this state, I do not see any remaining purpose. Our state rarely ever goes to war, the last war being frankly embarrassing to our state and with the Department of State focusing on revising its relations, I doubt there will be any conflicts in the future. Of course, one can argue it is better to be safe than sorry, in which keeping this department in case of war is a good idea. Realistically though, this department isn’t necessary even in times of war. The Governor (and an organized council made for the purpose of war if any) can easily execute what the Secretary of this department can do during said times. To finish the rest off, providing legal services is definitely not necessary as I know FNG already has its own legal services in place and can maintain that on its own with ease. Organizing counter-terrorism forces, I really don’t know why this was not expanded upon. There are no prerequisites established for organizing said forces which is simply concerning, it essentially gives this department the power to deploy anyone into a task force without any preparation whatsoever.
Moving to the next section of said legislation, the department’s ability to launch investigations into the Firestone National Guard is prescribed. This is where incompetent legislating is really found, beginning with the mention of ‘military courts’. Currently, there are no military courts within our state so most of this section remains at an inoperable state. The term ‘higher entity’ is mentioned which can definitely use further expansion, but for the sake of this thread we will assume it is referring to the Firestone National Guard and its chain of command. After completely reading this section, you can come to the conclusion that, in essence, this department can simply launch de facto investigations against the Firestone National Guard, not mentioning that the commanding officer is not legally required to heed said findings. Is this purposeful? I will let those in the national guard decide that.
I understand that people are interested in having this department in Firestone but what’s the purpose of using the government’s time and resources to fulfill this department’s needs? It is arbitrary at the end of the day, and unfortunately the operations of this department are classified, so what they currently do is obscure to the general public.