Bottomless Stupidity

With the quite arguable exception of the Empire State Building, which might be an "icon," it's hard to see how this is wrong. (This assumes a particularly narrow and techinical determination that NYC doesn't "own" the Statue of Liberty, of course.)

Scalzi's list of "national monuments" is patently silly and approaches willful stupidity. I hardly think the DHS is planning to spend money to protect every single thing Congress put a commemorative plaque on. Read it in the colloquial sense of "national moments the nation as a whole would give a shit about if it were blown up." Fault them for their definition, not their decision.

I reserve the right to recant and eat crow, of course, if the list of DHS protected "national moments" includes more than half a dozen or so things like Mount Rushmore, the Statute of Liberty, and...uh...maybe the Golden Gate bridge and that arch thing in St. Louis?

New York didn't have any national monuments before 9/11, or even before the very same WTC was attacked, by the same terrorist nutballs, in 1993...

and technically, isn't the Statue of Liberty on NYC-managed land?

Dylan Alexander:

"Scalzi's list of 'national monuments' is patently silly and approaches willful stupidity."

Hmmmm. I post of list of places that the federal government has marked as actual, genuine national landmarks and monuments, and the DHS says that none of them exist, and it's *my* list that is patently silly and stupid? Because -- and here's the funny thing -- my list is factually *true,* and the DHS' list (or lack thereof) is factually *not* true. But perhaps you're one of those people who believe facts are stupid things, and you don't want to bother your beautiful mind about them. Have fun with that

Your assumption, incidentally, that by listing the national monuments and landmarks I am suggesting that the DHS needs to defend each and every one is not actually true either. I was merely pointing out the incompetence of the DHS when it says there are no national landmarks and monuments in NYC, and the further incompetence of basing its allocation decisions based on bad data.

Now, I recognize that the DHS may have decided to whip up its own definition of national landmarks and monuments, but I suppose the relevant question here is why does the DHS get to make its own decision contrary to the congressional definition? Also, what sort of bureaucratic, head-up-your-ass idjit do you have to be to say the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building is not an icon or a landmark, when clearly, by any rational definition of "icon" or "landmark," both are both? Colloquially speaking, I suspect that most people would give a shit if either (or both) were blown up. So personally, I feel free in faulting the DHS for both their definition and their decision, thank you.

You might also want to consider, say, the Brooklyn Bridge as a landmark and potential terrorist target. Especially since there was a much-ballyhooed arrest of a lunatic who supposedly had a plan to cut the cables. You might think that a high-profile arrest of a "terrorist" with a plan to attack a bridge might put that bridge onto the list of potential targets worth protecting.

The main point is that if New York doesn't have icons and landmarks that are deserving of protection by Homeland Security, then nobody does. If the cutting of New York's DHS budget is part of a general slashing of the budget for all Homeland Security activities, then that would be fine, but somehow, I don't think that's what's happening...

actually bridges are a HUGE thing - you want to cripple the east coast in a major way, hit the American Legion and Woodrow Wilson bridges simultaneously. every other city has significant alternative river crossings, from the 6 that cross the delaware, to the multiple crossings of the hudson.

DC has only *4*, 2 of which are the primary trucking means of getting anywhere and one of which is 2 lanes and tiny and useless for trucking, and the 2 further out ones (Nice, Point of Rocks) are too small to take the load. one of these days, DC is really going to suffer for not building another bridge thanks to VA and MD arguing over "environmental impacts" (all hypocritically from MD's side, all the while while MD has destroyed plenty of real estate for its own benefit and is about to again with the ICC).

just closing *one* of those bridges can add a 4 *hour* delay to getting anywhere by taking the others.

There are more than 4 Potomac crossings.

Starting from the west:

US15 at Leesburg
American Legion (I495, west side of Capital Beltway)
Chain Bridge (VA 123)
Key Bridge (US29)
Theodore Roosevelt (I-66/US50 combined, 8 lanes across)
Memorial Bridge (from the GW pkwy to the Potomac pkwy)
14th Street Bridge (I believe this is the I-395/US1 combined crossing, but that may in fact be a separate bridge).
Woodrow Wilson (I95/I495 east side of Capital Beltway)
and US301

A bit further west you can use I81 up and down the coast as well (in VA, it runs along the Appalachains on the eastern side of the Shenandoah Valley, and from there north through WV, MD, PA and into NY).

The bridges at US15 and US301 aren't convenient, but they are useable (US301 is a major north/south route through MD on the west side of the Chesapeake and is a 4 lane highway at it's smallest points).

Looking at google maps, what I'm calling the 14th st. bridge is the I-395/US-1 combined crossing, and it's three bridges in actuality, the two outer spans are each one way (one in, one out), and the central span a is two way HOV. The spans are the 14th st., the Rochambeau Memorial, and the Williams Memorial, from west to east.

With the quite arguable exception of the Empire State Building, which might be an "icon," it's hard to see how this is wrong. (This assumes a particularly narrow and techinical determination that NYC doesn't "own" the Statue of Liberty, of course.)

I'm really, truly curious as to how, exactly, you would define "icon", "landmark", and "national monument". If we use your colloquial definition above, I'd say that the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, New York Stock Exchange, Rockefeller Plaza (or am I the only one who remembers a collective losing-of-shit when the Japanese bought it in the 80s?), Wall Street, Citibank Building, Gugenheim Museum, Brooklyn Bridge, Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium, and a host of others fit your bill.

Also, NYC is not just a popular tourist destination. NYC hosts THE BULK of our financial transactions. Just about every major bank and credit company is headquartered there. And you don't think those are important enough to defend?

If your entire argument depends upon a "particularly narrow and technical" definition of these sites, perhaps you should take that as a signal that your argument is weak.

Well said, but consider: Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistiguishable from malice... or insanity.