Has anybody discovered where the security is to be found in having a Department of Homeland Security? I have to be honest with you - I don't feel a whole lot more secure having them around. But, then again, I wasn't feeling very insecure before they were created.

You see, I was never one of the mindless masses who believed everything they heard on TV about the attacks of September 11, 2001. I never believed that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with an attack that was carried out by Saudis. I never believed that "the terrorists" were coming to get me, accompanied by the Big Mean Monster from under my bed. So I had no need for a Department of Homeland Security. I was feeling secure enough already, thank you very much.

Unfortunately, many Americans have forfeited their right to think for themselves, and to think clearly and critically. They prefer to blindly accept whatever is served on the nightly news. Fittingly, they were given an agency to "protect" them in Mein Homeland.

But are we really more secure because of this new agency? Think about it. Okay, maybe that's a stretch - ask a friend over who is capable of thinking, and have them help you think about it. What do we ever really get from this Department of Homeland Security? We get a colorful "alert level" system that nobody understands or really even cares about.

Will somebody please explain to me how we are supposed to feel more secure when we are constantly bombarded by colorful "terror alerts" as if "terrorists" are sneaking through our own back yard? Does it make you feel more secure when somebody sneaks up behind you and yells, "Watch out!"? Me either. In fact, it terrorizes me. Well, it would terrorize me if I were more prone to jumpiness - let's just say that it annoys the hell out of me, which is nuisance enough.

Are we to believe that by creating this fancy new "homeland security" agency we will suddenly be able to stop the same people who were intelligent enough to get away with calmly hijacking four airplanes, destroying the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and doing the whole thing without even a hint of opposition from us? A monstrous new agency will stop that from ever happening again? We can't even beat a flu virus!

Bombarding the public with these colorful "terror alert" warnings doesn't make anyone feel more secure. In fact, it serves another purpose - it keeps them in fear of "the terrorists". Fear and terror are synonymous. Terrorism is fear, being actively applied by various means. To continue to issue "terror alerts" is to continue to terrorize the general public, and that is their real ultimate goal.

Every powerful leader in all of history has known and used this simple formula: keep the masses in fear, and you keep the masses in control and doing your bidding. It worked for the Roman Caesars, it worked for Hitler's Germany, and it's working for Bush. Who can blame these leaders for doing it? If the masses are too stupid to think, they deserve to be exploited and taken for fools.

There is no "homeland security" to be found in the Department of Homeland Security - what we get is homeland insecurity, which is the real purpose, and we're falling for it hook, line, and sinker.