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Author Topic: Loyalty Oaths/Background Checks/What's Next?  (Read 14981 times)

KC0SHZ

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Loyalty Oaths/Background Checks/What's Next?
« Reply #15 on: April 02, 2008, 07:53:55 AM »

Pledge of Allegiance at every club and ARES meeting here as well.

I do think that a national ID card would be best.  Biometrics included and a team of hackers working for a large sum of money to crack it.  Once cracked, fix the card, then a new team of hackers try.  Once all the easy cracks are fixed, issue the card.

We have been three years since a local ID card and the new card is just good for our county.  If I have to go to an assignment in a neighboring county (say 4 miles south of my house), I will have to have a different badge.  It would be very helpful to have one ID for every ARES volunteer, and have this be accepted nationwide.

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AC2Q

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Loyalty Oaths/Background Checks/What's Next?
« Reply #16 on: April 02, 2008, 08:31:28 AM »

KI4HLW writes: Dang! This whole time we have been saying the
'Pledge of Allegiance" before every ARES and Club meeting... now I find it's all part of a big conspiracy to turn us into a police state!
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No Dear, it's all about a useless feel good requirement that accomplishes NOTHING.

As I stated previously, if I were intent upon the overthrow of the governement, I certainly wouldn't have an issue lieing about it to "The Man"
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AJ4DW

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Loyalty Oaths/Background Checks/What's Next?
« Reply #17 on: April 02, 2008, 09:07:02 AM »

A loyalty oath is one of the stupidist "feel-good but do-absolutely-nothing" ideas I have eaver heard of. Please feel free to bow to Washington three times a day and recite such an oath, that's your privilege, but when you force me to do it you're infringing on my personal rights.

What can it possiblty accomplish? Absolutely nothing... it will be embraced by our enemies ("What, oh, he said the oath, he's OK") and objected to by persons of integrity. It proves nothing except that the government can force us to recite a paragraph or two. "Loyalty oaths" are demeaning, implying that one is not loyal until he proves so by reciting a few lines of doggerel. I've defended the Constitution and served in the armed forces, I don't need to "prove" my loyalty to anyone. I'm an American, and that's enough.
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W5JUV

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« Reply #18 on: April 02, 2008, 12:47:49 PM »

Geesh....  You people either need to get a life or have your mommy change your diaper and give you a pacifier.
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K4HLW

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Loyalty Oaths/Background Checks/What's Next?
« Reply #19 on: April 02, 2008, 01:12:04 PM »

AJ4DW: "Please feel free to bow to Washington three times a day and recite such an oath, that's your privilege, but when you force me to do it you're infringing on my personal rights."

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This is where you are wrong, if armed men came to your house and forced you to recite an oath that would be infringing on your personal rights. If you choose to join an organization that requires an oath, then your options are give the oath or don't join.

This is a major reason why many volunteer groups don't get respect, you want to play in someone else's game, but you want to play by your own rules. The rules are there, and they are there because the people who's careers are on the line if things go wrong made them, either agree to play or don't.

Don't like the rules then find some way to help indirectly, one role EmComm plays requires no served agency, that is Health and Welfare traffic, get your group and set up across the street from a shelter, or some other common area and offer the public to send out messages to tell relatives outside the area they are OK, this is an underused service we offer that many served agencies have no want to do.

But if you want to be in the shelter, or a fire station, or shadowing the mayor, or anywhere else another agency is in charge.... expect there to be rules, expect some to be silly or stupid, expect to disagree with some of them, but understand you must follow them or you will not be welcome.
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AJ4DW

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Loyalty Oaths/Background Checks/What's Next?
« Reply #20 on: April 02, 2008, 02:31:01 PM »

So, you feel that a loyalty oath is effective at... what exactly? And you're saying that these agencies do not need their volunteers? That they can treat them as they like because "it's my ball"?

Lets not forget that the sacred "served agencies" are themselves serving another agency: the public, for which they receive special treatment including tax breaks. I'm sorry, "loyalty oaths" are wrong, and your position that these NGOs are answerable to no one in their behavior, and therefore can demand any particular behavior of their volunteers at their whimsy is questionable at best. The government itself cannot require a loyalty oath (an oath to protect and defend the constitution is not a loyalty oath), which is why the pledge of allegiance may not be made mandatory.
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AJ4DW

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« Reply #21 on: April 02, 2008, 03:09:35 PM »

Criminal check good, financial check NOYB, loyalty oaths ridiculous.. A volunteer organization which does not respect its volunteers will soon cease to exist... Amateur radio does fine without engaging in EmComm and it will continue to do so (many hams even refuse to participate in EmComm at all).
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AC2Q

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Loyalty Oaths/Background Checks/What's Next?
« Reply #22 on: April 02, 2008, 07:51:01 PM »

KI4HLW writes:

But if you want to be in the shelter, or a fire station, or shadowing the mayor.
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I am not a "Glory Hound". I don't care if the needs of the served agency include me making coffee.

Are you someone who has a tremendous "need to be needed"? That is what I am hearing, you don't seem to be able to come to grips with the fact that there are some of us who get the required training simply because we wish to be PREPARED to help, not because we lay awake at night chomping at the bit to don our orange vests and "Mr Hero Helmets"
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KA5S

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« Reply #23 on: April 02, 2008, 08:21:25 PM »

There have been loyal US citizens who could not swear to that oath, having at one time been members of military forces at war with the United States.  I've known people of German and Vietnamese origin it would disqualify; there are no doubt quite a few Japanese-Americans it would rule out as well.

Cortland
KA5S
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K4HLW

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« Reply #24 on: April 02, 2008, 09:05:27 PM »

OK, a lot here so I will to break it down and answer the major points.

"So, you feel that a loyalty oath is effective at... what exactly?" - I never said a word on the effectiveness, only on the fact it is not a volunteers place to raise a stint about requirements or expect them to be changed for them.

"And you're saying that these agencies do not need their volunteers?" - Never said that either, but I also haven't seen agencies begging for volunteers so enough people must be agreeing to play by their rules. Plus remember, many agencies DON'T see the need for EmComm volunteers, I feel they are wrong, and history has proven that again and again. But we should be seen as helpful volunteers, not troublemakers.

"and your position that these NGOs are answerable to no one in their behavior" - Actually I said quite the opposite, that the heads of these NGOs (and GOs) are the "people who's careers are on the line if things go wrong"

To KF8ZN: Those were simply examples of task where people are working under a serve agency, just like your coffee example. Yes, as stupid as it seems if the agency requires you to swear an oath to make coffee then your choice are to do so or leave.

And as for me being a glory hound, I was a paid member of the County Emergency Management long before I was a Ham. (Public Communications Tech - when the EM had something to say to the public it was my job to make sure they could hear him and that info from the community got back to him) I got into Amateur Radio originally only as a backup to our 800Mhz radios for our team. I have since moved on to a different career path but I do both consulting and technical work for local organizations as well as serving as the Red Cross Chapter Communications Officer.

Also the terms are being twisted here, the original poster quoted part of the oath: "I do not advocate, nor am I nor have I been a member of any political party or organization that advocates the overthrow of the government of the United States by force or violence" This actually is not an oath at all, and is very lax, you could hate the government and want it completely dissolved and still be OK as long as you do not support its overthrow by "force or violence".

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AC2Q

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« Reply #25 on: April 03, 2008, 06:26:42 AM »

KI4HLW writes:

And as for me being a glory hound, I was a paid member of the County Emergency Management long before I was a Ham.
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I never said you were a glory hound, I stated I am not.
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KI4LHW:
Also the terms are being twisted here, the original poster quoted part of the oath: "I do not advocate, nor am I nor have I been a member of any political party or organization that advocates the overthrow of the government of the United States by force or violence" This actually is not an oath at all, and is very lax, you could hate the government and want it completely dissolved and still be OK as long as you do not support its overthrow by "force or violence".
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The issue is that it is the same sort of contentous question as "have you stopped beating your wife?"
It implies one is NOT loyal unless one signs "The Oath"
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K4HLW

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« Reply #26 on: April 03, 2008, 08:37:45 AM »

"The issue is that it is the same sort of contentous question as "have you stopped beating your wife?"
It implies one is NOT loyal unless one signs "The Oath""

I believe the actual issue is whether or not a volunteer has a right to refuse to fulfill a requirement a served agency puts on them just because they disagree with it, and should they still be allowed to participate if they refuse.

We could sit here and debate the usefulness of the hundred and thousands of regulations our many served agencies have, but is that really accomplishing anything? I think we have enough internal issues that need to be discussed, and that we can do something about, as it is.
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AC2Q

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Loyalty Oaths/Background Checks/What's Next?
« Reply #27 on: April 03, 2008, 08:58:43 AM »

KI4HLW writes:I believe the actual issue is whether or not a volunteer has a right to refuse to fulfill a requirement a served agency puts on them just because they disagree with it, and should they still be allowed to participate if they refuse.
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No, I never said I expected to be allowed to participate, I said I WILL NOT COMPLY and do not care if that excludes me.

YOU have tried to defend the requirement, and failed miserably.  
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W0IPL

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« Reply #28 on: April 03, 2008, 09:11:11 AM »

"No, I never said I expected to be allowed to participate, I said I WILL NOT COMPLY and do not care if that excludes me." - KF8ZN

Then why do you persist in hanging around ECom sites?
You have stated, so many times it's redundant, that you are a loose cannon.
OK. We accept that. Why don't you?
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AC2Q

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« Reply #29 on: April 03, 2008, 09:23:05 AM »

W0IPL writes:

Then why do you persist in hanging around ECom sites?
You have stated, so many times it's redundant, that you are a loose cannon.
OK. We accept that. Why don't you?
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Loose Cannon is your opinion. If you have something substantive to add, attack the idea, not the person.

The reason I continue to post is that I see a useful service, one that I have devoted a good deal of time and energy to, being hamstrung by requirements that IN NO WAY enhance its' design function.

If I were a loose cannon as you put it, there wouldn't be so many concurring opinions, as edidenced by the replies here as well as others reporting "20% compliance"
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