I wrote below that “sometimes societies become too stupid to survive.” Yesterday, we learned that the crack operatives of the TSA had prevented a teenage girl from boarding her flight to Jacksonville because her handbag has a gun design on the front of it. But don’t worry, after she’d been put through the wringer, Southwest were able to get her on a later flight to Orlando, a mere 300-mile round-trip detour for her distraught mother and, in the scheme of things, a relatively modest transfer of man-hours from the productive class to the great sucking statist behemoth.
Today brings the news that, fresh from that triumph, TSA agents decided to strip-search an 85-year old, 4′11″, 110-pound grandmother in a wheelchair:
As she tried to lift a lightweight walker off her lap, she says, the metal bars banged against her leg and blood trickled from a gash.
“My sock was soaked with blood,” she said. “I was bleeding like a pig.”
She says the TSA agents showed no sympathy, instead pulling down her pants and asking her to raise her arms.
“Why are you doing this?” she said she asked the agents, who did not respond.
As Andrew wrote below: “Because they can.“
One reason we’re the Brokest Nation In History is because the great moronic security bureaucracy of the United States devotes untold resources to criminalizing the law-abiding — as I often have cause to reflect when being finger-printed and eyeball-scanned every time I fly back to the U.S. from abroad. In my case, that’s because I’m a legal immigrant and making you feel like a punk who’s held up the liquor store is part of the price the bozo bureaucracy exacts for a Green Card. But why U.S. citizens born and bred put up with this nonsense is another matter.
U.S. airport “security” serves no serious purpose except to accustom free-born peoples to behaving like a compliant bovine herd. America is now a land where 85-year-old grannies are strip-searched without probable cause. You’re extremely naive if you think that, once government acquires a taste for that, it will remain confined to the airport.
"The Brokest Nation in History"? Nope:
"The U.S. government is not broke,” said Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy for Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. “There’s no evidence that the market is treating the U.S. government like it’s broke.”
The U.S. today is able to borrow at historically low interest rates, paying 0.68 percent on a two-year note that it had to offer at 5.1 percent before the financial crisis began in 2007. Financial products that pay off if Uncle Sam defaults aren’t attracting unusual investor demand. And tax revenue as a percentage of the economy is at a 60-year low, meaning if the government needs to raise cash and can summon the political will, it could do so.
External Link
Just sayin'.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEvery word in Mr. Steyn's post is true, particularly the last sentence. (Isn't the TSA doing random vehicle stops on the highways of Tennessee?) Can we stop it?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf unreasonable search and seizure does not include strip searching an octogenarian with a walker then nothing is unreasonable.
It can be stopped, but not without another revolution, I fear.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy own observation is that i have traveled to quite a few 3rd world military dictatorships in my time
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseand their airport staff are friendlier then any US airport staff, especially immigration, than i have come across. Im 100% sincere, not even trying to be funny.
My own observation is that i have traveled to quite a few 3rd world military dictatorships in my time
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseand their airport staff are friendlier than any US airport staff, especially immigration, than i have come across. Im 100% sincere, not even trying to be funny.
My wife (born in Japan, now naturalized in the USA) and I (born and raised in Brooklyn) were searched once returning from Narita Airport in the year or two after 9/11. We were running late and in our haste went the wrong way and got lost looking for our gate. We heard them announcing our names. They found us and insisted on questioning us and examining our carry on luggage before boarding. I knew they were following protocols and were sizing us up. We apologized profusely for inconveniencing everyone (constantly apologizing, especially when unnecessary, is a mark of good character there) They went through our things very gently, such that we could see what they were doing, and, as is natural for Japanese, perfectly refolded every item of clothing so that it was neater than when they found it. They held the flight so we could board the plane. I actually felt more fondness for Japan after this experience.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAll well and good, but what are we all going to DO about it?
Less jeremiad, more plan of action. Or we are, indeed, doomed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat is exactly my point --although since I don't have a star no one will ever read this post.
I fnd myself rooting for the economy to collapse as I don't see any way to reduce the size of government.
Here in TN they wil be voting on Monday to establish laws on the proper care of pets. Rather than punish those that are clearly guilty of animal cruelty they seek to establish a set of guidelines that they can use to look at any pet owners and punish them.
Again seeking to criminalize the law-abiding.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWill, I think the primary plan would be to remove Barak Obama and some Democrat senators from office. It will be up to the new administration to work out the details of sensible reforms in air security. As depressed as I am at the way the election is shaping up, I do believe that every one of our candidates will be make better cabinet appointments and move us toward more sensible air security policies and procedures.
(Of course, it is worth remembering that it was GWB's man, that PC fool, Norman Maneta, who was the father of these absurdities.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think these flamboyant speeches are counterproductive.
For the record, I agree that the TSA behaved stupidly of making an issue over the handbag.
I am also skeptical of airport security in general. After all, if the planes had steel cockpits so that the plane could not be taken over and used as a missile, I think any terrorist attacks would be manageable. After all, is it really worse for a terrorist to strike a plane than take over a bus or attack a crowd at the local farmer's market or the mall? Yet, we don't have the same level of security at these locations.
Even if I am skeptical of particular government functions, I am still a liberal.
Imagine if a CEO took the attitude towards his organization as the typical conservative takes towards government. What? Our business is not perfect? Forget trying to improve it or fix it! Let's just give up and shut it down.
That isn't exactly a very successful philosophy.
I think conservatives and liberals may be able to talk to each other when conservatives decide to stop adopting the same stance as the hypothetical destructive CEO above towards government.
If the conversation is about improving things rather than destroying them, and we may have something to talk about.
Why are conservatives so destructive?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse+++Why are conservatives so destructive?+++
"Destructive". O Jeez. Because governments are not businesses. Because governments are not there for the purpose of making profit. Because governments, unlike busenesses, do posses the innate right to force and violence so therefore, many things that are perfectly fine for businesses, are strictly verboten for governments. And so on and on.
I am quite surprised that such basic and trivial things even have to be explained to anyone.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy are conservatives so destructive?
It's a bigoted, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, science-phobic thing. You wouldn't understand.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDude -
I had several paragraphs of cogent, rational, detailed explanations carefully written out.
Then I read your reply, and deleted my own.
You win. Hands down.
And I'm stealing your response and using it, probably frequently, with my relatives this holiday season....
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseColonel Travis, I believe the gentleman above stated that flamboyant speeches are counterproductive. I can see that opinion wasnt about to stop either one of you.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDon't forget fascist.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCOL,
How did you get the text to show up in italic? HTML tags don't seem to work.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSeriously? Aside from the destruction caused by 50 years of liberal "progress", tell me something the government does more efficiently now (that doesn't involve death).
In the case of private management, a prudent manager will *stop* doing stupid counterproductive things; not double down with even dumber ideas.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSee, Welker, your analogy is an a priori false premise. Why would someone be asked to improve an organization which has no business to be in business to begin with? TSA as adequately represents airport security as Dept of Education - education, Dept of Agriculture - farmers, etc etc. Eliminating one doesn't necessarily mean eliminating the other. There are tons of proposals of how to improve government role in its current endevours, including - gasp - no role whatsoever. Just take a minute of your brainpower to get yourself familiar with it. Maybe then as a liberal you will be able to talk to conservatives. Maybe. Possibly. Perhaps
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseConservatives don't want to shut the government down entirely, we want it to focus on the things that it needs to do and stop doing the things that it doesn't do well and where it makes things worse. A corporate equivalent would be a CEO who refuses to expand into areas outside his company's expertise, cuts unneeded expenses, and gets the company focused on making its core products the best they can be.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI prefer leftists to call themselves progressive. I would like to have "liberal" back amongst those who identify with freedom.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse