Mario, you’re correct that the TSA is a prime example of the broader insanity of the precautionary principle applied without regard to cost-benefit analysis. I wasn’t joking, by the way, about the federal bureaucracy policing pumpkin pie consistency. It’s now part of a grand holiday tradition reflected in headlines that ought to be deeply embarrassing to a supposedly free people:
A Thanksgiving Meal, With The TSA’s Blessing
Meanwhile, Canadians, Mexicans, Britons, Australians, Indians, Swedes, Slovenes, Zambians, Papuans and just about everybody else except Saudis and North Koreans are free to eat Kinder Eggs, but in the United States at least three federal agencies are needed to prevent this life-threatening scourge from falling into the hands of the American people.
Even if this precautionary principle were entirely successful, even if – to use the Joe Biden test – it were to prevent one single death, what kind of functioning citizenry is likely to emerge from a government cocoon that treats them like a dimwitted, terrified, risk-averse ovine herd?