The ladies of “The View” discussed National Opt Out Day, which took place on November 24th, wherein passengers boycotted the – as O’Reilly once called them – “super naked scanners” to send a message about respecting our civil liberties to the bureaucrats running TSA.
[youtube eEYhGyLCZko nolink]
I found Whoopi Goldberg’s remarks to be typical but was shocked that conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck is willing to give up some liberty for safety.
“They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
– Benjamin Franklin
Because our airline bureaucracy is either too lazy or lacks the creativity to pursue the Israelification of airports (where multiple layers of security profile passengers’ behavior and where Israel airlines have an excellent safety record as a result (despite being surrounded by enemies) we’re instead subjected to dehumanizing, random, robotic checks. Instead of looking for behavior, for people, we’re looking for things.
This is the result:
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH… LITTLE BOY STRIP SEARCHED By TSA (Video)
TSA Pat-Down Leaves Traveller Covered in Urine
Breast Cancer Survivor Harassed by TSA
TSA Agent Accused of Raping 14 Year-Old Girl
‘Humiliated’: Female passenger subjected to patdown ‘because her sanitary towel showed up on scanner’
One Hundred Naked Citizens: One Hundred Leaked Body Scans
I don’t believe that all TSA agents are unfit for the job; I think there exist solid folks out there who simply want to do their jobs and keep America safe but they’re prevented from being anything but reactionary due to enhanced and embarrassingly ridiculous security protocols which would have done nothing to prevent past terror attacks and attempts.
The body scanners would not have prevented the Panty Bomber (as he boarded overseas and was allowed in the country due to lack of enforcement of the watch list and the State Department’s inability to process the tip that the bomber’s father gave them weeks prior). I wonder if President Obama discussed that with the nudie scanner CEO when they recently travelled together.
The terrorist attacks which heightened our airline security did not begin as terrorist problems. They began as immigration problems. They began because a host of people were in this country illegally, not tracked; Mohammed Atta was even pulled over for a traffic violation prior to 9/11 and released.
Because our government cannot, or will not, match the effectiveness of Israel airports in terms of keeping Americans safe, our dignity and civil liberties must be infringed upon to shore up their inability to do their jobs? The strategy to protecting Americans is to subject them to increasingly intimate and degrading searches?
There is no freedom in peaceful slavery.
How far will it go? Napolitano remarked that mass transit is next:
The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.
“[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on “Charlie Rose.”
“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”
So why are Americans who protest the increased infringement on their civil liberties in the name of inefficient and ineffective security offensively called “terrorists?” People who may create a longer line at the airport due to legal protest are like the murderers who slaughtered over 2,000 people on 9/11?
Barbara Walters sarcastically remarked that it was the “great American spirit” at work. Even though she didn’t intend it, she’s absolutely right. The resolute will to question authority when it deserves to be questioned due to a lack of respect for the citizenry from where it derives power is the spirit that built America and made it the most powerful nation on earth.
The spirit to question boundaries is the very spirit that led the way to stopping genocide in the 30s and 40s. It is the very spirit that united in the wake of 9/11 to band together and fight guerilla bullying, a.k.a. terrorism. Fear not the citizenry who questions, but fear the citizenry that blindly cedes power and sense to bureaucrats, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness.
*UPDATE: Reader Diddian corrects the satirical Daily Squib link. Noted, thanks!
Also: I noticed that the libs who took issue with the same link were silent on all the others which most certainly aren’t satirical – and while these same brand of folks were loudly against President Bush’s Patriot Act they were silently approving when President Obama expanded the Patriot Act’s scope and length. It would be easier for folks to understand their criticism if we knew to which of their double standards they were referring.
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