Power games and airport security


Why do we accept it? Has it made us safer?
Jim Peron from New Zealand writes on his recent airline security check.

Now the real insult out of all of this was the closing lines of the "notice" from the Travel Gestapo: "We appreciate your understanding and cooperation." My cooperation! Cooperation is joint, voluntary action. The woman is not cooperating with the rapists just because she doesn't resist since he says he will kill her if she does. The victim is not cooperating with his mugger when he hands over his wallet at the point of a gun. And I never cooperated with the Gestapo. Cooperation implies choice and I had none.

To question these midget dictators is to put yourself in unpleasant circumstances. At best you could be denied the right to travel completely. If these bureaucrats have haemorrhoids that day you could easily find yourself in jail. If you resist being manhandled, groped, insulted, or ordered about you can be shot. When people have this much power over you it is not understanding and cooperation that you are giving but acquiescence and obedience. Zieg heil.

At the very least don't insult our intelligence with notes thanking us for understanding and cooperation. You have fondled us without our consent. You have probed and scanned us without mercy. You have stripped off our shoes, laid bare our underwear for the world to see. You have ordered us about, dictated to us, rifled through our belongings. You get away with it because you are armed and you can and will do nasty things to us if we fail to obey the commands you bark out at us. But please don't insult us by pretending that our reluctant obedience is cooperation and our acquiescence is understanding.

If existing law had been enforced PRIOR to September 11, 2001, most of the hijackers would have been deported. After 9-11, most of those National Guardsmen you saw in airports didn't have ammunition for their weapons. And the most effective deterrent of all, arming commercial pilots (many of whom are reserve military), hasn't been done yet, even though it would be more effective than a secure cockpit door.

Airport security is a farce. We've spent tens of millions to accomplish exactly nothing except dehumanizing American citizens.

Hat tip to Wendy McElroy.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Wed - May 3, 2006 at 04:41 AM  Tag


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