This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
If I have to read another stupid word about how I should submit to indecent assault like a good girl because it will save lives, I'll explode. Can't anyone think straight? It is absolutely the contrary: This stuff kills people. It kills people because the more unpleasant, time-consuming and humiliating it is to fly, the more people drive. The more they drive, the more they die.
This simple, obvious logical point about transportation safety--quite separate from any arguments about civil liberties and decency--seems entirely to escape everyone who keeps babbling on about how we all just need to stop whining and sacrifice for the higher good of the public. Al Qaeda would have to take down a jumbo jet every day to make the risks of flying equal to those of driving. So if you want to save American lives by means of social engineering and government humiliation, make mandatory groin examination the condition for getting a driver's license, not boarding a commercial aircraft. This is where logic leads you, if the only thing you care about is reducing transportation fatalities.
If other concerns weigh in your judgement--such as, say, having any dignity left as a nation--you will have already arrived at this conclusion, of course.
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May '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
Evidently not enough people can think straight to judge from the nitwits reporting the news and the nitwits they interview (unless it's balance, find one "if it keeps me safe" and one "this is outrageous" to roll on the news).
If the terrorists want to kill a lot of people, they could do it in the crowd in front of security. We have hopefully reinforced cockpits and armed pilots to the extent that actually hijacking the plane and using it as a weapon is now unlikely.
We could try doing what El Al does, profiling. Wonder how many people are willing to say "if it keeps me safe" to that?
It remains to be seen if the burqa-clad will be allowed to take the special line used by politicians and high-ranking bureaucrats.
Jul '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
Nick Stuart: If the terrorists want to kill a lot of people, they could do it in the crowd in front of security. We have hopefully reinforced cockpits and armed pilots to the extent that actually hijacking the plane and using it as a weapon is now unlikely.
We could try doing what El Al does, profiling. Wonder how many people are willing to say "if it keeps me safe" to that?
It remains to be seen if the burqa-clad will be allowed to take the special line used by politicians and high-ranking bureaucrats. · Nov 16 at 4:25am
I'll second all this...
Jul '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
My last airplane flight was in 2002, I do not miss it. Not that terrorism is the problem, the TSA is. Statistical deaths don't enter in, since only civic planning wonks care about dumping marginal death rates in the calculation. The rest of us are more worried about traffic and gas prices.
I cannot imagine how Obama could more perfectly cement his reputation for thuggery and incompetence than through this TSA. I cannot even work up much sympathy for air travelers, they have more affluence and clout on average than Joe six pack. It's been obvious for years that TSA gets way too much funding for way too little competency and effectiveness. The change of administrations just took it from stupid to stupid cubed even in security theater terms. Republicans should send a thank you card to Napolitano daily.
Edited on Nov 16, 2010 at 5:16amJun '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
Bureaucracies don't exist to solve problems. They exist to serve the people employed in them. Here's a profile of your average bureaucrat:
1. He lacks perception. The average government clerk can neither see nor define the problem accurately.
2. He believes that staying busy is the equivalent of solving the problem.
3. The only real energy he puts into his job is directed toward climbing the bureaucratic ladder for higher pay and increased status (see public employee unions).
4. He takes every possible day off and leaves the office at 4 PM.
5. He defends his office by exclaiming "we serve the public" no matter how abysmal the service actually is. He tends to move on to another agency before he can be held accountable for the mess he's made in his previous position.
There is no cure for government bureaucracy except to abolish it. This is why conservatives demand limited government. The only effective way to reduce government is to cut the purse strings that fund the bureaucracy. Maybe someone employed in Congress will read this thread and take action. Probably not.
Edited on Nov 16, 2010 at 5:09amMay '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
CBS News issued a poll this morning that says that 81% support full body scans. How many of those 81% actually fly and how many are exhibitionists?
Nov '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
Three points:
(1) Maybe we should copy the methods of the Israelis, who have the best, most efficient airport security in the world. Much of their security is based on (horrors!) profiling, conducted by women trained to study people's faces. TSA officials will not even look you in the eye. They know you hate them.
(2) Of course, in American airport security, profiling is verboten. Apparently, so is common sense. Only the other day, I saw a picture of a TSA stooge treating an elderly Catholic nun in an inappropriate way. Of course! Since a typical terrorist is practically always a young, male, Muslim maniac, we must be sure to feel up the old nun! We take no chances, no sirree.
(3) If you really want to complain, you may as well lay the blame where it belongs – at the feet of Janet Napolitano, a woman so clueless, so utterly hapless, so lacking in basic reasoning skills, that to call her a brainless, incompetent nitwit is an insult to nits. Thank you, Mr. Obama, for putting this non-entity in charge of Homeland Security. We all sleep so much better for it.
Oct '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
I have to go thru body searches everytime I enter a mall, a bus terminal or use the Light Rail Transit. It's the new normal.
Aug '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
Made me laugh. Though my coffee burned a bit when I snorted it through my nose.
May '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
~Paules: Bureaucracies don't exist to solve problems. They exist to serve the people employed in them. Here's a profile of your average bureaucrat:
1. He lacks perception. The average government clerk can neither see nor define the problem accurately.
2. He believes that staying busy is the equivalent of solving the problem.
3. The only real energy he puts into his job is directed toward climbing the bureaucratic ladder for higher pay and increased status (see public employee unions).
4. He takes every possible day off and leaves the office at 4 PM.
5. He defends his office by exclaiming "we serve the public" no matter how abysmal the service actually is. He tends to move on to another agency before he can be held accountable for the mess he's made in his previous position.
Nov 16 at 5:07am
Edited on Nov 16 at 05:09 am
This false narrative is getting pretty old. If you think you can do better, go to usajobs.gov and give it a try.
Jul '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
I read somewhere that the Proster who didn't want his Junk touched said that in the last two years every plot so far has been stopped by passengers and not the screeners. Pretty Good track record for all those Suspected Terrorists forced to submit.
~Paules: Bureaucracies don't exist to solve problems. They exist to serve the people employed in them. Here's a profile of your average bureaucrat:
1. He lacks perception.
2. He believes that staying busy is the equivalent of solving the problem.
3. The only real energy he puts into his job is directed toward climbing the bureaucratic ladder
4. He takes every possible day off and leaves the office at 4 PM.
5. He defends his office by exclaiming "we serve the public" .
You forgot one;
6. He knows the rules in the book by heart because he deals with them 6 hours a day 5 days a week, and when you, who will deal with them Once, or maybe Twice in a 5year period, (or even a lifetime) don't have his level of understanding, he will treat you like a TOTAL IDIOT for not knowing what he knows.
Aug '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
~Paules: Bureaucracies don't exist to solve problems. They exist to serve the people employed in them. Here's a profile of your average bureaucrat:...
2. He believes that staying busy is the equivalent of solving the problem.
There is no cure for government bureaucracy except to abolish it. This is why conservatives demand limited government. The only effective way to reduce government is to cut the purse strings that fund the bureaucracy. Maybe someone employed in Congress will read this thread and take action. Probably not.
He believes that appearing to be busy is the equivalent of the solving the problem.
You are dead on about the cure for bureaucracy. Conservatives will never have significant impact until this is done because conservatives, by and large, do not look at government work as a good thing whereas liberals love it. Thus, federal bureaucracies are filled with liberal do-gooders while conservative are out, uh, actually...working and producing.
Oct '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
What else can we expect in a culture abandoned to PC-think? We can no longer make the reasonable discrimination that the human risk to air travel is confined to a small and dangerous segment of the population. Failing to focus on the obvious problem we end up with the TSA's hands on our junk. Sad day for freedom.
Oct '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
I think that the invasive pat-downs can be rolled back if there's enough of an uproar, a Tea Party-like rebellion. "Don't touch my junk or I'll have you arrested" is the phrase of the year in my opinion. Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic came up with an ingenious idea (here) to deal with the searches: wear a kilt.
Nov '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
One must ask, what exactly is the problem TSA is trying to solve? Post 9/11 hi-jacking has become a non starter. Smuggling an effective weapon is too bulky. I'm unconvinced that these searches serve at all as an anti hi-jacking measure.
So we are left with explosives. We had the shoe bomber, the undie bomber. I dread the discovery of a body cavity bomber, what new search will that inspire. I am more convinced that current scanning/frisking is totally ineffective at screening for actual threats.
Jul '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
Karen
~Paules: Bureaucracies don't exist to solve problems. They exist to serve the people employed in them. Here's a profile of your average bureaucrat:
1. He lacks perception. The average government clerk can neither see nor define the problem accurately.
2. He believes that staying busy is the equivalent of solving the problem.
3. The only real energy he puts into his job is directed toward climbing the bureaucratic ladder for higher pay and increased status (see public employee unions).
4. He takes every possible day off and leaves the office at 4 PM.
5. He defends his office by exclaiming "we serve the public" no matter how abysmal the service actually is. He tends to move on to another agency before he can be held accountable for the mess he's made in his previous position.
Nov 16 at 5:07am
Edited on Nov 16 at 05:09 am
This false narrative is getting pretty old. If you think you can do better, go to usajobs.gov and give it a try. · Nov 16 at 6:32am
The trick for USAJobs.gov is enter as many keywords as you possibly can within the limit.
Oct '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
I'm not sure I accept the premise that people will choose to drive rather than fly when airport security practices reach a tipping point. Other than for short-haul flights, for whom, really, is it a viable option to drive instead of fly? Anyone gonna pack up the car and drive to Orlando from Boston or Chicago or Dallas or Seattle? How about even something equivalent to Boston to NY - who's going to drive 5 hours oneway rather than fly for 45 minutes just to avoid the TSA? Maybe a few. Maybe.
If there's stats to prove me wrong, fine. But I think it's a false premise that there's lots of people who would choose cars over planes because of airport security idiocy.
Jul '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
RPD: One must ask, what exactly is the problem TSA is trying to solve? Post 9/11 hi-jacking has become a non starter. Smuggling an effective weapon is too bulky. I'm unconvinced that these searches serve at all as an anti hi-jacking measure.
So we are left with explosives. We had the shoe bomber, the undie bomber. I dread the discovery of a body cavity bomber, what new search will that inspire. I am more convinced that current scanning/frisking is totally ineffective at screening for actual threats. · Nov 16 at 8:23am
I disagree. The right kind of charge will blow the cockpit door wide open without significantly damaging the plane. It doesn't take much explosive, hence the unwelcome security measures.
The real free market solution is personal aircraft.
Nov '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
Michael Tee
I disagree. The right kind of charge will blow the cockpit door wide open without significantly damaging the plane. It doesn't take much explosive, hence the unwelcome security measures.
The real free market solution is personal aircraft. · Nov 16 at 8:52am
The guy/guys who try to place a charge on a cockpit door are going to end up tied to their seats with belts.
Learning to fly and get licensed for private aircraft is a fairly onerous process even before you get to the expense. Otherwise that sounds like an ideal option.
My personal rule is that anything within 8 hours is driving distance. After that I'll fly if I can't possibly avoid the trip.
Jun '10
Re: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
Karen
This false narrative is getting pretty old. If you think you can do better, go to usajobs.gov and give it a try. · Nov 16 at 6:32am
False narrative, eh? I'm currently watching the school where I taught being wrecked by a new administration. Since I departed last year, the faculty has been reduced from 28 to 24 and the administration increased from 10 to 13. If you understand that the special education department of 5 teachers is almost entirely administrative, you have in reality a bureaucrat to teacher ratio of 18 to 19, or nearly one to one. Add in the administration at the district and state levels and you discover that public education is a jobs program for bureaucrats. Meanwhile, classroom size has increased from 15 to 25 students on average and the remaining faculty is teaching 6 sections instead of 5. The current principal is over at the State Dept. of Ed. more often than he's on campus. What do you suppose he's doing over there? Case closed as far as I'm concerned.
Edited on Nov 16, 2010 at 9:30amRe: This Obsession With Air Security is Going to Kill People, for Real
dittoheadadt
I'm not sure I accept the premise that people will choose to drive rather than fly when airport security practices reach a tipping point. Other than for short-haul flights, for whom, really, is it a viable option to drive instead of fly?
I can support this with tons of anecdotal evidence (including everyone on Ricochet who says "I don't fly anymore, it's too much of a hassle"--I presume they all still visit relatives and so forth). I'd certainly opt to drive shorter distances in the US now, even if it is more dangerous; I just cannot bear the hassle of flying in America these days. I'll look for statistics to back this up, though. Does anyone have any at the ready?