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Airport Security vs. Being Admitted into Prison: A Comparison
Passing through airport security seems more and more like being admitted into prison. First they confiscate two things: anything remotely sharp and… your belt. Then you’re standing in line with a bunch of barefoot people holding up their pants up with one hand and their sole possessions in the other. The travelers who passed through security hours earlier are looking on and chanting “Fresh fish! Fresh fish!”
Upon reflection, that last part doesn’t sound plausible enough to deem reliable memory. But you get the idea.
Air travel stopped being something to dress up for more than a generation ago. Tank tops, shorts, fish with slacks are now commonplace, even in first class.
But just because the culture made air travel more difficult to enjoy doesn’t mean the government had to ensure it could never be so.
An example. Last week while flying out of LAX they tried to confiscate my hair gel because I had six ounces of it in my carry-on bag. (I didn’t let them take it — I just put it in my hair where, apparently, it’s legal).
Contrast this with the much more sensible protocols in Europe (where I lived and flew around for five years) where “Guilty until proven innocent” is not policy. And yet they get the job done better than our vaunted TSA.
This new reflexive risk-aversion is evident everywhere, from the flimsy plastic forks which are no match for the the lasagna to peanut bags which warn us that “These peanuts were processed in a facility that produces nuts.”
The overall effect on passengers is a chilling one. Contrast how exciting it once was to board a plane to how humorless we are now. Recently I was boarding a plane in Burbank and I politely asked the gentlemen in the seat behind me if he would mind swapping seats with me so that his wife and I could sit together.
Like I said, no sense of humor.
Published in General
EThompson – We don’t disagree as much as you might suspect. To the extent that they do have an impossible job, though, is just another example of government hubris and waste.
I’m guessing “Süße”?
@David: Out of curiosity, are you a stand-up or writer? The way things are progressing in the world as of late, we surely could use a good humorist around here! (Besides Rob, of course.)
If America really was a free country, the TSA and IRS would not exist.
Amen.