I got on board an airplane this week. You know the drill as well as me: strip down, belts off, liquids out, pockets emptied, wait your turn, hands up at the X-ray machine, a pat down at the end. Hundreds of TSA security folks. When I got to my terminal after running this gauntlet, two more TSA wanted to see our ID\u2019s and boarding passes once more. Most us comply complacently, but if you ask us sheep if the money and inconvenience is worth it, post Nine One One, I bet 95% would say you betcha!<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not one of those 95%. It\u2019s not so much a violation of my personal privacy, all these inspections. It\u2019s just incredible overkill on our response to perceived threats. Kids are shot up every week in our schools and I don\u2019t see us locking down schools, setting up checkpoints and x-ray machines, maybe confiscating assault rifles. In fact, the 2nd Amendment folks resist any and all gun regulation now. I know we can\u2019t carry penknives on a plane, but I\u2019m amazed the ammo boyz sit still for a gun ban on airplanes. Better to have high altitude shootouts with terrorists than fly unarmed, they\u2019d argue. Same argument for arming teachers, I guess.<\/p>\n
The first shopping mall that\u2019s bombed and shoppers taken hostage, you\u2019ll see where this can lead. A full frontal assault on the bastions of capitalism, you\u2019ll have us consumers in mega-counter response. Strip searches at Macy\u2019s, x-ray machines at Victoria\u2019s Secret, lie detectors at Sears, loyalty oaths at Spencer\u2019s Gifts, proof of citizenship and credit card viability at the front entrances, language proficiency at the restrooms, profiling in the mall corridors.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one thing to murder innocent schoolkids and destroy the Trade Centers — it\u2019s quite another to kindle fear in the average shopper. Expense be damned! The bastions of commerce will be cleansed of the unholy! The deranged can shoot up our schools, but trespass on the Halls of Profit, there\u2019s going to be some serious hell to pay — and we\u2019ll be more than willing to pay it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I got on board an airplane this week. You know the drill as well as me: strip down, belts off, liquids out, pockets emptied, wait your turn, hands up at the X-ray machine, a pat down at the end. Hundreds of TSA security folks. When I got to my terminal after running this gauntlet, two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4628,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4627\/revisions\/4628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}