I'm With John Madden: No More Commercial Flying For Me

Chuck Baldwin Ministries ^ | 01-13-03 | Baldwin, Chuck

[Theodore R.]

I'm With John Madden: No More Commercial Flying For Me

By Chuck Baldwin

Food For Thought From The Chuck Wagon

January 13, 2004 After retiring from coaching, former Oakland Raiders Head Coach and now popular sportscaster John Madden hung up his wings. He had been forced to spend numerous hours flying commercial airliners with his NFL team, but upon retiring he said, "No more flying for me."

When first approached to take a position as a professional sportscaster, Madden said he would only consider the offer if he could travel to games via a bus. The networks agreed, and Madden hasn't flown since. I think Madden has the right idea.

While Madden's decision to stay out of the "friendly" skies was made several years before the terrorist attacks in 2001 and was doubtless made for other, and more personal, reasons, it seems especially sagacious in light of recent decisions by the Bush administration. According to the Washington Post and CBS News, President Bush plans to color code every passenger who flies a commercial airliner.

News reports state that airlines and airline reservation companies would be forced to turn over all passenger records to U.S. government officials. The government would then assign a color code to each passenger, ostensibly determined by the passenger's "threat level."

Passengers would be assigned a red, yellow, or green color. A red coded passenger would be stopped from boarding; yellow would require additional screening at security checkpoints, and green would mean only standard security for boarding. The government plans to implement the new system next month.

Reports also quote Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spokesmen as saying frequent flyers could receive special passes which would allow faster check-in if they were willing to allow the government to access their personal information. Of course, this information would be entered into a government database.

To any person familiar with the incremental methods used by totalitarian regimes to regulate and control their populations, this latest measure being enacted by President Bush can only be regarded as "scary." By now, it should be obvious to every thinking person that the Bush administration is composed of a bunch of "control freaks" who are attempting to turn America into a police state!

Freedom and independence are extremely fragile commodities. They can only be maintained by an alert and vigilant citizenry. Unless the people of the United States awaken from their obvious passivity, what freedoms we have left will quickly vanish!

It's time to face it: President Bush is no friend of liberty, and neither is he a friend to constitutional government nor national sovereignty. Four more years of a Bush administration could very well mean the death knell of freedom in these United States.

The character and constitutional ignorance of Washington politicians being what they are, the only scenario that offers even a modicum of opportunity for freedom to last a while longer is for one party to occupy the White House while the other party controls Congress. It seems party stalemate is about the only thing that is somewhat favorable to freedom these days.

Obviously, the ideal solution would be for Americans to throw off the current two-party system altogether and elect independent men and women of real honor and character who would have the courage to obey the U.S. Constitution and to restore the principles contained in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.

In the meantime, if one wants a foretaste of a burgeoning police state, just try boarding a commercial airline. Of course, once air travel has been completely Gestapoized, it's only a matter of time for ground travel. Until then, however, I think I'll postpone the leap into Big Brother's Brave New World by getting on the bus with John Madden.

© Chuck Baldwin

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Isn't flying on a commercial airline a privilege, and not a right?

[Timesink]

The solution to this is quite simple. Once CAPPS II is implemented, everyone should take a personal vow: If they are ever, even once, stopped for special screening or not permitted to board because some stupid computer falsely flags them, they will NEVER attempt to fly commercial airliners until CAPPS II is shut down, except when absolutely vital. No arguing with the TSA to get their "status" changed, just a simple decision to never fly again. Forbid your families to fly. If you own a small company where you have to travel a lot, use videoconferencing wherever possible. And send letters to all the major airlines (real paper letters via US Mail) informing them that you have just removed X number of people from the pool of potential airline customers.

Once the number of people that remove themselves from the traveling pool gets above a couple million, the airlines will start lobbying the government like hell to shut down CAPPS II, because they can barely afford to lose a single customer these days.

And if nobody is willing to make such a pledge, well then, we get what we deserve.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

And I don't have to fly either.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Don't worry - I'm already writing the airline companies which we would normally use and/or have been frequent flyer members for over a decade now to that effect.

[schmelvin]

I wonder how hard it would be for terrorists to circumvent the system. Obtain a Low Risk Flyer card and database status through bribery, insider contacts, forgery, etc.

In the end I suspect that a couple hundred American passengers, who've already suffered a massive invasion of their privacy, will still wind up having to tackle several more of these b@st@rds right outside the cockpit door.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

...we have not seen an attempt by multiple hijackers (in a coordinated effort) either succeed or fail since 9-11...

That's because Bin Laden's MO is never to strike in the same way twice.

[Area51]

But, there are some who are very paranoid, and having any scheme in place to protect them simply feeds their paranoia.

3 posted on 01/13/2004 10:02:56 AM PST by Hodar (With Rights, comes Responsibilities. Don't assume one, without assuming the other.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

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Yeah, like they would ever be allowed to just pull you over and ask you questions just because you happen to be out on the highway! (/sacasm)

[eno_]

Where do you get your information from? Do you have any facts whatsoever to back that statement up, or is it just your personal opinion? Perhaps you should spend some time talking to an emergency room MD or nurse. There are a few here at FR.

Current DUI laws are a scam. They fill "rehab" with people who are not alcoholics. Our taxes pay for that. They jack up insurance rates. They employ more Barney Fifes to man checkpoints and pull overtime. They don't catch the blind drunks that actually kill people. Those people are on the road due to corrupt judges and fixer lawyers. 0.08BAC doesn't catch those criminals either.

[armyboy]

No the system will be
red- U.S. military personel
yellow-most of everybody else
green-Arabs

[Truth29]

In all seriousness about the color categories assigned: Since "they" will have access to credit bureau and credit card records and will be looking at past associations and purchasing patterns - will memberships in the NRA, purchasing firearms, membership in the American Border Patrol, etc. be considered risk factors and get a passenger put in the yellow category?

You will never know why it happened, but you will get extra scrutiny and each new Administration will be able to use the information in a political as well as a security manner.

[Graymatter]

>...once air travel has been completely Gestapoized, it's only a matter of time for ground travel. You can't crash into a govt building with a train. Security would never be that severe for trains, and terrorists wouldn't target them.

You think Bush is happy about all this? I don't.

Think of it as a credit check in the info age. Nowadays everyone you deal with in business can get your SS# and that gets them everything else they want to know. Why the fuss? If your privacy is that sensitive, take the train and kid yourself that your privacy is any safer. It's not.

[steve-b]

I wonder how hard it would be for terrorists to circumvent the system. Obtain a Low Risk Flyer card and database status through bribery, insider contacts, forgery, etc. In the end I suspect that a couple hundred American passengers, who've already suffered a massive invasion of their privacy, will still wind up having to tackle several more of these b@st@rds right outside the cockpit door.

That's why my suggestion of passing out blackjacks would do a thousand times more to enhance real security than this foolishness.

[Lazamataz]

No flames from me.

In fact, I wanna give you a big hug.

[Lazamataz]

Current DUI laws are a scam.

According to a policeman friend of mine, a 0.00 BAC test doesn't mean you won't be charged and successfully convicted for DUI.

If a cop thinks you are drunk, a LAB ANALYSIS 0.00 BAC does not exhonorate you.

In other words, proof that you are sober is no longer proof that you are sober.

Yes, Virgina, there is an Orwellian Police State.

[Brian Allen]

<< That's why my suggestion of passing out blackjacks would do a thousand times more to enhance real security than this foolishness. >>

Blackjacks? For Americans? Are you kidding?

We Americans, unique in all of Human History, have a Declaration of Independence, a Constitution and a Bill of Rights which includes the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The one, that is, that forbids the feral gummint from interfering with every American's God-given Right to own and to bear arms.

Get the gummint the Hell out of the way, let us all exercise our right to be armed if and how and when we feel like it and then let's see how many cravenly-gutless, intellectually and morally bankrupt, sexually repressed and depraved, psychopathologically-hesperophobic, false-fuehrer-following, moon-rock-walloping, death-cultist bloody murderers hijack how many more of our airliners.

[Lazamataz]

That's why my suggestion of passing out blackjacks would do a thousand times more to enhance real security than this foolishness.

I can see how this might help.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

How can you tell if someone is a Muslim by looking at them in the airport? A Christian? A Jew? Other than clothing or other religious accoutrement's, how do you tell if the average person is Muslim?

[Graymatter]

>>We need to profile

I don't understand the opposition to it. If I were an Arab subjected to the indignities that come with profiling, I'd save my resentment for the people that started this. Arab people.

[nightdriver]

Experience would say that the author is correct. The gubmint said "trust us" when some of us raised a similar alarm over the assignation of an individual number to every citizen to be used only for Social Security purposes. We were founded, after all, as a free people and, unlike Nazi Germany, weren't to be regimented like that.

Nowadays, our "trustworthy" gubmint has mandated that we turn over our SS numbers for everything from bank accounts to drivers' licenses.

We in America are like the old cliched frog in the pot of water that is slowly brought up to a boil.

[Lazamataz]

How can you tell if someone is a Muslim by looking at them in the airport?

It's tattoed on the back of 'is neck!