Posted on 12/29/2009 5:57:13 AM PST by Kaslin
Here's what we can look for as the federal government implements new rules meant to thwart the likes of Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalib, the would-be pants bomber:
-- Sharp drop-offs in beverage sales as passengers find themselves barred from restrooms during the last 60 minutes of international flights.
-- Airport check-in times longer than airplane flight times.
-- An upsurge in employment for people turned on by the prospect of "patting down" strangers.
-- A decrease in human dignity, across the board.
Here 's what we likely can't look for:
-- Federal acknowledgement that young Arabic or African men deserve more official attention than do the normal riff-raff of air travel -- businessmen, grandmothers, babies, young couples from Wyoming, etc., etc.
-- Broad political recognition of a broad need for broad (meaning decisive and certainly non-compassionate) measures to discourage and punish people who want to kill Americans.
Fascinating to contemplate is the hard truth that the terrorists have beaten us. Well, not in everything, of course, but certainly in ways significant for modern life.
Everything we can't do at airports these days -- walk to the gate unimpeded, keep our shoes and clothes on at checkpoints, feel joy and fulfillment in the experience of air travel -- is owing to the terrorists. They have us handcuffed. We can't quit thinking about them lest they do something to us. In a weird way, they've won without winning
Let us contemplate how.
That terrorists aren't nice is just boilerplate -- we've always known it. That they want to kill us is the central consideration here. What do you do when people want to kill you? Generally, not enough, so dark and subterranean is the world they inhabit and hide in.
What matters most, nonetheless, is advertising them as enemies. Here is where the U. S. government -- or better said, the U. S. political process -- sometimes loses out.
The constant theme of too many journalists, bloggers and politicians since the early years of the supposed War on Terror is that Americans may not be a lot nicer than terrorists. The outcry over abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq telegraphed this viewpoint to us. The outcry merged with endless blather about "illegal" wiretaps, disregard of constitutional niceties by the Bush administration and, most of all, waterboarding and varied other "outrages" at Guantanamo.
Nothing would do, it seemed, but to close Guantanamo and extend constitutional protections to the enemy operatives held there. So, just as soon as the Obama administration figures out where to stash the delightful inhabitants of Guantanamo, we'll shutter the camp. Meanwhile, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 catastrophe awaits criminal trial in New York City, with all due constitutional protections.
A steady procession of events like this takes its toll in terms of civic morale. Americans grow suspicious -- of each other. Maybe it's all just a mix-up, this terrorism business. Maybe they don't really want to kill us -- just wake us up to their concerns? Maybe?
A little bit more indisputable is the harm our ambivalence about means and ends in the terror war is wreaking on national morale. A nation that consents to take its shoes off at the airport, and to abstain from the urgency of the restroom, without equating sacrifice to necessity -- that nation would seem headed for nervous breakdown. If, indeed, it hasn't already had one.
There isn't much human dignity in meek acceptance of unnecessary hardships, such as submission to manhandling in the process of innocent travel. Yet on a generally received sense of dignity everything worthwhile depends. Our leaders seem not to understand the harm they do the American spirit by handcuffing rather than liberating it so as to get a vital job done -- the extinction of (even if, shhh, we can't say it) terrorism rooted in the hatreds and phobias of too many Muslims.
First things first: smash the people whose legacy is restroom lockouts and airport shoe inspections. Then ask them if they care to lodge any human rights complaints.
“Drop yer drawers”
The real American people should not stand for this kind of treatment any longer. They should notify their government and their airlines and anyone else needing to know that the terrorism threat is 99.9% provided by people who are of muslim origin, no matter what country their from, with the majority being from the Middle East, Turkey, Southwest Asia, Africa and Indonesia, with some in Southeast Europe, etc. These are the people who needed to be “profiled” and reviewed thru security measures. Period. This would make life infinitely more tolerable for the innocent and a royal pain in the a$$ for the cause of this misery plaguing the West. This is no different then reviewing Germans during the Nazi era or Russians or other Communists during their reign of terror. Get on with it and stop causing this horrendous problem for the rest of us who’ve learned to get along. And to secure the future of America, stop the immigration of these enemies of freedom to our shores and start deportation of the majority of the ones who’ve arrived in the last 20/30 years. If you consider me a throwback, so be it, I’d rather be a surviving Judeo-Christian member of a democratic western industrialized nation vs. a dhimmi to a bunch of 7th century barbarians who worship a moonrock in the desert and stole pretty much any of their civilization from those they conquered in the past.
These continuing terror threats are actually a win-win for our govt. They allow them to impose ever more police state restrictions on citizens and keep them focused on the terrorists instead of their loss of freedom. We’ll never see the govt give up the current policy as long as it works to their advantage.
I believe the Patriot Act expires on December 31st.
We know what types of people have committed terrorist acts in the past. Those who are of the same general type must live with the fact that they stand out to those of us in America who are paying attention. To engage in extra scrutiny of such people is the price that must be paid. If they are not terrorists, they have nothing to worry about. If they are terrorists, to hide behind cries of "racial profiling" and complaints of not being politically correct prove that they are cowards, not brave warriors for their cause.
And that is the bottom line, Terrorists are COWARDS. They should be treated as such, and if found trying to board a plane, frog-marched out in front of everyone and made a spectacle of, so that all who see know that America will not put up with such scum disrupting our lives, and threatening our lives. It's time for this madness of treating all plane passengers as potential terrorists to stop. Concentrate on the ones who are most likely, and leave Grandma and the kids alone.
Unchecked stealing in urban areas: Citizens at their own expense have to put bars on their windows and install burgular alarms.
Punks constantly rob bus drivers: Put the burden on citizens to make them have exact change.
Shoplifing in stores: Make customers pay for elaborate anti-theft devices on merchandise and security surveillance in stores.
Terrorists threatening airplane safety: Impose extensive inconveniences on passengers.
The "solutions" are reactive and never address the source of the problems.
Great post. Every government “solution” seems to result in more bureaucracy, regulation and taxes.
Muslims should fly naked - given a robe for the flight. No carry on luggage. Xray to check for implanted bombs (Be careful sitting next to a muslim woman with really big boobs!)
I can’t wait for the new rules to come out when some terrorist tries a suppository bomb and drops trou and plants his butt against the window right before he tries to set it off. I can just imagine the new rules of the air after that one!
It is time to do away with political correctness...and adress the real issue.....Islamics want to kill us
We would have better security if we focus mainly on Muslims....I am tired of the rights of terrorists being valued over those of the rights of victims.
That's the crux if the issue- screw over the citizen for the benefit of a governmental bureaucracy.
It's too bad that the sheep are unable to band together to put a stop to the idiocy. Boycotting a major industry for one day would send a big message to those annoited e-lites.
“Drop yer drawers”
Or
“Turn your head and cough!”
“Bend over and spread your cheeks!”
Fedzilla has a ravenous appetite tax dollars and power. It’s far worse than most people could ever imagine. A periodic perusal of GAO reports (online) offers but a peak into the magnitude and ineptitude of the government bureaucracy.
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