Posted on 12/21/2002 11:33:05 AM PST by Libertarian Billy Graham
To: EricOKC
The "honor" of pregnant women? It isn't just pregnant women, BigBobber.
The Patriot Act was our government's official notice that our society is no longer free. Airport searches have nothing to do with "security." They are only meant to condition us, to convince us that we need government to protect us.
And, Happygal, travel is a right, too.To: exodus
You're telling me that government has to approve my rights before I can practice my rights, general_re?
I think you've missed my point. To clarify, rights don't come from our government.
I'm telling you that your rights are not, and cannot be, absolute. You do not have the right to fly on a plane that does not belong to you, free from any scrutiny whatsoever, because your general right to travel does not guarantee you a particular method by which you can travel.
Asserting rights beyond what is enumerated in the Constitution is an exercise in wishful thinking. Both the contractual obligations of your ticket and the Commerce Clause of the Constitution provide ample justification for consensual searches of passengers - the Fourth Amendment is simply irrelevant, since the search is entirely consensual. If you don't like it, you are free to refuse to be searched, and then travel by some other means. You can always take a bus. Or buy your own plane. But the Commerce Clause clearly and explicitly gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce, which obviously includes a flight from Portland to Las Vegas.
How so? It may not have been overly polite fer HG to call ya an "arse", but I don't see where kako's membership is the least bit endangered...we've got plenty of PinkoFReepers!!
FReegards...MUD
To: exodus
Once again, you tell me that I only have the rights my government listed in the Constitution.
Rights do not come from government, general_re.
That may very well be, but asserting a right that society does not recognize or protect is of no practical value whatsoever. We have a contract enumerating the rights that society recognizes and protects - if you wish to add to that list, there is a procedure for so doing.
To: exodus
"Regulation" does not include government agents searching people without warrants.
A search is not "consensual" if it is forced upon you.
"Let me say it yet again: The rights of the people come from God. The powers of government come from the people. The American people delegated the specific powers they wanted the federal government to have through the Constitution. And any additional powers they wanted to grant were supposed to be added by amendment.
"It's largely because we've forgotten these simple principles that the country is in so much trouble..."
"And the result of the loss of our original political idiom has been, as I say, to invert the original presumptions. The average American, whether he has had high-school civics or a degree in political science, is apt to assume that the Constitution somehow empowers the government to do nearly anything, while implicitly limiting our rights by listing them."
Joseph Sobran, How Tyranny Came To America
Written before 9/11, incidentally.
No search is being forced upon you. You are free to refuse to be searched at any point during the boarding process.
To: exodus
We are "free" to refuse to do our job, if the job requires that we be four States away tomorrow morning?
We're "free" to give up a three day vacation in Hawii?
Air travel is a requirement of a major segment of our society, and a welcome luxury for all the rest of us.
Travel is a right. The fact that our government is infringing on that right does not negate it.
And when I get out of jail, I might start digging up the serious iron.
That is where this lunacy is taking us.
To: exodus
True, a commercial flight from Portland to Las Vegas would qualify as interstate commerce.
A commercial flight from Houston, Texas to Austin, Texas does not qualify. Even so, the same regulations are used, whether between States or within States.
The federal government does not have the authority to "regulate" commerce inside the individual States. The fact is that the Federal government actually does regulate commerce within individual States.
Our national government has usurped powers not granted to it.
Travel is a right. It is not, and cannot be, an absolute and unregulated right. No rights can be absolute and unregulated in any society consisting of more than one person. This society has decided that you must consent to a search in order to fly on a commercial flight, a requirement perfectly in accord with the Constitution. Doing so does not violate your general right to travel, since you are free to seek other means if you object.
Seriously: when every single violation of a person's body or property is met with, "Well duh, if you had just bent over it wouldn't have hurt so bad!", we've gone over the edge and are falling into a very dark chasm.
I personally agree with the closing line in this piece. Me and my wife just decided on a timetable for having children, and they are most definitely going to get acquainted with some nice upstanding young men named Jefferson and Franklin.
By a private display of her stomach, perhaps. Unless she is black, white, or Latino, for example, in which case she should be passed through unmolested.
To: exodus
The thrust of this article is not that pregnant women should never be searched.
The complaint has to do with the public disrobing, and the public groping, of this man's wife.
Second, I am not enamored of the idea of mouth-breathers groping women indiscriminately either, but I also recognize that there is a vested interest in acting to insure the safety and welfare of passengers, not least because the slight inconvenience to the hundred or so passengers might very well prevent the deaths of several thousands on the ground. I think there is a happy medium between perverts feeling up your wife in the boarding queue, and no security at all.
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