Re: Man up!

>> You know, I understand the irritation over all this, I really do, but I
>> think it's important to measure our sense of indignance. Nobody's barging
>> into our homes and demanding stripteases from our children. Nobody's forcing
>> any of us to fly anywhere. We have no inherent rights regarding our ability
>> to board an airplane, uh, unmolested (ahem).
>
> That's a bizarre sentence.  We have no inherent right to board a plane,
> true.  But we *do* have an inherent right not to be molested, at least not
> without *probable cause*.

Well, I was reaching for a cheap joke, but I think you can take my
meaning. We have no inherent right to board a plane in any manner
other than the one that's available to us. Just like we have no right
to drive a vehicle in any way other than the ones that are available
to us.

It seems odd to me that some people are treating this like our rights
are somehow being violated. Airplanes present a unique and
particularly potent opportunity for terrorism, so certain measures are
in place to reduce that risk. We don't have to like it, nor do we have
to subject ourselves to it. It just is what it is. If we don't like
it, we don't have to fly.

> And of course, if the government decided to set up
> road blocks and pull over random drivers

Isn't that what the border patrol does?

> the option of being exposed to potentially harmful radiation

This argument is particularly odd, given the ubiquity of cell phones
in our culture.

> or having their private parts fondled

I highly doubt that anyone's being "fondled." Do you consider a police
pat-down a fondling? What about a doctor's physical?

> by minimum-wage hacks who have no
> medical or police training,

What does medical or police training have to do with anything? Give
someone a medical degree or six weeks of boot camp, and suddenly it's
okay for them to touch you in sensitive areas? They're not "fondling?"
I imagine TSA agents receive training for their jobs as well, and it
amounts to more than, "Just poke around their swimsuit areas and see
if you can find anything."

> you'd be fine with that too, right?

If we developed an ongoing problem with people loading cars up with
explosives and driving into shopping centers or whatever, then, yeah,
I'd be okay with random checkpoints. Hey, that sounds kind of like
what we're doing in Iraq, huh?

-- 
-pcg
 [email protected]

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