I’ll bet I can think of several other dilemmas which you might not think were fair.
Drunk driving kills far more people in the US every week than are typically killed by airline terrorists. Let’s put mandatory BAC and THC blood testing machines on every car, paid for by you, and if you don’t want to submit to a breath and blood test every time you start your car, well, no one said you have to drive. Bricker can correct me if I’m wrong, but IIRC the USSC has found no more “right to drive” than there exists a “right to fly.”
“Go through the scanner” is clearly the more viable choice for someone who thinks “quit your career” isn’t a viable choice. Look for option C all you want – the fact is that there is zero indication these screening methods are going anywhere.
[QUOTE=MeanOldLady]
Dude, just quit with this line of reasoning. It’s ridiculous.
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Again, just because you don’t like either option doesn’t mean that the choice doesn’t exist. It may simply be unrealistic for you to forego flying and maintain your current quality of life. If that’s the case, believe it or not, you’ve made a choice.
[QUOTE=Una Persson]
I’ll bet I can think of several other dilemmas which you might not think were fair.
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Personally, I find your scenario to be more “unfair” simply because of its logistical ineffectiveness. Were this actually a fool-proof method to actually prevent drunk drivers from driving, I probably wouldn’t voice too much opposition to it.
Why must it be fool-proof, mon ami? Surely the TSA pat-downs and scanners aren’t held to that same standard. And while not foolproof, the installation of breathalysers on cars has been done via court order for some time.
What I’m saying is, couldn’t this just be a case of whose ox is being groped? I’m not in a position where I can quit my job and try to find another. Telling folks like myself to “just not fly” is not only not productive, it’s almost mocking. Believe me, I’ve cut my travel down to the bare minimum possible, and it has hurt my business and my career, honestly. Any more, and I’m out.
Considering the relative numbers of deaths due to drunk drivers compared to airborne terrorists and the relative effectiveness of a breathalyzer ignition lock to aggressive pat-downs, I would have to say you just proved you have oatmeal for brains.
Because that’s my level of comfort with the trade off. I find driving to be much more a necessity than flying, though. Where your pin falls on the map may differ.
I didn’t say you shouldn’t fly – I said you should weigh the importance of flying for your job vs. your disdain for the machines, and act accordingly. Your disdain has lost out to the importance of flying for your job. That doesn’t mean that the choice itself didn’t exist.
Our primary disconnect here is that I don’t consider the scanning techniques to be invasive enough to be impugning my rights. You and some others do. That’s gravy. I wouldn’t be angry if your beliefs won out – frankly, I don’t care either way whether I walk through a metal detector or an AIT.
If only TSA had a ride photo option, though. I’d love to have a MMWD scan of myself to go along with one of those personal DNA profile prints.
Unless you have a colostomy bag or something similarly innocent but necessary hidden under your clothes.
Then you HAVE to get the pat down. And the hands patting you down are not trained and probably not gentle. Then you wind up with urine all over your clothes and no easy way to get it out.
Like I said, we are persecuting and humiliating the most vulnerable of our citizens. The elderly with artificial joints. Victims of cancer and other diseases who require various bags and tubes or prosthetic breasts. War heroes with prosthetic limbs. How can anyone find it acceptable that we are specifically singling out these people? How can anyone accept that untrained TSA personnel are pawing at these people’s bodies and medical equipment and asking them humiliating questions?
I’m embarrassed at the face we are showing the world.
I am definitely skeptical of something call “Natural News” and I think the idea of a pandemic is over the top but I do wonder how often they change those gloves. It does seem like unchanged gloves could certainly transmit some nasty things.
Not 100% true, I did mention that I have cut down on air travel, which has hurt my job.
FWIW I’m not worried about the scanners, neither from a radiation nor a privacy perspective. WRT privacy, due to government work I’m “in the system” in more ways than most people will ever be anyhow. WRT radiation, via the research I did for Cecil I’m convinced that my brief and infrequent exposure is nothing to worry about. Nonetheless, I fully respect people who are concerned about either the privacy loss or radiation from scanners, and support finding another way to screen.
But the invasive pat-downs are my concern. I don’t like strangers putting hands on me for any reason. I do not know the root cause; I suspect that it goes back to the abuse, physical attacks, and sexual assault I’ve endured in my life. While I in no way believe that a TSA employee is trying to do any of the aforementioned…we are not always rational, logical animals, and I draw the line at people touching me so thoroughly and personally.
What happens with someone who’s allergic to latex, but has to have a pat down?
At this point, why not just go the whole hog and start strip-searches and full body cavity searches? (And it honestly would not surprise me at this point – I never would have guessed it would go this far)
Perhaps we should have someone wear a “stadium buddy” and then release it all over the TSA agent.
Okay, if you want to make this a cost/benefit analysis, let us look at the cost/benefit breakdown of the security methods employed by TSA. Just purely in term of economic cost (to the tune of $7B per year, the 2009 budget of TSA) how much economic damage due to terrorism and other security threats has TSA deterred? Are we getting our money’s worth for the efforts employed? How many credible terroristic threats are out there, and how effective are the current security methods in preventing further attacks? Are we doing more damage–economically, ethically, to liberty–by employing extreme security methods such as intrusive searches versus acceptance of the blue moon threat of radical extremists engaging in suicide attacks?
I think it all boils down to the old standby, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
I was merely countering with not only was it thinkable, a book by one of the times’ most popular authors used it as a plot device seven years earlier. It was not unthinkable.
What would I do? I’d accept that you cannot protect everyone and you have to keep a balance between doing something and getting on with our lives. I’d also do more to do something about the much larger, well documented other holes in the security system, rather that concentrating completely on the passengers. Using Lockerbie as an example again, a man was convicted and I gather most of the US thinks he was guilty (although there is doubt in the UK). If those in the US are right, he survived. He wasn’t a passenger. He took down a plane by exploiting other areas of the process, areas that it seems are still open. The TSA measures are an illusion of security designed to placate people like you that seem to find the illusion more important than actual security.
So in short, do something about the known, actual massive security holes instead of concentrating on feeling up innocent people’s junk.
What’s the point in labeling this a choice, anyways? How does it change that the procedures are unacceptable? Just because you can choose not to walk in a dangerous neighborhood doesn’t mean it’s acceptable for there to be murders committed in it.
Or let’s go another route. Let’s say a criminal holds a gun to your head, and tells you to give me him your money. You have a choice to not give him money. You’ll be dead if it happens, but it’s still a choice. Now what value is there in expressing that it’s a choice? Why not be like most rational people and view it as you were forced to do what he says?
I’m not in a position where I can quit my job and try to find another. Telling folks like myself to “just not fly” is not only not productive, it’s almost mocking. Believe me, I’ve cut my travel down to the bare minimum possible, and it has hurt my business and my career, honestly. Any more, and I’m out.
