(Was it a mistake not to include a sarcasm-indicating smiley in my earlier post?)
I don’t quite agree with you, here. While I do agree that most of the measures taken vis-a-vis air travel since 9-11 have been cosmetic and do little, if anything, to improve air safety (Especially the ID requirements.) but there were two simple changes made that I believe were both a minimal additional hassle, and are completely warranted:
Banning of passengers carrying box cutters.
Keeping passengers out of the cockpit during flight.*
ISTR that large knives (More than the size of a pocket knife) were already banned prior to 9/11, and that was one of the things that the screeners of the time were already checking for. And the same search would have a decent chance to catch commercially made boxcutters.
Nitpicks aside, I agree with the overall position of your thesis - that we’re accepting more and more gov’t intrusion, and regulations, that are unable to achieve the goal stated for them. That is, the complete prevention of all terrorist-style attacks.
It’s just not possible.
*I’m aware that in the case of the 9/11 hijackers this was not a factor. But my understanding is that it became an official FAA policy, rather than just something that the individual airlines could choose to do, or not, as they wished.
Actually, if you’re old enough to be an SDMB member, you probably don’t have to be in one anymore.
I’ll be able to tell my kids, “when I was your age, the pilot of an airliner let me come into the cockpit because it was my seventh birthday.”
And, “When I was a kid, only the very rich had cell phones.”
I’ll bet that he asked if you’d ever been in a Turkish prison, too.
Plainly, yes. You are clearly a danger to excessively humourless individuals, and accordingly will shortly be banned. Please turn in your typing fingers at the nearest recycling depot.
I think the biggest question is:
Has this 6th-grader been grounded until she’s 30 or given some other suitable punishment for lying her asshole little head off and threatening a man’s career? It’s hard enough for kids to get adults to take abuse seriously without failed abortions like this making false accusations.
“Believe the children” my ass.
So far, no. My local NBC affiliate had a call-in poll on the news last night, and it was resoundingly 100% in favor of this kid being charged with filing a false report or punished somehow.
But as far as I know, she has not been charged with any crime. :rolleyes:
ETA: Apparently, she is not being charged.
From the Baltimore Sun site referenced in the OP:
Sorry, but “Girl cries wolf” should not lead us to greater vigilance against wolves. It should lead us to greater vigilance against stupid, selfish, lying girls.
Back in high school, I had a part-time job helping clean a junior high. The main custodian daid that if ever had to be with a child, or take on somewhere, he always did the buddy system for his protection. This was back in the late 70s, but it’s not all a recent thing.
Oh, yeah. I’d sort of gone past that one little niggling point in the OP.
If that girl lied…
String the little bitch up by her thumbnails. She does a grave disservice to real victims, and she should be shunned.
There’s one other thing which hasn’t been pointed out yet. If memory serves, most kids who are molested aren’t molested by scary strangers lurking in bathrooms at schools, but by family and friends of family they already know. Dear old Uncle So-and-so who lives next door, who’s such a nice man and who just loves spending time with our sweet little girl is a lot more likely to be a threat than a construction worker taking a bathroom break while he’s on the job.
Wasn’t it always illegal for a terrorist to take over a plane? Perhaps it is just my wacky memory but didn’t terrorists take over more then one plane pre 9/11? It seems it took 9/11 to change things for most airlines (was El Al just a fast learner?). Does 9/11 take away from the fact that BILLIONS of people flew all over the world for many years safely? I hope not. Should we make sure that we are safe as possible when flying? Yes. Does that mean that it seems that we are not far away from flying naked without luggage? Yes.
As far as children are concerned LETS JUST WRAP THEM ALL IN BUBBLE WRAP and cope with the maladjusted adults that gives us.
For fucks sake all the dangers like builders, falls, cars accidents, visits to the beach, peanuts, priests, scout leaders, venetian blind cords, buckets of water, gluten, sugar, food additives, vaccinations etc, are bullshit.
There are two actual dangers; parents and pure dumb luck.
We should try to make the world as safe as we can (we meaning parents) it is our job to prevent our children from being exposed to dangerous situtions… but sensibly not neuroticaly! While trying to protect our children sometimes bad things will happen, that’s where dumb luck comes in. The greater percentage of our children will be safe even when they repeatedly throw themselves in danger.
Billions and billions of people drive everyday…hundreds die doing it. Does that mean we shouldn’t drive? Billions of children come in contact with someone for the first time every day (doctors, plumbers, teachers, shop assistants, builders etc) a miniscule percentage will harmed by those people.
But a larger percentage will be harmed by parents who teach them never to trust anyone. Though in most countries the statistics hold that if it is not the parents, it will be someone they know who will harm them.
You’re right that pre-emptive action is (sometimes) good. I just wanted to pipe up and make explicit what others have hinted at: what’s missing in this case is the need to accurately assess what dangers should be addressed. Failure to do so is what leads to “nanny-state” and “think of the children” charges.
Accurate assessment is good. However, that runs counter to the mindset of all-encompassing prevention, zero tolerance, and rational thought. When an accurate risk assessment is performed, I can guarantee that the whatiffers will point out every insanely remote possibility and denounce the plan as insufficient.
The problem began not just with the first idiotic lawsuit, but the dozen stupid sumbitches who blessed the ridiculous premise, when they should have chased the attorney and plaintiff out of the courthouse. That model produced $ from the unknown entity who should have foreseen the unforeseeable, causing his lawyers and insurance underwriters to react, lather, rinse, and repeat. Note that I’m not singularly damning lawyers, but am including the dozen average Bozos who should have called bullshit on the notion years ago.
Unsupported Theory–this “protect the kids” paranoia grows out of the old Cold War.
A couple/three generations of people grow up believing in “We are DOOMED"”
Then, bang! Cold War over.
So the stress/tension comes out somewhere else.
This is the same theory as a husband who threatens to kill his wife over the phone, the wife calls the police and finds out that not only can she not do anything about it, but she can’t even get a restraining order UNTIL he just about comes and breaks into her home or worse. Basically, I’ve had police tell me that they can’t really do anything until something has been done to the person being threatened, finally making them a victim. At which point, it’s too late. Makes no sense at all and its very sad, but my point is, that’s the way the law works.
No, actually the OP in no way, shape, or form resembles the scenario you just described.
Schools should get restraining orders against construction workers?
That’s nuts.
Exactly right. I was pondering it after I posted; the line that kept going through my head (which I’ve actually heard in various news items over the years) was, “If it saves even one child from X, it’s worth any cost.” But that’s obviously not true.
And it does often seem to me that the fictional “reasonable person” used in legal analyses is getting more unreasonable every year.