Friday, April 25, 2008

Calling A Spade A Spade

The indomitable Peggy Noonan, on the Transportation Security Administration and airport "security" checks:

Why do we do this when you know I am not a terrorist, and you know I know you know I am not a terrorist? Why this costly and harassing kabuki when we both know the facts, and would agree that all this harassment is the government's way of showing "fairness," of showing that it will equally humiliate anyone in order to show its high-mindedness and sense of justice? Our politicians congratulate themselves on this as we stand in line.

3 comments:

Ellen K said...

It's the PC Police causing a very expensive situation. We have the same things in our state where having a simply sobriety check on a stretch of highway known for deadly late night accidents can be turned down due to the presence of a large number of Tejano clubs. It's the same PC mentality that rejects towing cars whose owners when stopped don't have licenses, inspection or insurance. Those who oppose such actions say it unfairly targets minorities and the poor. My contention is that we all pay higher insurance and more for accidents due to dangerous drivers and vehicles on the roads.

Anonymous said...

HOW do we know that someone is not a terrorist? Or how do we know that someone has not had their luggage tampered with by a terrorist?

Unknown said...

If your playing odds you can narrow down who is most likely to be a terrorist given a group of people. But the problem with that is in America odds aren't usually a good enough standard. We don't arrest someone because they fit the profile for someone likely to commit a crime, we arrest them because there is something specifically incriminating. Personally I think it shouldn't be random checks but full checks on every person if we really feel there is such a strong security crisis, and if we don't think that's necessary then maybe we should just stick to passive checks. If we actually had proper security procedures and well maintained, high quality metal and bomb detectors we wouldn't be wasting time on invasive security checks anyway.