Forums | MacLife

Pariah wrote:

Am I the only one who thinks restricting what people can carry on is a good idea? It makes one hell of a lot more sense than idiocy like No Fly Lists and such.

This is my take on this little smurf storm. People are happy to see laws restricting civil liberties, suspension of Habeas corpus and such but cry like the spoiled, immature babies they are at the slightest hint of an inconvenience.

It's all idiocy: what others have called "Security Theater"--the illusion of creating security by making idiotic restrictions which makes NO difference to security except that people making these decisions call them such. By the way: this does include things like laws restricting civil liberties and suspending habeas corpus "in certain circumstances"; there is an entire range of stupid actions that are part of Security Theater, but sometimes you get people's attention by pointing out the little inconsistent details which are more easily grasped.

BTW: I am not a flyer. I have made only one round-trip flight since 9/11, and that was in 2002 when the TSA policies were merely wildly inconsistent rather than the ever-increasing stupidities being foisted on the public now. I am not crying "like the spoiled, immature babies they are at the slightest hint of an inconvenience"--hard to be inconvenienced by a service I hardly ever use.

But I worry about transforming an industry which is largely made up of luxury services (businessmen who "need" to talk face-to-face really are not absolutely essential) back to one where only the wealthy will travel by air (they aren't being needlessly inconvenienced because they never encounter the TSA). With few exceptions most of us live in places where tourism is--at worst--the third biggest local industry (for most population centers it's second). Certainly some losses in air travel will be offset by people who choose to travel by land/sea, but not all of it. My job isn't at all closely related to air travel, but I have plenty of friends who will be affected directly by any significant downturn: from travel agents to a jet mechanic to people in hotel staffs. And even if not directly affected, most of us will suffer when such a major industry declines.

I even know a couple of frontline TSA folks, but I mostly worry about their heads exploding when asked to do the next stupid thing coming down from on high in the Transportation Stopping Agency.

EDIT: hardy => hardly

Last edited by D'Eyncourt (2006-12-21 2:12 pm)

Apparently the TSA thinks that they always have to do something whenever a possible threat emerges in the idea that that will make the public feel safe. However, doing stupid things actually has the opposite effect.