LIBERTY AND SECURITY-58

“Those who can give up essential liberty, to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin, to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1755. There have been attributions of this sentiment by various people over the centuries, but Franklin’s is the one most quoted.

I could stand it no longer so I have decided to weigh in with my own exegetic thoughts on the U.S. airports security screening brouhaha. As one could surmise from the foregoing quote, I am more than adumbrating that I am not in favor of what the TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) is doing to that portion of the American public who fly on commercial airlines. In fact I find these procedures of full body scans and intrusive body pat-downs highly offensive. Paralogistical bureaucrats asseverate, ipse dixit, the necessity of these outrageous practices which is so highly predictable: It is solely to make the flying public as safe as is possible. What offal! I would wager that the overriding concern of the TSA and the rest of the Obama administration, and Obama, himself, in case an Islamic terrorist blows up an airplane in mid-flight, is to claim they did everything humanly possible to thwart it. But did they? As has been stated myriad times, the Israelis have the best airport security system in the world. So what do they do? They profile. The passenger list is scrutinized before the flight to attempt to identify any potential terrorist; certain passengers are questioned; and all are observed to spot any nervous or peculiar behavior. Particular attention is paid to young Middle Eastern, Eastern, or North African looking types (after all where are these Islamic terrorists from, Muslim countries or Scandinavian countries?). Isn’t that profiling? Absolutely, and we should be doing the same thing, except political correctness is so rampant in this country that we put ourselves at risk and endure humiliating procedures just to avoid contravening it.

Amendment IV to the United States Constitution says, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…..” Is what the TSA doing to the American flying public in violation of their constitutional right not to be subjected to unreasonable searches? I believe most of these flying passengers and certainly the airline flight crews would agree. If this issue would ever reach the U.S. Supreme Court, how it would be ruled on is problematic.

Far more liberals than conservatives do not object to the governmental enhanced airport screening techniques now being used. Many of those same liberals opposed every method used by the Bush administration to interdict the terrorist acts of the Islamic extremists including warrantless wire taps, rendition, and enhanced interrogations of known terrorists, especially, horror of horrors, water-boarding all of three high profile Islamic terrorist chiefs. The claim was always that the civil rights of these people were being violated by an overweening government. Yet with the civil and privacy rights of ordinary Americans now being violated by enhanced airport screening, these liberals have no problem with it. Let’s see, do you suppose that what is now being done by the Obama administration rather than the Bush administration has anything to do with the attitude of liberals?

A recent poll showed that 50% of the American public thinks the intrusive body pat-downs go too far and 48% do not think so. Who are these benighted 48%? In his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, scene II, Shakespeare wrote “What fools these mortals be.” The label fits those idiots perfectly. The poll also said that by a 2:1 ratio they were not troubled by the full body scans. In fairness to the American public I believe it highly likely that if only the flying public were polled the outcome would be considerably different in favor of more opposition to an overly intrusive government. As far as the non-flying American public is concerned when and in what society have the Plebeians ever been introspective or critically thoughtful?

Do these enhanced airport security methods actually make people in airplanes safer as the TSA and liberals who have no problem with an overbearing government claim? Ask yourself: How many terrorists have been apprehended with these “safety” procedures? The answer is zero, none, nada. The would-be “shoe bomber” was foiled by other passengers and the failed “underwear bomber” by his own ineptness after they were already on an airplane. The upshot was airline passengers were required to remove their shoes for inspection and have their underwear searched. It is always the same with these bumbling and fatuous government employees in their inchoate and always reactive, but never proactive response to the tactics of Islamic terrorists. If these Islamic Jihads start making buses and trains in the USA their targets of attacks will the federal government then expand their current “security” protocols in airports to bus and train stations? By what violation of apodictic reasoning could anyone doubt that the proven unimaginative and obtuse government bureaucrats would react any differently to that situation than they have to past threats? N’est-ce pas?

There was a Drudge Report headline that stated: The Terrorists Have Won. That may be a bit premature, but given the reaction of the U.S. government to the attempts (unsuccessfully) since 9/11 by Islamic terrorists to perpetrate acts of terrorism against the United States and given the cravenly acceptance by so many of the American people to these government actions then the direction in this war with terrorists is definitive. The airport so-called “security” methods which are gross intrusions of the civil and privacy rights of American citizens do not demonstrably make anyone any safer. It clearly is not necessary for these Islamic fanatics to success in their quest to bring down the West in general and the United States in particular by killing and maiming hundreds or thousands of people with violent acts. Once they have cowed a sufficient number of people such that the will to resist is gone and their spirits crushed, then the Islamic terrorists have indeed won. With the American public surrendering their liberty for a little perceived safety to an increasingly expansive government is to lose the first battle in the war with Islamic terrorists. If this trend continues can there be little doubt that the war will be eventually lost one step at a time?