“Disconnect”, the airport, and more to come
I recently had a rather unpleasant experience with the new security regulations at the airport. There’s a post under construction describing the experience, but I am fast to start and slow to finish my writing. I have about five posts in various stages of completion- a necessary process for me to avoid my greatest literary sin, that of overstatement.
The essence of the airport story is that regular Americans are undergoing needless harassment because our country cannot admit to itself that one of our supposed values - “equality” - is an obvious falsehood and failure (and also, as I will argue in a larger upcoming post, one of the world’s great lies and a major source of evil).
It’s simply not true that all humans are equally likely to blow up an airplane, yet the government harasses millions of innocent people daily in airports to prop up the lie.
Then I remembered an article by one of the most interesting columnists at the immigration-reform advocacy site vdare.com, Steve Sailer. His strategy for dealing with Muslim terrorism: “disconnect”.
He describes a particularly egregious airport security incident:
In January 2002, an 86-year-old former governor of South Dakota and retired brigadier general named Joe Foss, on his way to give a speech to cadets at West Point, was subjected to the third degree by Phoenix airport security for 45 minutes because the metal detector was set off by his dangerously pointy Congressional Medal of Honor. When I first heard this, I assumed that Bush’s anti-profiling rules would be laughed out of existence.
I was wrong.
October 19th, 2006 at 6:54 am
To blatantly plagiarize your tagline, Tom (but it’s on your blog, so I guess that’s okay?):
{SARCASM}What? You …you mean we’re not all created equal? But I thought differences in height, weight, color, race, religion, physical and mental ability, language, religion, even gender — in short, everything — was all just stage dressing that doesn’t really matter anyway! At least, that’s what Beaumont’s finest public schools taught me…{SARCASM}
I’m still trying to figure out why it’s necessary to harrass Grammy when she’s flying to visit the kids, and the story I read about a woman being forced to — forgive me — drink from a bottle of her own breast milk to prove it wasn’t explosive… What is that all about?
The IRA came to the table right after we went into Afghanistan (and hasn’t ever attacked America — source of their funding — anyway), and the Basque separatists in Spain have little, if any, interest in us as well. Chechen rebels? Maybe, but I doubt it. And aren’t they muslims, too?
Sorry, I digress. As Mr. Sailer pointed out in the balance of your above quote, ALL NINETEEN 9/11 hijackers were muslims from arabic-speaking countries. I would be willing to bet that ALL OF THE “INSURGENTS” IN IRAQ are muslims. And since practicing any other religion was a death sentence under their rule, I can reasonably guarantee THE ENTIRE MEMBERSHIP OF THE TALIBAN is muslim. I would further bet that all the above mentioned notables have, to a man, a given and surname that makes them sound like they may just have ties to a certain area of the world.
The fact of the matter is, profiling works. Every time it’s used, it works. Every time. So why is the government wasting my money stopping every Tom, Dick and Ahmed at airport security? Probably because they think it’s thier money. But that’s another discussion entirely.
{SEGUE} Speaking of money: Can anyone confirm this? I haven’t had time to, myself. Is it true that all — get that: ALL — four (that I know of) gubernatorial candidates strongly support casinos for Texas?
October 19th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Brian, depends on what media outlet you read. Some say Perry is a proponent based on the fact that he accepts $$$ from casinos. His reps say that he has backed off the issue after rebuke from conservatives. Two articles say two different things.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/15766192.htm
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA101306.01B.gambling.305b628.html
Tom, I’ll wait for your other posts to comment on the airport thing — mostly because Jason will be here and can tell me what you mean (that’s fun teasing in case you didn’t catch it!)
In other words, I don’t get it. But that’s okay.
My greatest literary sin is also that of overstatement. At least you pay attention to it. I just keep on and on and on.