The Extremist

Making My Jokes Come True

'The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.' – Ronald Reagan

I’ve been making fun of the granny-goosers at the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) for as long as they’ve been around. When they banned styling mousse and toothpaste from airliners, I joked that I was glad the goo bombers hadn’t been bra or briefs bombers. Little did I dream that an outfit as deeply incompetent as the TSA would survive long enough to see my jokes come true. But I simply didn’t understand the profound truth of Ronald Reagan’s observation about government bureaus and eternal life.

I’d be hard pressed to choose the greater screw-up, the jock bomber or the people charged with keeping jock bombers off of airplanes. The bomber failed to blow his own butt off even though, against all odds, he had carried the dreaded briefs bomb all the way from Nigeria to Detroit.

The TSA and other government security agencies couldn’t keep the jock bomber off the plane to Detroit even though his name was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, he paid nearly $3,000 cash for a one way ticket, he had no luggage, he had no passport, and he needed help from a “well dressed Indian” guy in the Amsterdam airport to convince the airline people to let him on the final flight to Detroit sans passport. (he must have been really well dressed) His father had even called to warn the CIA about him in November.

They couldn’t stop a terrorist with a profile like that but I watched TSA officials on my last flight out of the States frisk a young mother while her husband held the baby, throw away her diaper rash lotion because it was in too large a container, and test the nippled bottles of baby formula for explosives.  Let’s be honest, if they couldn’t stop Umar, what’s the point of any of these ritual humiliations we endure at airports?

In the end, Umar was stopped by a fellow passenger, just like the nut-ball sneaker bomber, Richard Ried had been years ago.

Never the less, in honor of the sneaker bomber we still genuflect at the alter of government incompetence by removing our shoes at check points all over the world. And in honor of the latest monument to official bungling, more ritual humiliation will be added, none of which will in any logical way enhance security.

Laptops will no longer be allowed in the cabin, though no laptop was implicated in the latest bombing try. No bathroom breaks will be allowed in the last hour of a flight so apparently terrorists will have to blow themselves up with full bladders, or before the beverage service stops. Blankets and pillows will be forbidden in the last hour of flight for whatever reason.

And finally, the crown jewel of high tech snooping, the adolescent wet dream from the days of X-ray glasses in comic book ads, the I-can-see-you-naked machines, are now scheduled to be installed at airports across the land.

Finally the crack professionals TSA, who already have been conducting stair-well strip searches of randomly selected women with nice hooters, will now get to electronically strip search everyone from Arab terrorists to our wives and daughters.

If any private security operation had shown a fraction of the bungling incompetence that our government has it would have been out of business long ago. But the bungling at TSA just keeps making their budget bigger, our flying more miserable, and my worst jokes come true.

As Safe as Crawling on Hands and Knees Can Make You

The silly charade that passes for security at American airports is more disturbing to those of us who resent being treated like prisoners. I once received an e-mail critical of my pointing and laughing at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) buffoonery. It’s author said he would gladly crawl on his hands and knees to board a plane if it increased his safety. In a free market system, there would be flights for guys like him and others for those of us less fond of ritual humiliation.

Left to their own devices, airlines would very likely offer low-security armed flights where passengers could carry their own legal weapons and high-security unarmed flights for those who like the current system and think that styling mousse, bottled water, and sneaker bombs are a real danger. The armed flights would not fly empty.

I’m reminded of this, of course, by my latest brush with TSA efforts to protect us. I arrived just a little late for a flight from Myrtle Beach to Detroit.  I had spent the previous week with my two sons at a rifle marksmanship training camp run by the Revolutionary War Veterans Association. We were camping. Camping is what you do if you eschew sleep, enjoy sand in your food, and can’t resist piling your belongings in a jumbled mass in the trunk of your car.

At a rifle training camp, ammo is a large part of the jumbled mass. Unknown to me, a box of rifle ammo, 20 rounds, found its way from the jumbled mass into my computer bag sometime during the week. The eagle eyed agent at the airport x-ray machine found it.

I said, “Sorry, I didn’t know they were in there.”

He said, “This is contraband material.”

I said, “I thought as much. But bullets aren’t very dangerous without a gun to shoot them.”

“They contain flammable material,” he said.

“So do my farts,” I said, “but I’d have to have some way to touch them off. Lighters aren’t allowed either, are they?”

“Do you have a gun?” he asked, even though I had just passed through a metal detector, had been wanded by his associate, and was carrying rifle ammunition, which requires a three foot long, 10 pound rifle for its use.
“Not with me,” I said. He appeared glad to hear that.

“I can mail them to you,” he offered helpfully.

“That won’t be necessary,” I replied, “my flight leaves in 15 minutes and I have to get to the gate. You can keep them.”

That’s when I found out that I had a special class of contraband, even though without a rifle, rifle ammunition is no more dangerous than anything else the size and shape of a rifle cartridge.

“You’ll have to wait here for the sheriff’s deputies,” he said.

“My plane leaves in 15 minutes. These bullets aren’t any more dangerous than a pocket knife. Can’t you just keep them?” I asked.

“Our procedure requires us to do a background check.” He answered.

The background check took over half an hour. Everyone was as nice as they could be. No one could explain how a background check would improve the safety of the airplane I was about to miss. Background checks, after all, are only required by law for the purchase of guns, not the possession of ammo. It was never clear just what would have happened if it turned out I wasn’t qualified to own a gun.

Not wishing to add a night in jail to my now valueless ticket and hotel reservation, however, I remained calm, if somewhat less cheerful than usual.

The deputy guarding me during the investigation chatted ruefully about how expensive ammo had become in the last year. “Yeah,” I agreed, “this box alone is going to cost me around $500 if I miss my plane. I don’t suppose you could let me catch my plane and arrest me in Detroit when I land if anything bad shows up on the report?” 

“Sorry,” he said without much sympathy. 

The report arrived declaring me a model citizen, my record without criminal stain. I was free to go, but not to Detroit. There is no other flight that will get me there before the next evening, too late for the event I was to attend. 

It’s true, I’m out $500 and missed an event I greatly wanted to attend, but I’m comforted knowing the skies over the Land of the Free are as safe as a silly, mindless bureaucracy can make them.

Fascism with a Smile

My last article suggested that readers who wanted to see all the elements of ham-fisted fascism in full operation need only visit an airport. Shortly afterward, I got a note from a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employee. She politely defended her agency and her comrades.

I felt lousy that O’Boyle’s inner smart ass had squeezed off a thoughtless screed against a group of hard working public servants. My correspondent reminded me that most of those in her position are friendly, polite, and conscientious. She’s right. The rude, sarcastic agent I met in Ft. Lauderdale is the rare exception, not the rule. TSA agents are our friends and neighbors, coaches, scout masters and den mothers. They provide an important service and want to do so as well as they can. TSA agents are just doing their jobs. With understandable pride, she closed by inviting me to fly out of her airport to see the TSA at its best.

My mind flashed to a friendly, cheerful security check where the boots you lick taste just like chocolate ice cream. I imagined a TSA wonderland where the official, witty repartee is so entertaining that “customers” ask for an extra pat down.

The problem is simple. Polite enforcement just makes creeping fascism worse. A cheerful smile on a fascist face doesn’t change its nature. It makes it more dangerous by making it more tolerable. Fascist power depends on complacency and the general acceptance of a host of colossal lies. Fascist power is implemented by ordinary people who accept and repeat the lies in exchange for good jobs with excellent benefits. Never doubt that they will follow orders, with or without a smile.

Sending TSA agents to customer service seminars doesn’t make the rest of us customers. Neither would putting yellow smiley face stickers on their TASERs. We’re not customers. We’re subjects; we’re subject to search, subject to interrogation, subject to arrest. Our property is subject to confiscation. If you resist, you are subject to injury or death. It’s for our own protection.

My TSA correspondent believes a constellation of false assumptions which her employer hopes Americans will also accept. Chief among them are the two monster whoppers: that terrorism is unspeakably dangerous, and that our government offers protection from it.

People constantly evaluate risks and the precautions to take against those risks. It’s only in places where our government has full responsibility for our safety, such as airports, that risk evaluation departs from reality.

Even the most casual analysis shows that airport security is an elaborate exercise in political theater, not public safety. The TSA does not provide protection. It provides obedience training. There is no rational connection between the risk of a terrorist attack on an airliner and the breathtaking effort we invest in avoiding one.

Government statistics clearly show that terrorism is not very dangerous. It is nowhere near dangerous enough to justify having thrown away over $100 billion and most of the Bill of Rights in fighting it since 2001.

According to CDC statistics it would take a successful 911 attack every month to make terrorism as dangerous as driving to work. You are three times more likely to die falling out of bed, six times more likely to drown in your bathtub, and 1200 times more likely to choke to death than you are to die in a terrorist attack. The chances of death by poisoning are 5000 times greater. 

If our safety is so important why isn’t the government spending billions to root out e coli from the food supply instead of searching and bossing around air travelers? Why aren’t we tearing out every bathtub in the nation? It’s because airport security isn’t about safety, it’s about obedience.

The second lie, that our government can protect us from terrorism, especially in air travel, is equally ludicrous. Private security experts have called the TSA a steel door on a grass shack. Passenger screening has become a bizarre, pointless ritual. We genuflect to the patron saints of past failed terrorism, taking off our shoes, dumping containers of hair gel, tossing nail files and souvenir penknives. Only compulsory government sponsored “safety” checks would include such ridiculous, ceremonial humiliation.

No terrorist worthy of the label would think the best way to put a bomb on a commercial airliner was to sneak it into the passenger compartment. Although if we are to judge by the number of tests the TSA has failed, it could be done without much trouble.

Nor is any group of passengers ever again likely to allow a plane to be hijacked. If there is a next time, it will take a lot more than a few swarthy guys with box cutters to commandeer a plane full of able bodied passengers.

Government airport security is an unquestionable success. The success is not, however, in providing public safety, but in spreading fear, grooming complacency, and training us to unquestioned acceptance of authority. The smile on the fascist face simply makes our training less obvious and more palatable.

Creeping Fascism at a Dead Run in Airports

It is much easier not to notice the advance of fascism in America if you never travel through a major airport. It’s impossible to ignore, however, if you do.

A recent round trip in and out of the U.S. reminded me that most of the mechanisms for a fascist police state are securely in place. They run with the efficiency, common sense, and compassion you would expect from the sponsor of crack outfits like the IRS, BATF, and FEMA.

The TSA agent was checking passports and boarding passes. She was sarcastic, condescending, and passively hostile to passengers from whom she demanded documents arranged for her convenience. There was no strip search or arrest. But the idea of Strip Search and Arrest hovered over her like a guardian angel.

She tossed four passports and tickets into a sloppy pile on the table. The soccer mom was traveling with three children, carrying one, and a ton of gear. Two three foot tall girls stood close to her.  “If you match those up you save everybody a lot of time,” the TSA agent snapped loud enough for all to hear.  Then she folded her arms and waited for the woman to put her papers in order. The woman fumbled nervously assembling her stuff to the agent’s liking.

A TSA colleague cut to the front of the line with two people who were desperately late for a flight. “I ain’t gonna be rushed like that,” the agent said, confirming the vital importance of her duty as passport/ticket checker number two. The latecomers waited with the rest of us for the woman with the three little kids to get her documents together.

Finally, tickets and passports matched perfectly, the agent gave the woman a big, sarcastic, “Wasn’t that easier?” The flustered mother smiled weakly and agreed before she went through to the scanning area. The rest of us waited patiently, biting our tongues.

As mom and the kids headed off to be searched, scanned, and frisked I imagined them approaching the massive steel door to a grass shack. 

You might think slamming shut an open, democratic society is something that happens suddenly after a military coup or invasion. But that’s not the case at all. Hellhole police states arise slowly over time, and most often with a majority of voters, or at least a majority of counted votes, supporting them.

The treatment Americans now tolerate at airports is the fascist oppression that will spread like a cancer throughout our lives if we don’t do something about it soon.

Hitler was elected. But once in office, he created the policies that all fascist dictatorships require. These are policies that are already in place, or can be put in place quickly, in the U.S. today.

An incomplete list includes, in rough order of appearance: bogus threats to the security of the nation, foreign war, secret prisons, laws that suspend basic rights, a paramilitary force, arbitrary arrests and detentions, infiltration of political groups, widespread general surveillance, tight controls on money, criminalization of speech, targeting of opposition leaders, and general civilian disarmament.

It is at airports today that we can most clearly see these policies fully implemented. 

False threats? Terrorists are everywhere. Even so, you are much more likely to be stung to death by insects than to be killed by terrorists.

Search warrant? You will be able to talk to a supervisor after you walk through the we-can-see-you-naked-machine.

Paramilitaries? TSA agents carry guns and tasers, a big step up from the equipment they used to use at the carwash.

Arrests and detentions? Ask if they think you are hiding a rifle in your wallet. You will probably be allowed to go home after the strip search and interrogation in the tiny gray room.

Control of your money? Take a briefcase full of cash through a checkpoint. Kiss it good-bye. See Arrests and Detentions above.

Forbidden speech? While waiting at the boarding gate sing this to the Beach Boys tune Barbara Ann “Bomb, bomb, bomb, …… bomb bomb I am.”  See Arrests and Detentions.

Surveillance? You’re kidding, right? You think you are alone in that stall? Wrap your lunch box in duct tape while you’re in there. See Arrests and Detentions.

Civilian disarmament?  Explain to the nice TSA men that you have a license to carry your pistol and you want to sit in the “armed” section. See Arrests and Detentions.

Many who have noticed these policies slowly spreading into the fabric of American life are sounding the alarm. The alarm is going largely unheeded, however, because of the gradual way societies transform.

Fascism is hardly noticeable until one day you stumble over one of the little wires stretched everywhere over the landscape of a police state. Suddenly you are on the ground. You struggle for breath. The boot on the back of your neck is holding your face in the mud. You wonder why nobody notices or tries to help you.

Fascism isn’t inevitable, however. Americans have the means and system to defeat it. There is still time to return to the principles that made the United States the world’s model for freedom and prosperity. Unfortunately it won’t be as simple as replacing the corrupt Republican fascist in the White House with a corrupt Democratic fascist.

Avoiding fascism will require a return to the principles of small government, honest money, free markets and individual liberty. We either embrace these ideas or see Arrests and Detentions above.

Keepin' Up The Skeer

"Get 'em skeered and keep the skeer on 'em" – Lt. General Nathanial Bedford Forrest, CSA

Nathanial Bedford Forrest was described by such military luminaries as Robert E. Lee and William T. Sherman as the most brilliant cavalry commander on either side of the American Civil War. He understood the value of fear in controlling your enemy. And he was a master of keeping "the skeer on 'em" once he had it going.

I was reminded of Forrest's axiom of control through fear by a recent  N.Y. Times story called "New Scrutiny of Remote Controlled Toys."  It has the look of rare inspiration by a Transportation Security Agency (TSA) press release flack. His job, of course, is to find scary stuff to write about. On this particular day he came up with an excellent new "skeer."

The true gold standard of success for a new "security threat" is if it introduces another mindless ceremony to the tedious, useless, security rituals involved in air travel. This newest "threat" may soon enjoy that kind of success. Although the only logical response is to point and hoot derisively, my fellow Americans seem not to agree.

In the story, the TSA cited "credible specific information" about terror tactics to step up their scrutiny of remote controlled toys in carry on luggage. I take that to mean one of their guys found something interesting on the internet and it gave him this terrific idea about a new "skeer" and new stuff to "scrutinize."

Sure enough, the Times reports that the triggering event was a video made by a college kid and posted on YouTube. The video showed how to use a remote controlled toy as a detonator. The kid is now being held on "terrorism related charges," whatever that means. You can bet he wishes he'd taken up a safer hobby than RC modeling, something like rugby or bar fighting.

If describing how to make a detonator is a "terrorism-related crime" there are legions of criminals still on the loose. Try a quick Google search on "remote detonation device." You'll find everything you need, even diagrams and formulas for brewing up ignition chemicals.

Apparently TSA's idea men can't read. The volumes of detailed bomb and detonator building instructions on the web caused them no particular concern. Once similar information is in video form, however, a crack down is essential. And how do we do that?

Obviously, kids carrying remote controlled robots, trucks and jeeps onto airplanes will now be subject to "a more intense search" than other less suspicious passengers. Of course, that will take care of everything.

I have to wonder what the TSA hopes to find with a more "intense scrutiny" of RC toys. The device they are looking for, after all, is for remote detonation of bombs. You don't alter the transmitter to make a detonator. You alter the receiver, which, duh, has to be attached to a bomb. Do they imagine little Timmy will be wearing blocks of C4 under his Mickey Mouse T-shirt, or that his toy jeep will be stuffed with ANFO? Wouldn't they have found that anyway?

Why is it any more likely that a kid with a GI Joe remote controlled Jungle Strike Humvee is a bomber than anyone else carrying a potential detonating device?

You're probably wondering who else might be carrying such a device. But potential remote detonation units are everywhere. You can hardly walk across an American living room without tripping over one.

Here's a short list off the top of my head: garage door openers, remote controls for appliances, air-conditioners, fans, lights, burglar alarms, cameras, car locks, car alarms, TV's, DVD's, wireless phones, long-range wireless phones, walkie-talkies, and of course, the real favorite of terrorists the world over, cell phones. I'm sure there are many more.

Why would the TSA concern itself with remote controlled toys when there is a cell phone on almost every passenger on every plane in the air? Cell phones are vastly superior to toy controllers for setting off bombs. They can do it in a number of ways and at great distances. They can become detonators or small bombs themselves if the batteries are shorted. And yet, no "intense scrutiny" of these excellent, proven remote detonation devices is required.

TSA's new fixation on toys is so deeply stupid that its only plausible purpose can have nothing to do with security. The purpose is to keep up the "skeer." An unspoken part of the TSA mission is to keep the public genuflecting at the alter of  "Our Lady of Helpless Obedience." Checking RC toys won't make us any safer than taking our shoes off or checking our toothpaste does, but it does give us more orders to obey.

In the past it has taken more or less genuine threats to add to the ritual. A nut job trying to ignite his bomb-sneakers introduced ritual shoe removal at airports worldwide. The London group that tried to figure out binary chemical bombs, though they were never even close to success, is responsible for the ritual banning of KY Jelly, bottled water, and toothpaste from carry-on luggage.

We are now entering a sort of "Cowardly New World" of "security threat." Today's "threat" can be totally imaginary. YouTube videos posted by college kids now suffice to scare the American public into accepting another permanent, absurd, degrading ceremonial humiliation to defend against terrorists.

I still expect the final straw, the last, ridiculous, over-the-top, feel-up-my-daughter, frisk-my-granny humiliation that will make us wake up and shout "ENOUGH!" I fear there isn't one. I'm concerned that we're so thoroughly trained to bovine obedience there is no humiliation too degrading, no security proposal too dumb to make us finally point and laugh.

In the meantime TSA and the drones at Homeland Security follow Forrest's tactical advice to the letter. They've got the enemy skeered, and they're keepin' the skeer on us.

The New Boss

Tweedle-dee Dee - he's on his hands and his knees
Saying, "Throw me somethin', Mister, please."
"What's good for you is good for me,"
Says Tweedle-dee Dum to Tweedle-dee Dee  ─ Bob Dylan

The Tweedledee party just won control of Congress while the Tweedledums still have their man in the Oval Office. I suppose, as an opponent of the fraudulent War on Terror and a great fan of the Constitution, I should be gratified. Many Tweedledee supporters are pleased as punch and seem to think some important changes will come of their newfound power. But I suspect that while the beneficiaries of the War on Terror scam will probably change, the shabby nature of the undertaking will remain the same and the damage it has done to American freedom will go unrepaired. 

Since the events of 2001, the ruling Tweedledums have played havoc with what remains of the US Constitution. If any good came of the Constitution’s further destruction, it was a sudden, uncharacteristic reverence for the document by the Tweedledees. In control of Congress they are now in a position to act on their new respect for the Constitution. Somehow, I doubt they will.

Some obvious choices for at least a partial restoration of our lost rights would be a thorough criminal investigation of the events of 9/11, the repeal of the USA Patriot Act, and the repeal of the many recent laws allowing the secret lockup of the innocent, illegal eavesdropping, surveillance, and torture. A repeal of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 alone would restore much of the effectiveness of the now forgotten Bill of Rights.

While the Tweedledees are at the job of restoring American liberty, they might also consider repealing the Real ID Act, a law that will have us all numbered and tracked like barnyard animals starting sometime in 2007. And of course, doing away with the ever creepier Department of Homeland Security and its army of airport granny friskers would greatly revive American rights and dignity without appreciably increasing our risk of death by terrorism. It would also save billions in wasted taxpayer dollars, millions of hours of shoe removal and strip search time and who knows how many tons of discarded toothpaste, deodorant and KY jelly.

I doubt very much, however, that any of these ideas have occurred to the new majority in Congress. In fact, the new Speaker of the House designate, Nancy Pelosi, said nothing about the death of the Constitution or our lost rights at a press conference after the elections. Instead she immediately set off my BS alarm by telling me how honest the Tweedledees were going to be. I instinctively mistrust people who feel compelled to tell me how honest they are. Pelosi said: “Democrats intend to lead the most honest, the most open and the most ethical Congress in history.” Not that that would require any great level of honesty or candor. Does that mean we can expect the Clintons to return the stolen White House furniture in a gesture of Tweedledee integrity?

Pelosi went on to outline a “First Hundred Hours” plan. The plan had nothing to do with the restoration of the Constitution or ending the war in Iraq. Instead the Tweedledees plan to reform lobbying, implement some 9/11 commission recommendation, increase unemployment with a hike in the minimum wage and buy more votes from young and old alike with drug benefits and student loan interest rate cuts.

Many Americans viewed this election as a referendum on the war in Iraq; apparently Ms. Pelosi didn’t, saying only that she wants to work with Bush on a "new direction" on Iraq. A “new direction” in Iraq would imply that the whole murderous enterprise already has some identifiable destination. It would imply possibilities in Iraq that don’t involve the further humiliation of the most powerful army on the planet by malcontents with home made bombs and the further wholesale murder of Iraqi civilians by Iraqis and Americans alike. I can’t think of what that direction might be.

Now that the Tweedledees have some power they will do nothing to reduce the power of the government they control. Instead they will savor and hoard it to gain more in the next election. Our troops will remain in Iraq. Their blood and our freedom will be further sacrificed to unseat the Tweedledum president in 2008. Should that occur, as it very likely will, every potential Tweedledee president, including the ruthlessly ethical Hillary Clinton, has promised to expand the war on terror. And why not?  Nothing appeals to politicians more than massive government projects and what government project could possibly top a perpetual global war against an invisible enemy.

The lyric from the Who’s song We Don’t Get Fooled Again keeps repeating in my head: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…”

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Technorati Tags politics • election • War on Terror

The Goo Bombers

Remember Richard Reid?  He is the British fruit cake who in 2001 tried to blow up a plane with explosives he had installed in one of his high-top sneakers. You’d think someone clever enough to design a shoe bomb would have known that you can’t detonate plastic explosive with a match. Luckily, terrorists don't do dress rehearsals for suicide bombings.

Suspicious passengers wrestled Reid to the floor, sedated him and saved the plane and their own lives. The incident won eternal fame for Reid, while passengers showed why a repeat of 9/11 will be impossible.

I’ve noticed that whether a hijacker succeeds or fails, the attempt is commemorated with new rituals at airports everywhere. It’s a wacky form of immortality, like being sainted in the Church of Perpetual Paranoia.

Although passengers would never again allow a plane to be hijacked with a box cutter, the successful attacks of 9/11 lead to the ritual sacrifice of pen knives, hat pins, nail clippers and tweezers. Reid’s shoe bomb added Footwear Removal to the boarding ceremony. I forget why lighters and matches were banned. Maybe that was St. Richard’s work too.

New ritual was added after a suspiciously timed busted plot in Britain. Now the priests have barred liquids, pastes and gels from the temple, even though no liquid explosives ever made it to an airport. Authorities made a successful preemptive strike against the Goo Bombers, but you would think it was the bombers who succeeded.

Goo Bomber security rituals spread across the world in a flash. They are more elaborate and bizarre than ever. Mothers must drink their own milk. Sanitary supplies, wallets and ID must be carried in ceremonial baggies.

Goo Bomber ritual is more monastic, too. Security now requires boredom and discomfort, no books, no phones, no games, no toothpaste, no deodorant, no KY Jelly. Passengers arriving in the Land of the Free will be testy and gamey, but safe from exploding fluids.

The Goo Rules also have what may be dangerous underwear loopholes. Five grams of lip gloss is too dangerous but gel-filled bras with as much as a half pound of form-enhancing goop in each cup will fly unmolested.

We can expect more hysteria as well. A flight from London made a fighter-escorted emergency landing when a claustrophobic sixty year-old woman became excited. The AP account breathlessly reported that the woman had of a book of matches and a bottle of hand lotion. “Grim tools;” thought I, “the implements of evil.”

The idea that passengers would submit to the depraved designs of a grandmother armed with tweezers and a tube of Vaseline is insulting to every passenger alive. Picture the scene at the cockpit door, “Get back, sonny boy, I’ve got styling mousse and I’m not afraid to use it.” Is there a random selection of passengers anywhere who would allow granny to succeed?

Mature women should get an automatic exemption from the search-everyone-for-terror-weapons ritual. These are our wives, mothers, aunts and sisters. They’ve raised our children, nurtured our grandchildren, and inspire us with their wisdom and grace. In return we suggest they are mass murderers. At the risk of appearing a hopeless chauvinist, I’ll suggest our womenfolk deserve more respect. Besides, when the chips are down, a couple of grown men should be able to get the tweezers away from any one of them.

Movie magic aside, making a binary liquid bomb is way harder than making a good martini, and could probably not be done in the can of a 757. But the authorities and the media act as if it were as easy as pouring milk on cereal.

I cringe to think of the security measures that would follow the discovery, or heaven help us, detonation of a real binary liquid bomb. Imagine ingredient A and ingredient B in opposite sides of one of those gel filled falsies. Suddenly we’d all be flying topless. And it is surely only a matter of time until some clever nut-case figures out how to make explosive cloth. Having to fly naked should reduce crowding quite a bit at our busiest airports.

At this writing there appears to be no limit to what air travelers will put up with to hedge the already astronomically small chance of dying in a hijacked airplane. I read a post on the web recently by someone who said he would gladly crawl on his hands and knees if it would make his flight safe. Obviously he is not alone. But I would like to propose that there should be alternatives for those not as eager to undergo pointless ritual humiliation.

Almost no one would crawl on their hands and knees to reduce their risk of drowning in a bucket. Not many would submit to a full body search before every meal to reduce chances of death by food poisoning. Yet you are far more likely to suffer either of those fates than to be killed by a terrorist.

If airlines offered voluntary, lower security flights where grannies, moms, kids and geezers were allowed to board without performing all the security rituals it could potentially save millions in resources and millions more hours of wasted time. I’m sure there would be no shortage of volunteers for low stupidity security.

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Technorati Tags terrorism • war on terror • politics • essays

Security through Incompetence and Bankruptcy

The friendly winds of the War on Terror (WOT) are blowing bureaucrats and freshly printed cash into sunny Key West like a hurricane driving flotsam across the Straits of Florida. Where security from terror is concerned, money is no concern.

There’s an excellent example on the north shore of our little island. On the hallowed ground under a legendary watering hole where local heavy hitters once gathered at the corner of the bar, the high rollers of the Department of Homeland Security are building a shrine to the WOT. In the true spirit of Old Key West, the DHS has a free spending style reminiscent of the heady days when the engine of our economy ran on tightly wrapped bales.

According to a report in our local daily, Homeland Security is having an 11,000 square foot headquarters built for its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit. The handful of Cuban refugees who wash ashore most weeks will be well served. DHS will pay around a million a year for the building, more than five times the going rate for similar commercial space. The government lease is a home run for the property owner. Imagine a contract to sell truckloads of $100 toilet seats for the next 15 years. And the owner didn’t even buy the property until after the deal was struck.

Although it’s an appallingly bad deal for the taxpayers, you can’t argue with the “urgent” need for security. The only explanation the public relations guy for the Government Services Administration could come up with was bureaucratic incompetence. He did his best to make bungling sound like a virtue.

He explained that because of special government rules, rules that would be fatuous and absurd in any private organization, what looks like a boondoggle is really saving the taxpayers’ money. If the government owned the land and built the building, he said, politically correct add-ons and bureaucratic fumbling would cost much more than the ridiculously expensive lease. The alternative of using existing government land and buildings on the huge local Navy base would take ten years of interagency squabbling before anything could be done, so that was out.

And besides the Navy base was a mile further from the local airport here on this two-mile by four-mile island. ICE agents spend a lot of time at the airport and might be needed at a moment’s notice. There’s no telling when some swarthy looking baklava salesman might need to be detained or when a reckless granny with a pair of knitting needles might have to be subdued.

The PR man further justified the toilet seat deal with fiscal logic that only a man expecting a government pension could admire. The big financial advantage was that spending a million federal tax dollars a year to rent a five-million dollar building was a good idea because that way the city could collect $38,000 a year in property taxes. It’s like buying a stadium so your buddy will always have a good seat at the ball game. But this kind of reasoning is perfectly logical to an outfit that for months put up $10 an hour baggage checkers in $150 a night hotel rooms — local baggage checkers being incapable of properly pawing through luggage, confiscating nail clippers and feeling up old ladies.

How did an organization that thinks like DHS become responsible for protecting us from terrorists? Simple. All government organizations think that way — like people who want the best because someone else is paying for it. Could outfits that are so very stupid with money be somehow devilishly clever at outwitting terrorists? Let’s hope so.

The waves of borrowed security money that are washing over Key West are just ripples on a vast sea of debt that is rising to secure our safety. Every bit of it will be spent as wisely. According to George II’s 2005 budget recommendations, besides the $27 billion DHS will get this year and the mega billions necessary to nurture democracy in the desert, we will need $6 billion to secure city subways, $3 billion for airports, $1 billion for shipping ports, a whopping $36 billion to train local firefighters to deal with terrorist fires, and another billion or so to train medical teams to treat terrorist inflicted wounds. In a real terrorist emergency we should all be able to hide by diving into the drifting mounds of money that will surround every government building.

We are lucky in one way, however. Terrorists are extremely thin on the ground. Even if we include the 3,000 murders committed on 9/11, an American’s chance of being stung to death by insects still greatly exceeds his chance of dying in a terrorist attack. It has been our great good fortune that our expensive new security agencies are toiling to prevent something that almost never happens anyway.

If terrorists had planned our destruction by bankruptcy and incompetence they couldn’t have done better. All they need to do is blow up a skyscraper once a decade, we’ll take care of the rest. If we continue to react the way we have to the 9/11 attacks, it won’t take us more than a generation to enslave ourselves to an army of bureaucrats and drown ourselves in an ocean of debt.

Voting Decisions Made Easy

I seldom vote. This gives the legions of those who find my opinions objectionable a measure of smug satisfaction. It provides them a welcome opportunity to deplore my civic sloth and political indifference. Secure on the moral high ground they hurl accusations of hypocrisy, apathy, and worse. “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain,” they say. As if the Right to Whine were guaranteed by the Constitution, the precious Right to Kvetch rightfully denied to those who refuse to shuffle off to the voting booth like Eloi in the thrall of the Morlocks' dinner siren.

To this way of thinking, politically abused non-voters have it coming. Those who vote, on the other hand, having shown a preference for one bubble headed, dissembling, ego-maniacal opportunist over another, are entitled to whine whenever they are annoyed, impoverished or humiliated by the lucky election winners and their swarm of drones.

Would you have voted for the TSA or the Patriot Act if you had known about this?

“Step out of line, Miss. Take off your shoes, empty your bag on the counter, empty your pockets, raise your arms and spread your legs. Oh, you voted? Well, then you can talk to my supervisor after I finish pawing through your luggage and feeling you up.“

I often think how very lucky we are that the Shoe Bomber hadn’t been a Bra Bomber or a Fruit of the Loom Bomber.

In those rare electoral contests where there is a chance to increase rather than diminish freedom, I vote. In most elections there is no such choice. Voting in most cases simply lends legitimacy to the selection of the best of a bad lot. I rarely vote because I rarely see any difference between my options.

You would find me in line at every voting opportunity if “None of the Above” were one of the choices. Particularly if any election won by “None of the Above” would have the contested position and all its attendant staff positions permanently eliminated.

On the really important decisions, none of us gets a chance to vote. If we did, I’d like to think we would behave more sensibly than career politicians. But if we accept the old saw that the intelligence of any group is equal to the IQ of the smartest person in it divided by the number of its members, then Congress is probably making better decisions than the voters would, if only because it is a smaller group.

The war in Iraq is a wonderful example of decisions made by majority vote. I just read that Congress, each member of which secured at least a one vote majority of some group somewhere, has in turn voted to spend eighty seven billion dollars to rebuild Iraq. The mostly borrowed money will be used to repair the damage Congress voted to inflict on Iraq. After spending uncounted billions to bomb Iraq halfway back to the Dark Ages we will now spend billions more to clear the wreckage. The $87 billion probably won‘t be enough. Your tax dollar at work. Democracy in action.

Such a Sisyphean task is a perfect example of decisions made by majority vote. War is the ultimate public works project, the culmination of thousands of small self-interested decisions by millions of voters, politicians, government contractors and bureaucrats, each of whom has job security and benefits as his top priority. It is an undertaking, like so many other wasteful, foolish public projects, that sprouts from the rich soil of majority decision making like a colony of mushrooms on a cow pie.

On the big policy decisions that I, or even my cat, could surely do a better job with than Congress, I don’t get to vote.

I didn’t get to vote on either the destruction or the reconstruction of Iraq.

I didn’t get to vote on the recent pay raise our representatives granted themselves.

I never got to vote on their decision to opt out of Social Security in favor of a taxpayer funded, full pay, full benefit, inflation indexed, lifetime pension after just a single term in office. Congress has permanently answered the question, “Why did you run for office?” by making the winning of a Congressional seat more valuable than the winning of most state lotteries.

I didn’t get to vote on bombing to death thousands of Arabs over the years, both directly by our government and indirectly through our good friend the government of Israel.

I didn’t get to vote on attacking Afghanistan in retaliation for an attack on us by a bunch of Saudis; an attack which itself appears more likely to have been retaliation for the killing of Arabs than envy of what freedom we have left.

None of us get to vote on the really big decisions. Decisions like the killings and the retaliations and the big bucks that get spread around to do them.

With that in mind, and with a deep mistrust of majoritarianism in general I will offer this simple two step formula for making voting decisions
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First, when deciding on a candidate, since it is impossible to predict what sort of lunacy he or she will favor after attaining elected office, I recommend voting based on the ultimate canary-in-the-coal-mine issue, gun control.

The reason many politicians want us disarmed is because they know they will be doing things to us for which we may want to shoot them. Voting Rule Number 1: If you know nothing at all about a candidate, or worse, only know what you have learned from the media or the candidate himself, do not vote for anyone who favors gun control. If a candidate doesn’t trust you to own a weapon responsibly, why should you trust him to make the laws by which he will run your life? It won’t protect you from the inevitable venality, corruption or foolishness of politicians, but it will at least act as a deterrent against the worst they can do.

Voting Rule Number 2: Never vote to increase taxes or borrow money. Tax dollars are the krill upon which the Leviathan feeds. A starvation diet offers the only chance of limiting its eventual consumption of everything.

Simple, eh? In most cases this easy formula will keep you at home on election day. But at least you will not be contributing to the destruction of the Republic. I look forward to the day when using these simple rules, voters will examine the ballot, find a slate of mendacious, gun-hating, gas bags and heads-they-win-tails-you-lose tax proposals and decide not to vote at all.

What would happen if they held an election and nobody voted?

Big Brother Fights the WAT

“It is the leaders of the country who determine policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along…Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.  All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

- Hermann Goering

The potentially endless War Against Terror (WAT) so far has largely been a war against penniless peasants in a country far, far away. The luckless Afghani’s, fighter and civilian alike, now know the United States government can kill you from a great distance and everyone in local attire or carrying a weapon looks like the enemy to the U.S. Air Force. Visible “collateral damage” includes a couple of wedding parties, a group of tribal leaders and some of our Canadian allies. There is likely a good deal more that remains unreported.

While the WAT has brought chaos and death to an already chaotic Himalayan wasteland, so far the effects at home are hardly noticeable. In a loopy reversal of the sacrifice urged on us in past wars, Americans can now perform their patriotic duty by loading up their credit cards and buying a new SUV. We have apparently responded bravely to the call as personal debt is up sharply since 9/11.

We have a new group of federal drones in the hive --- the TSA, Uncle Sam’s most recent effort to put the final nail in the coffin of the airline industry. We have new airport signs too, including long lists of forbidden carry-on items like nail clippers and putters. I particularly like the cartoon images of the round, black Spy vs. Spy-style bomb and Yosemite Sam’s six shooter, both with Big Red X’s over them. It’s good to know the illiterate will now be aware of the most important forbidden items.  Here’s a little personal safety tip – don’t joke about the signs.

Other than airport nuisances and a patriotically hefty VISA bills the impact of the WAT on the lives of most American’s has been small. Much of that will change when Baby Bush goes after Iraq and the Homeland Security Act starts taking effect.

Remember the Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS) program?  It was a scheme to recruit busybodies, gossips and postal workers as neighborhood snoops --- a national version of your local building department, but with features like warrantless searches and jail terms without trial. The House defeated the measure after a public outrage against it, but not before over a million good citizens volunteered to join through the real but slightly less-scary Citizen Corps.
 
In an end run around that defeat, the Homeland Security Act has created the snoop’s dream: the Total Information Awareness program. John Poindexter, current head of the “Information Awareness Office” of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (developers of the internet and stealth aircraft technology) is the director of this program.

Admiral Poindexter’s name may sound familiar. First in his class at Annapolis, Ph.D in physics, national security advisor under Reagan, chief architect of the Iran-Contra scheme, he was convicted in 1990 on five felony counts of lying to Congress. The verdict was overturned on appeal because Congress had granted him immunity for his testimony. He has all the features of the ideal federal department head, military background, intellectual brilliance and ethical flexibility.  It’s no surprise that he remains in prominent, cushy government service. But his perks and pension are not what we have to worry about.
 
The Homeland Security Act has given him $200 million to create a “virtual, centralized grand database.” What will it include? Why, simply everything. Every credit card transaction you ever made, every drug prescription you ever filled, every doctor’s visit, every grade you ever got, every web site you ever visited, every e-mail you ever sent or received, every phone call, bank deposit, airline flight, magazine subscription, every car you ever rented and where and for how long, in short, every detail of your private life that may exist in any commercial database.

Next, all the commercial data will be combined with the information that any government agency has about you. Your driving record, property records, court documents, lawsuits, divorces, wills, liens, parking tickets, passport application, turnpike toll records, business licensing records, every complaint any busybody, ever made about you to any government official, will go into your personal electronic file.
One could argue that we are safeguarded against such a vast coordinated system by the government’s own inertia and stupidity.  To that I say, the mistakes will be as dangerous as the accurate data if not more so and, heck, you can still do a lot with $200 million.

Think this is Right Wing Paranoia?  Do an internet search on “Total Information Awareness.” The results are sobering. The Genisys system is already under development. It is a virtual database that will layer over and interpret information from thousands of existing but currently incompatible databases. The plan is to create computerized dossiers on 300 million Americans. Genisys is dedicated to the theory that each and every citizen is a potential terrorist, our relations form a terrorist cell, and our activities constitute a terrorist plot.

Poindexter has already shown his contempt for any sort of oversight of his grasping for power. The coordinated combination of commercial and government snooping has the potential to crush individual privacy and liberty. Poindexter is just the man to accomplish it.  The motto on the Information Awareness Office’s creepy logo reads “Scientia Est Potentia” – “knowledge is power.” The more the government knows about you the more power it has over you. Unlimited knowledge will translate to unlimited government power over every American.

The only limits on that power will come from public political awareness of the dangers of the Homeland Security Act and the creeps at the IAO.  Both will have a profoundly negative affect on civil liberties and human creativity. I urge you to ask questions about and oppose the existence of this government department that is abusive by its very nature.