Who formed the DHS?
Who formed the TSA?
Who had no problem with indefinite detention?
Torture?
Illegal wiretapping?
Who greenlit all these scanners?
Who turned away a guy who had a solution to the body scanner freak-out?
Something to keep in mind while we all listen to our newly found believers in individual rights and limited government on the right. I mean, welcome to the fight, but the hypocrisy is staggering.
*** Update ***
Make sure you read this by ED. The Democrats are just as bad on many of these issues now that they are in power (and no, that is not false equivalence, but objective reality), and when out of power, very happy to just be led around by the GOP with little fight.
I’m still just shocked at the seamless transition from our friends on the right from “If you haven’t done anything wrong you don’t have anything to hide” to “Don’t touch my junk.”
Bulworth
Yep. Although I’m still whiplashed from the teatard attacks on W. Bush’s Fed chairman for trying to improve the country’s employment condition.
Joseph Nobles
Thank you. I’d also like to add the story about TSA screeners looking for right to collectively bargain to the pile here. I’m basically watching the right wing hit the left wing with its own hands (feathers?).
John PM
Seems like you have a promising folksong, but I would need to hear the melody before I can say for certain.
russell
Thank you, but you’re howling at the moon.
Carnacki
Reality is why you’re no longer a Republican, but good luck asking those who remain willfully blind to see the light.
Republican tribalism trumps facts.
MattR
Unfortunately, distorting the images in the body scanners does not stop the radiation. Nor has it been shown that it will still allow workers to identify weapons. It is not a bad idea and the gov’t should definitely follow up, but it is not a panacea.
cleek
also: who wrote the FY 2009 budget? (you know, the one Obama keeps getting blamed for)
Culture of Truth
Who locked up Jose Padilla without charges?
Who ignored FISA?
Who created an offshore prison camp?
Who made Steve Gutenberg a star?
kdaug
And TARP (the Wall Street bailout)
WyldPirate
@cleek:
the same staggering hypocrisy is coming from the Rethugs on fiscal issues as well.
It’s amazing to me how they get away with it when each of the last three Rethug Presidents ran huge budget deficits and have turned the economy to a money-making machine for the top 1% of the population while bankrupting the nation.
I blame the dumb-assed rubes in the country who are either too ignorant or hate-filled to see their nose in front of their face much less the economic realities of the theft that is going on.
Captain Goto
@Culture of Truth: I saw what you did there.
Silver
This is pretty damn simple: All that other stuff, that happened before the Kenyan got elected was ONLY SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN TO BROWN PEOPLE.
Now that whites are included, everyone turns into a civil libertarian.
You can file it under the “Straight white man says homophobia, racism, and sexism not an issue” file.
mattski
@Culture of Truth: we do!
we do!
Dennis SGMM
Who controls the British crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do! We do!
Who leaves Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do! We do!
Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star?
We do! We do!
Who robs cave fish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do! We do!
Legalize
@cleek:
This one is easily disposed of:
The 2009 budget was the result of the very wise and serious anticipation of the markets and our corporate betters, who are very wise and serious, and who anticipated the “uncertainty” that the Obama presidency would bring. This is also why the markets tanked prior to Obama’s election. Also too, the Democrats were in control of Congress since 2006 and W never spend one red cent that the Dems didn’t force him to spend. W’s problem was that he was too eager to compromise with Democrats, who hated America, as evidenced by their opposition to run-away security measures at airports.
Comrade Javamanphil
Facts? We don’t need no stinkin’ facts!
Zifnab
@Dennis SGMM: Damn, you beat me to it.
BR
@Silver:
And let me tell you, did it ever. As I mentioned in the overnight TSA thread, I’ve been racially profiled for a decade at the airport, and have gotten used to it. So while I dislike all the new procedures because they’re bogus security theater, it’s a bit funny and sad that all of a sudden people are waking up to the stupidity of it all.
John PM
@Culture of Truth:
In the immortal words of South Park, “Simpsons did it!”
Marc McKenzie
Wow…so all of this really isn’t Obama’s fault?
That’s good–I was starting to wonder when Bush’s name (and the Repubs for that matter) would be brought into this mess, since, well, they started the whole thing in the first place.
John, thank you for this. I hope it gets read and I hope it gets through enough thick skulls.
Dennis SGMM
Heard some TSA type on the radio this morning touting the fact that 66% of Americans approved of the scanners. My first thought was, “That’s because 66% of Americans haven’t had to go through them, you smug son-of-a-bitch.”
Jane2
Actually, I’m not seeing a big difference between the Administrations when it comes to these things.
artem1s
@BR:
the really interesting contortions are going to come when the GOP explains why the same procedures/policies they want to enact in AZ to protect the border are NOT OK when UR doin it to a white guys junk at JFK.
Zifnab
@Dennis SGMM: Last I heard it was 80%, so if the number is dropping as more information about the scanners becomes available then that’s hope for team “don’t X-ray my balls”.
Still, all these numbers won’t mean much until after Christmas. Once we’ve seen a more sizable percentage of Americans run through the security meat grinder, I imagine we’ll see that number come down even more.
cleek
@Jane2:
part of that is due to the ratchet effect these security things have. once a procedure is in lace, it’s impossible to get rid of because nobody wants to be the one who made America “less safe”.
all of these things are permanent, so long as They Hate Us For Our Freedoms.
WyldPirate
@Marc McKenzie:
Y’know, if you’re aiming this at Democrats or progressives who criticize Obama for contiuing the same fucking policies, then I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Part of being a leader is making convincing arguments to end stupid policies. Insofar as “human rights” and privacy issues go, i think Obama has a pretty poor record and deserves criticism.
In the economic issues, not so much. But he is far from perfect in that area as well.
An Uncivil (but decent) Duck
Oh, well, as long as it’s a partisan finger in my asshole, then everything’s OK.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Dennis SGMM:
Probably because 66% of Americans can no longer afford to buy a plane ticket even if they wanted one.
gene108
Fly naked.
Solves the whole, “what’s under their clothes” problem once and for all.
Southern Beale
You are far kinder than I, John. I remember when liberals protesting the Patriot Act were told to STFU because we were HURTING AMERICA and we wanted the TERRORISTS TO WIN and if we weren’t doing anything wrong we should just BEND OVER AND TAKE IT, what’s the big deal.
Am I the only one who remembers this? Am I the only one remembering Karl Rove telling New Yorkers in 2005 that liberals wanted to “prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers”? This is all part of that same fucking fear mindset.
Now the right is whining about what they basically ASKED FOR when there was a Republican in the White House. They were fine with people named Abdullah and Mohammed and even Ted Kennedy pulled out of a TSA line to be groped and treated like criminals but God forbid it should ever happen to them.
What fucking hypocrites is right. No, I’m not saying welcome to the fight. I’m saying shut the fuck up. You idiots have been wrong about everything since forever, you set up roadblocks and obstructions to every good and decent thing thoughtful people have tried to do and to add insult to injury you’ve somehow got the American news media in your hip pocket, buying every bit of dribble that ushers forth from your collective gob because it’s some kind of “populism”! Whereas when we liberal elites utter the EXACT SAME THING only, like, 6 years earlier, it’s “elitism” that’s “out of touch with mainstream America.”
Shut the fuck up. You don’t deserve your role in the national discourse.
/rant
Howlin Wolfe
@WyldPirate: I also blame the corporate (MSM) media that fail everyday to properly inform the populace at large. Their 1st Amendment FAIL is criminal.
WyldPirate
@Southern Beale:
Damn. I need a cigarette after that it was so good.
Southern Beale
@WyldPirate:
Thank you.
I woke up pissed off about this stuff at 4:30 a.m.
Clearly I need to Go Galt on the media.
Mojotron
Who tell the lies
Who in disguise
Who had the slaves
Who got the bux out the Bucks
Who got fat from plantations
Who genocided Indians
Tried to waste the Black nation
Who live on Wall Street
The first plantation
Like an Owl exploding
In your life in your brain……
WyldPirate
@Howlin Wolfe:
I agree, Howlin Wolfe.
OTOH, some of our citizens are incapable of learning even if we had a functional media. And besides, the media is just serving up the bread and circuses that the rubes will watch. And they know what the rubes will watch and how to sell it because if there is one thing America excels at is marketing.
jrg
Was it a Czar of some kind?
sukabi
@Southern Beale: hugs and kisses to you.. no, you’re not the only one that remembers all that bullshit… and you’ve got the response right as well, they should all go sit in some dark, dank corner and STFU for eternity.
KG
This seems like the easiest argument to make:
Days since the Sept 11 attack – 3,361
Average daily flights in the US – 87,000
Estimated number of US flights since Sept 11 attack – 292,407,000
Number of shoe bombers since Sept 11 attack – 1
Number of panty bombers since Sept 11 attack – 1
Number of shoe and/or panty bombers who boarded a plane in the US since Sept 11 attack – 0
I’m pretty sure that if they were stopping people regularly at screening points, they’d have made a big deal out of it. But I don’t ever hear stories about any potential bomber getting stopped by TSA. Then again, I don’t hear any stories about any potential bombers other than the shoe and panty guys.
I remember the days after Sept 11, I remember having conversations with friends and family where we wondered if it was going to be like Israel where suicide bombers would be walking into pizza places and night clubs, if court houses and police stations would be bombed. But none of it happened. There were a few random stories about people who were caught on conspiracy charges (the group in Buffalo and the few guys in Lodi come to mind off the top of my head), but that’s been it.
Can logic please be released from the dark site it’s been kept at for the last 9 years?
J.
For those of you who haven’t seen the brilliant SNL TSA sketch (or Willie Geist hyping TSA-proof undies).
KG
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: you can still get tickets on Southwest fairly cheaply. But then, you’re flying Southwest, and I would suggest that for anything that takes more than an hour, wheels up to wheels down.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Howlin Wolfe:
I hate the MSM with the white hot fury of ten thousand suns, but at some point the consumer has to take some blame. If a non-trivial number of people in the old Soviet Union could figure out they were being fed a pack of lies on a daily basis and tune in to the BBC, et al to find out what the hell was actually going on, then how much excuse do the American people have? It has never been easier to get access to English language press based outside of the US than it is today. The ratio of our access to information outside the channels of the domestic US MSM vs. our collective willingness to use that access is fncking pathetic. The hard truth is, most people in this country like being lied to, or at least are willing to tolerate it when the effort required to opt-out is minimal.
licensed to kill time
@KG:
I think logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.
Flugelhorn
John. Sometimes you just come across as a bitter ex-Republican.
Who wrongfully jailed Germans during WWI?
Who wrongfully jailed Japanese during WWII?
Who created the greatest pyramid scheme of all time called Social Security?
Who dropped the bomb?
Who got us into Vietnam?
Bay of Pigs?
What is my list proof of?
How are the founding of DHS and TSA examples of hypocrisy anyway? Oh no, a cop shot an innocent guy in a subway. Which party was responsible for founding the police force!? I am a doctor, I perform abortions! Hypocrisy? What party do I blame for that?
Please John. Come up with some substance.
WyldPirate
@KG:
This is part of OBLs victory that he achieved on 9/11. He turned us into nation of bedwetters and a military colossus run amuck that would fruitlessly ruin itself financially chasing the ghosts of terrorism everywhere. It was his stated goal and he says it in one of his early manifestos that he released well prior to 9/11.
This is why I get so goddamned pissed about some of Obama’s actions–particularly with regard to Afghanistan and with human rights. He’s continuing some of GWB’s policies or doubling down on the stupid like in Afghanistan.
John Kerry was a goddamned awful candidate in many ways, but he was right about one thing–solving and coping with the terrorism problem isn’t an all a military issue, but it involves intelligence and law enforcement as well. Somehow, part of this seems to have escaped Obama; particularly in Afghanistan and with privacy issues.
MattR
@Flugelhorn: It is hypocritical to complain that we are ten steps down the path towards tyranny if you cheered and encouraged us as we took the first eight steps down that path.
Cris
Who put the bomp in the bomp-ba-bomp-ba-bom?
Who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong?
Dennis SGMM
@Flugelhorn:
Ixnay on the ack-cray.
Joey Maloney
@Flugelhorn: I didn’t realize today was Blank Verse Day at BJ.
Judas Escargot
@Southern Beale:
Shut the fuck up. You don’t deserve your role in the national discourse.
This would make a great Tag. For many reasons.
Marc McKenzie
@WyldPirate: Yes, WP, I AM aiming it at those whom you describe. I believe in constructive criticism of this President, and you haven’t done that. Getting rid of these “same fucking policies” was not going to be easy.
But then again, it’s easy to talk s&@t about being a leader when you don’t have to walk out into the lines of fire.
What I was upset at is that it seems that we have gotten a case of amnesia in regards to who started this whole mess. That was what I was pointing out–and I wish to God that we would also remember that getting rid of Bush’s policies was not going to be a cakewalk.
That’s just my 2-cents. Fire away!
Cris
Really, you were promised Social Security benefits based on how many other people you enrolled in Social Security? I wonder whose downline I’m in?
Or maybe you don’t know what a pyramid scheme is.
licensed to kill time
@Cris:
I don’t know, but I think Flugelhorn is the dip in the dip de dip de dip.
Bill Murray
Who ate all the pies?
Who wrote the book of love?
Who shoved a flugelhorn up their butt so far they can’t see straight?
Cris
I wonder.
Omnes Omnibus
@Flugelhorn: Chuck Mangione called. He wants you back in your case.
catclub
@Culture of Truth:
Who put the Bop in the bop-shebop?
Who shot JR?
Tonal Crow
Obama formed the DHS as part of his Gestapo conspiracy to eliminate all Jews.
Obama formed the TSA as part of his Jewish conspiracy to subjugate all Aryans.
Obama created the idea of indefinite detention, which is he now using to prevent John Boehner from taking the Speakership.
Obama invented torture, and is using it to turn all right-thinking Americans into liberals in his re-education camps.
Obama was the first to illegally wiretap, and has used it to determine who to send to his re-education camps.
I think that about covers it.
Marc McKenzie
@Southern Beale: No, you’re not the only one.
I’m quite sure that if the MSM had the brains (need I finish this sentence?) they could easily point this out, but….well, it’s a nice wish, right?
Sadly, though…terrorism is real, and as much as I am not a fan of these procedures, I wonder what alternatives there are. Thoughts?
licensed to kill time
Who killed Cock Robin?
trollhattan
Who’s the
blacktanned private dick That’s a sex machine to all the chicks?BUSH!
Ya damn right!
Who is the man that would risk his neck For his brother man?
BUSH!
Can you dig it?
Who’s the cat that won’t cop out When there’s
dangerterrah all about?BUSH!
Right On!
They say this cat
ShaftDubya is a bad motherSHUT YOUR MOUTH!
I’m talkin’ ’bout Bush.
THEN WE CAN DIG IT!
He’s a complicated man [kidding]
But no one understands him but his woman
GEORGE BUSH!
rinse and repeat
Also, too, about that Obama-fired increase in federal regulatory burden…
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/digging-into-the-changing-regulatory-state-of-the-past-10-years/
Culture of Truth
Was it over when the Democrats bombed Pearl Harbor??
An Uncivil (but decent) Duck
Is everyone aware that the word ‘fuck’ and its derivative permutations (e.g. fucking, motherfucker, fuckton, fuckface, fuck-a-duck) are indeed NOT mod bait, and that using such terms while changing or obscuring certain letters is rhetorically identical to correctly spelling the word or words in question.
If you are going to engage in the impolitic act of using profanity, please do so with pride and aplomb. To do otherwise is to gain none of the appearance of civility commonly associated with refraining from the profane, while divesting your statement of the emotional punch presumed to be the motive for the use of blue language.
NOTE: This is in no way or wise meant as a criticism of legitimate typos, only of the false modesty associated with the previously described act.
Yrs. faithfully, A Duck
Flugelhorn
@MattR: Who cheered? I know that you were not necessarily addressing me, but rather this group of “They” that all too often gets lumped collectively with “The guys that don’t agree with me” and therefore, to you, must be Republicans.
I have always detested what I referred to as “Security Marketing”. Removal of shoes.. Removal of laptops… Complete waste of time. It was the perception of security that they wished to engender, not the actual security itself. Removing our shoes and our laptops was a way to pacify those that screamed after 9/11. It made it look as if something was being done, even if that something really had no affect on results. It was something to do until they got body scanners (Which were in a pilot phase during Bush’s term. Bush certainly does not deserve the credit for their universal adoption 2 years after his presidency. Are you telling me Obama could not stop it now? And john wants to blame Bush? Obama is driving the car. He has the keys, as he is so fond of saying. Can he not steer the thing where he wants from time to time maybe?)
Everyone that does not agree with you does not need to be a republican and everyone who agrees with you does not need to be a democrat.
I am an agnostic and pro-choice. What am I?
Marc
I’ll take my allies where I can find them. If a democratic president is what it takes for the wingers to see the light of reason, then so be it.
Step away from the dark side of the force, and maybe think about what else you need to take a fresh look at while you’re at it…
Southern Beale
@An Uncivil (but decent) Duck:
FUCK YEAH!
:-)
Tax Analyst
@licensed to kill time:
Yeah, put that in your head and smoke it.
Dennis SGMM
@Culture of Truth:
Flugelhorn told me that they bombed Pearl Bailey.
blahblahblah
As if Obama hasn’t maintained and defended all of those policies as well. Pointing fingers rightward when they should also be pointed inward is yet another sign that John will need to be reamed by Democrats just a bit longer before he realizes that citizens are but a ball on a political pingpong table. Time to get the f*ck off their table.
TooManyJens
@Flugelhorn:
That’s nice. Where were you on torture? Where were you on illegal wiretapping? Where were you on indefinite detention? Where were you on the invasion of Iraq? In other words, where were you on our increasingly authoritarian government deciding it could do whatever it wants in the same of “keeping America safe”? This didn’t start when Goldberg told some TSA worker not to touch his junk.
Maybe you were on the right side. In that case, great, this post isn’t aimed at you.
Wait, I think I saw this riddle in Reader’s Digest…
geg6
@Flugelhorn:
You do realize that Eisenhower’s administration was the genius behind the Bay of Pigs operation and that it was the same administration that started us on the path to Vietnam? And that both are a result of typical right-wing framing that made Dems out to be pussies if they didn’t follow through? Right?
licensed to kill time
@Tax Analyst: If only I could remember what the Dormouse said…
Southern Beale
@Marc McKenzie:
I’m no expert on security. From what I’ve read, trained security agents who monitor travelers’ behavior are more effective than, say, profiling everyone with a Muslim name.
Whatever happened to old fashioned intelligence? Am I wrong or didn’t the parents of the Undie Bomber try to contact the U.S. Embassy and Saudi (?? Yemeni??) security saying their son had gone off the deep end? I remember something along those lines. I’m hazy on the details and too lazy to look it up but I do remember the guy’s family sending up warning signals.
Seems to me our problem is not one of lack of information. It’s being too encumbered with bureaucracy to do anything with the info we have.
And then we have the 24/7 fear porn which is not helpful.
I grew up in the ’70s, when there were hijackings in the news practically every single night. Anyone remember that? Anyone remember the Munich Olympic Games? I remember all that. What I do NOT remember is the nation being paralyzed with fear as a result of these terrorist acts. I have to say I’m totally confused as to what has changed.
Tax Analyst
@Flugelhorn:
Ooh, a Game.
OK, first guess: A musical instrument?
Second guess: Just another windy tool.
cleek
@Flugelhorn:
that the Democratic Party of the 1940’s is the same as Democratic Party of the 2000’s, if you ignore the effects of Nixon’s “southern strategy” ?
Sputnik_Sweetheart
@Silver: Bingo! We have a winner!
WyldPirate
@Marc McKenzie:
That’s fine. You’re entitled to direct criticism at whomever you want.
But so am I.
I do recognize where the policies Cole is complaining about came from. I do recognize that some will be hard to get rid of. OTOH, I’m not seeing ANY EFFORT to speak of towards eliminating many of those policies and in the areas that there has been effort, that effort has been either a ratcheting up (Afghanistan) or abject failure (Gitmo closing, trials of terrorist, privacy issues, continuing torture, etc.)
Some of those “failures” have partially been beyond Obama’s control or due to shitty messaging and’or been drowned out by Rethug propaganda, but some has not.
Joseph Nobles
Greenwald just tweeted a link to this very page:
WyldPirate
@geg6:
I suppose that the Dem pols at the time didn’t have the courage of their own convictions then, did they?
Perhaps what we are looking at is history repeating itself.
cleek
@Joseph Nobles:
ahh.. .that explains the sudden slowness
Chyron HR
@Flugelhorn:
A liar.
Mnemosyne
@Flugelhorn:
It depends — how whiny are you about paying your fair share of taxes? If the answer is “moderately” or “very,” you vote Republican, because as long as your taxes are low, you don’t care what kind of havoc the Republicans wreak on the rest of the country.
RAGGEDT
Fair questions. However, actually, Senate Democrats insisted on creation of DHS, initially against Bush’s objections,
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/homeland.security/index.html.
Dems controlled Senate in ’02 (after Jeffords flip) and they (Joe Lieberman, especially) pushed the idea of an uber-agency that would consolidate various domestic security agencies (including then-INS and TSA).
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Southern Beale:
Alex, I’ll take the fall of the USSR, for $500.
The level of fear in the US today is more or less the same as back then, but directed at a different target. That the boogeyman today doesn’t pose any sort of existential threat to us is beside the point. The level of fear and loathing must be maintained, no matter how ridiculous it gets.
If terrorism didn’t exist, we’d be pissing our pants in fear over flesh-eating bacteria and killer bees, or whatever else they could come up with that corporate America could make good money selling us ineffective and pointless remedies for. I can remember back in the 1970s having our cars stopped at the California border and being subjected to draconian searches for foreign fruits and vegetables that might contaminate the supposedly pristine local flora with exotic pests. Make sure to eat that apple, or the fruit police will getcha!
When it comes right down to it, a lot of Americans like living in fear and that large of a market will find a product to satisfy it, even if it has to be created from scratch.
shortstop
@Joseph Nobles: However, unlike you, Greenwald will not be telling people who protest the new security procedures that they are emboldening terrorists and “messing it up for everyone else.” Why is that, do you you suppose?
Mnemosyne
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Good thing the Mediterranean fruit fly never existed in California or managed to damage millions of dollars worth of crops, or you’d look pretty silly right about now.
shortstop
@Flugelhorn:
More interesting in talking about yourself than anyone here is in thinking about you?
Angel
@Flugelhorn: Exactly. This thread is completely ridiculous and just shows how mired people still are in the left-right paradigm.
Chris
@BR:
The Raven
It’s as I said yesterday:
Flugelhorn, thank you for being an excellent example.
Croak!
bemused
I remember more than one commie pinko liberal warning that allowing the Bush administration to eat away at civil liberties means that following presidents would have a hard time reversing the erosion even if they wanted to. Most presidents, even Democratic, are not inclined to relinquish the power. The same liberals also asked how republicans will react if a Democratic prez exercises those powers but most conservatives didn’t seem to care…then.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Mnemosyne:
You would have a point if there weren’t plenty of other vectors for transportation of the fruit fly in addition to passenger cars, such as commercial rail and private aviation (e.g. I knew a neighbor who regularly flew his own small aircraft up and down the west coast, and brought apples from WA state back to CA with him whenever he got the chance), alternative vectors which at the time were only being spot checked for agricultural pests.
Sort of like port security and container cargo today. If you don’t seal every entrance, in the long run how much good does it do?
geg6
@WyldPirate:
Yes, you are correct. History, as it always does, repeats itself, especially when TPTB are bullheadedly determined to never learn the lessons of history.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Not to mention that the agricultural inspections stations at the CA border weren’t manned 24×7, so if you drove through at 1 AM past a dark and empty station, nobody was the wiser.
Binzinerator
@Dennis SGMM:
Well, Flugelhorn told me they got bombed on Bailey’s Irish Cream.
a1
Suppose a terrorist group recruits someone to smuggle an explosive device up their ass onto a plane, with the intention getting caught. You couldn’t do as much damage to this country by actually having a plane explode as you would by setting off the TSA to subject plane travelers to a rectal exam before boarding. In fact, forget their political aims – they would just bring some lawn chairs next to the security gate and laugh and laugh and laugh as they watch traveler after traveler in this once great nation literally getting violated by their own government – and in order to feel safe, at that!
Fisting for Freedom!
geg6
@Chris:
Wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings
Tax Analyst
@Bill Murray:
I’ve found the Kama Sutra to be a much more useful book.
Binzinerator
@Southern Beale: I remember all that. Awesome rant.
Southern Beale
@Chris:
Well I WAS alive back then and you are stupendously wrong.
So.
Southern Beale
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Oh my I do believe you’ve hit on it.
Yes, that is the difference. The difference is that we don’t have a clear, tangible “enemy state.” Because we are at war with a nebulous ideology not an actual government. And that uncertainty is so hard for us to deal with.
Thank you. Now, see, this is why I come over here. Y’all are too smart by half.
General Stuck
You’ve gone off your glibertarian rocker again Cole, and over what? Scanners at airports, and your protege ED Kain is fluffing it with a fashionable Obama bad as Bush post.
Yawn. get back to me when the glue runs out.
Calouste
So Cole not only put E.D. Kaine on the front page but is even explicitly recommending his partisan hackery.
I’ll be monitoring this blog because I missed the first time that Cole flipped sides in 2005, but it will be funny, although a bit tragic, to see him go back the other way in the next year or so.
Southern Beale
Meanwhile I just got an e-mail from Jane Hamsher asking me to sign Firedoglake’s petition to Congress “to investigate the TSA.”
WTF?
Investigate them for WHAT? I guess if I clicked through I’d fined out.
They don’t need my signature the GOP House Majority will be all too happy to investigate whatever anyone wants as long as Obama is still president.
Jody
A little late to the game, but I’d just like to point out that there is no inconsistency between “If you haven’t done anything wrong you don’t have anything to hide”, and “Don’t touch my junk.”
Which pretty much sums up their entire philosophy.
Mnemosyne
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
So if alternative vectors exist, we shouldn’t examine any of them? Huh?
Now, I admit I only experienced a California car inspection once in the 1970s, but I remember it more like, “Hey, do you have any fruits or vegetables? No? Have a nice day,” and not the traumatic experience that you found it to be. I don’t even think they glanced into the back seat.
burnspbesq
@KG:
C’mon, you know better than that. Logic is a prisoner of war, and under the Geneva Conventions prisoners of war can be held until the cessation of hostilities.
burnspbesq
@blahblahblah:
Blahblahblah indeed. Whaddaya got that might be constructive?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Mnemosyne:
I lived in the state and had close family in neighboring states whom we frequently traveled by car to visit, so I went thru this ritual dozens of times over a period of 20 years. 90 percent of the time it was just like you remember, but sometimes for no apparent reason some authoritarian asshole would decide he just didn’t like the looks of us, and then the entire car would have to be emptied out on to the sidewalk and every container gone thru.
That’s the problem with security theater. Most of the folks involved know what the point is and use something resembling common sense, but the temptation is always there for some guy with a chip on his shoulder to turn it into the Zimbardo Prison Experiment, just because. And since the system isn’t leak proof, most of the benefits are lost anyway.
Mnemosyne
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
That’s the thing, though. I’m still not sure how making sure people do not bring fruit into California during a medfly infestation is automatically “security theater.” There was a real, genuine problem with an invasive species that cost the state millions of dollars and this was one of the steps that they took.
I get your point about authoritarians being allowed to be assholes in the name of “security,” but you can say that about anyone anywhere given any authority. Post office clerks can be major assholes if they feel like it, and there’s not much you can do except file a complaint.
When we flew to Kauai last year, we had to fill out and sign a declaration form that we did not have any plants, animals or dirt with us. When we left, the USDA did a separate, specific scan of our bags apart from the TSA’s to make sure we were not bringing any unauthorized fruit home with us. Was that just security theater? Or was it a response to a very real problem with invasive species that they have on the island?
LongHairedWeirdo
There was a point made about Guantanamo security. Security got crazy. And everyone was afraid of relaxing it, because if they did, and something happened, that “lapse” would be blamed.
And it’s just *crazy*. We need people to think about reasonable risks. We need to make the decision that, okay, if a guy’s willing to blow off his own junk to sneak a bomb into a plane, we’re willing to risk the danger.
Because it’s not just the security theater – it’s a whole way of thinking. Once you start treating everyone as a potential criminal, you start imagining a lot of stuff that you really shouldn’t think about. To say “the terrorists win” is cliche, but the point of terrorism is to put you in a state of high alert, to generate over-reactions, and make you do stupid things.
agorabum
Well, touching is on a whole different level than showing.
So if you’ve got nothing to hide, then yes, show your junk.
Problem is, they usually do have something to hide (that’s where all the overcompensation and crazy calls for the military to go kill browns come from).
Hence, no scanner, also no touchie.