I Don't Believe This!

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

The PC motto:

"It is more evil to judge evil than to do evil".

 

[enigma]

TXCAP,

I think the point that many of us are trying to make by way of humor is being missed.

I for one would be behind the TSA if any of the measures they have implemented thusfar actually did anything to improve safety.

So far, all I have seen is an increase in the taxes imposed on an already over-taxed industry. The creation of yet another over-funded beauracracy. The federalization and resultant cost expansion of previously minimum wage workforce. Not to mention an exponential increase in hassle factor for the very passengers we need to return to help save the industry.

The net return thus far has been to have Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, elderly grandmothers, 18 month old babies, and flight crews being strip searched at security checkpoints, and the arrest of a couple of moron pilots who showed up to work reeking of booze.

Meanwhile, the agency tasked with ensuring our safety goes out of their way not to check the people who happen to "fit the profile" of those out to do us harm for fear of being accused of racial profiling.

Absurd.

As I said, I am all for increasing security. I will readily give up certain freedom if the sacrifice of those freedoms means a real increase in security. What I do not support is the spending of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, and the additional burden on our industry for a feel-good, smoke and mirror dog and pony show.

As far as the ticketed passenger in the terminal debacle, I have to quote the NRA:

If you make it crime to have a gun, than only the criminals will have guns.

Same logic. Keeping innocent people out of terminals does nothing. The bad guys will still get in if they really want to.

Metro

90% dittos. Your analysis is right on.

I only disagree with your willingness to give up freedom. (see my signature). I do not believe that it is necessary to sacrific freedom in order to provide adequate security. It only requires that we give up on being politically correct.

regards,
8N

 

[enigma]

The PC motto:

"It is more evil to judge evil than to do evil".

I may have to add that to my signature, it's great. Can I credit it to you, or did it come from someone else?

regards,
8N

 

[JediNein]

Latest new Terrorist Weapon... The "Pint Sized Super-Pooper!"!!!

You would be amazed at how much bureaucracy can be cut through with a squalling "Pint Sized Super-Pooper" with colic and gastritis. One even got a friend out of a Florida timeshare presentation...

While waiting for TSA: "What's that you say, I have to wait here for 30 minutes? Oh, no problem. The kid, oh, he's got colic and gastitis. What? Oh It's really bad today. The doc said to just let him cry it out. What? Yeah, scream it out too. Doc says it makes them feel better. Say again? Yeah, it's hard to hear you over the kid. No, the doc says the pacifier is bad for his teeth. I can't hear you. No, it's not quite time for his medication, the doc said right before we board. You say I can get right in over there? Thank you."

 

[Timebuilder]

I wonder which the TSA screeners will fear more: a passenger with a turban around one end, or a diaper around the other!

 

[Typhoon1244]

I wonder which the TSA screeners will fear more: a passenger with a turban around one end, or a diaper around the other!

Or both.

 

[ifly4food]

Call the travel line, list him as a non-rev to East Bumfuq. Print out the seat request on the self service kiosk and then take him in.

Careful... we had a pilot get fired for doing just that.

 

[Typhoon1244]

Careful... we had a pilot get fired for [creating a listing to get a visitor into the airport].

I had a feeling that was too good to be true.

(I hadn't heard about that. When did it happen?)

 

[CesnaCaptn]

I agree that we should use racial profiling. But lets not forget who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City.

 

[MetroSheriff]

Careful... we had a pilot get fired for doing just that.

Very well, give him the 2 dollar tour. Take him up to the gate and have him do the roundtrip to East Bumfuq while you wait in the crew lounge.



Better yet, take him on a tour the day he is flying home. Then he will rightfully in possesion of a seat request, and legally in the terminal area.

Problem solved.

The really goes back to the issue at hand. Why should law abiding Americans be banned from an innocent visit into the terminal area. Has the interest of safety actually been served.

I say no.

Further I think it illustrates just how vulnerable our security checkpoints are against anyone with an ounce of creativity or imagination.

 

[Timebuilder]

I agree that we should use racial profiling. But lets not forget who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City.

I'm glad you mentioned that.

The people that we know about, McVeigh and his friends, were not themselves representative of a large group of white Americans of Irish descent who are bent on the destruction of the United States. If they were, I'd be all for keeping them off airplanes.

You might want to read this, and ponder if McVeigh had some help from people who DEFINATELY want to destroy the US:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=22122

 

[CesnaCaptn]

Timebuilder

I'm not sure if I understand your point. This pilot's father could be in contact with Iraqi nationals too for all we know. Just because you don't LOOK suspect, doesn't mean you aren't. Now, if the father is being escorted by someone with a SIDA including his son, then that should be OK. There shouldn't be any difference between the pilot and the CP's secretary.

 

[Timebuilder]

I just want to point out that the example of OKC, which is often given as a response to the idea of profiling the 9-11 hijackers, may actually contain a relationship between McVeigh and Al-Queda.

Also, there is no worldwide organization exclusively made up of people from the gender, religious, and ethnic backgrounds of McVeigh and Nichols who wish to bring destruction to the US.

To date, we have a very clear picture of which groups are involved with this kind of activity. We are simply refusing to put that information to use in our airports. Instead, we are driving every little old lady, former senator, CMH honoree, and discretionary traveller from our sagging industry.

What folly.

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

I may have to add that to my signature, it's great. Can I credit it to you, or did it come from someone else?

regards,
8N

Glad you like the quote enigma. I read it a few years ago in a Wall Street Journal commentary. Your Ben Franklin quote is right on the money and is certainly applicable to today's society.

 

[TXCAP4228]

TXCAP,

I think the point that many of us are trying to make by way of humor is being missed.

I for one would be behind the TSA if any of the measures they have implemented thusfar actually did anything to improve safety.

So far, all I have seen is an increase in the taxes imposed on an already over-taxed industry. The creation of yet another over-funded beauracracy. The federalization and resultant cost expansion of previously minimum wage workforce. Not to mention an exponential increase in hassle factor for the very passengers we need to return to help save the industry.

The net return thus far has been to have Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, elderly grandmothers, 18 month old babies, and flight crews being strip searched at security checkpoints, and the arrest of a couple of moron pilots who showed up to work reeking of booze.

Meanwhile, the agency tasked with ensuring our safety goes out of their way not to check the people who happen to "fit the profile" of those out to do us harm for fear of being accused of racial profiling.

Absurd.

As I said, I am all for increasing security. I will readily give up certain freedom if the sacrifice of those freedoms means a real increase in security. What I do not support is the spending of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, and the additional burden on our industry for a feel-good, smoke and mirror dog and pony show.

As far as the ticketed passenger in the terminal debacle, I have to quote the NRA:

If you make it crime to have a gun, than only the criminals will have guns.

Same logic. Keeping innocent people out of terminals does nothing. The bad guys will still get in if they really want to.

I see two distinct issues in Typhoon's lament:
1) The TSA is imposing ridiculous, overburdening and probably ineffective restrictions on all of us.
2) These restrictions should be laid at the feet of the current President and his administration.

I am not a big fan of the TSA either, and I think they're going WAY overboard. For crying out loud I am a business traveler and I sometimes have to deshoe and deshirt to get through security. Of course I thinks its ridiculous.

I also agree with the argument that if guns are outlawed only outlaws will own guns.

However, my reply is:

1) These restrictions happen because the public wants to feel secure and all politicians (not just the president) want to show they're doing something.
2) W. has been criticized time and time again for not doing enough to protect us - by most of the leaders of Typhoon's political party of record - and now people are saying he is going overboard. You can't have it both ways. The truth is rarely an extreme, and any president would be in the same position as he is post 9-11. I think Typhoon's comment is disingenuous - at least a little bit - for that reason.
3) Memebrs of BOTH parties approved of the TSA and supported it legislatively. Go back and review the congressional record.

4) Finally, W. and his cabinet did not atack America, terrorists did. If anyone is to blame, let's blame the terrorists.

We need to accept the reality that the entire world changed as a result of 9-11 and its unlikely to EVER go back to the way it was.


What we ought to do as pilots and as good citizens is make sure our voice is heard. I reccommend joining AOPA as a start. I also suggest writing your congressmen.

I don't disagree with the premise that the TSA has gone overboard, but I think I am being a little more objective in my placing the blame.

 

[Timebuilder]

Hear, hear!

 

[Typhoon1244]

W. has been criticized time and time again for not doing enough to protect us--by most of the leaders of Typhoon's political party of record--and now people are saying he is going overboard. You can't have it both ways. The truth is rarely an extreme, and any president would be in the same position as he is post 9-11. I think Typhoon's comment is disingenuous--at least a little bit--for that reason. Memebrs of BOTH parties approved of the TSA and supported it legislatively. Go back and review the congressional record.

I'm very disappointed, TXCAP.

First of all, I'm neither a registered Republican or Democrat, so I'm not sure how you established my "party of record." My general feeling is that Republicans and greedy and Democrats are foolish, but they somehow balance each other.

My comment is disingenuous, huh? Go back and read my post. After a careful review, you'll see that nowhere did I blame George II for the attack, nor did I blame him for failing to anticipate it. There's no way anyone could have anticipated it! But I do blame him and his administration for their failure to react appropriately in the post-9/11 world...for example, failure to profile, regardless of how the left squawks about it. If the President is not responsible for the conduct of his administration, who is?

(I have noticed that the same people who try to shield George II from blame for anything are usually the same ones who blame Slick Willie for everything from the Vietnam War to athlete's foot.)

Yes, you're right, congressmen from both parties did support the TSA. What bloody difference does that make? We're talking about the same group of people who tried to save the day that morning by singing songs on the Capitol steps.

John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller, and Tom Ridge are running the domestic war on terrorism on behalf of George W. Bush. If they and their advisors are commiting serious errors, who do we blame, John Kerry? Tom Daschle?

The blame for the 9/11 attack belongs to Osama bin Laden and nineteen dead men.

The blame for the resluting Barney Fife security belongs to those men who forcing the nation to fight a "War on Terror" with one arm tied behind its back.

 

[Timebuilder]

Well, let's see.

A great many powerful Democrats spoke out against the idea of profiling, along with some Republicans. Both parties feared the damage that a support for profiling would do to their political futures.

Among Democrats, support for profiling would cause them to lose their place in their party, a party of ACLU members and trial lawyers, not to mention unions of teachers and government employees. This party of political correctness and symbolism over substance was completely at odds with itself when considering making the obvious sources of credible threats the focus of examination and scrutiny in America.

For Republicans, focusing on any group or groups would bring out the usual suspects: the Schumers, the Carvilles, the Pelosis, all calling the Republican position bigoted, racist, narrowminded, maybe even "white supremacist" in nature.

Since we are a country of many kinds of people, there is an innate fear that "we are next" in this situation. There is a great conflict in that we try to be a country of total freedom, yet that is impossible for humans because so many, particularly terrorists, will take advantage of that freedom.

Profiling is, when done correctly, almost always effective. Just ask the NJ State police. They found it was a farce to stop middle aged white people driving late model cars when looking for drug traffic on route 95 crossing into New Jersey. When they stoped young Hispanic and Black men driving overloaded older cars, the number of drug arrests skyrocketed. Amazingly, they were forced to stop this very effective targeting of a group that produced consistent and predictable arrest results. What made the profiling effective? Common sense. In the words of a notorious gangster, banks were robbed "because that's where the money is".

So, until we as a nation, not as Democrats or Republicans, agree to use profiling as the most effective weapon in our arsenal of security, we'll be checking those diapers, grannys, and retired senators every day, and wondering what happened to our guts.

 

[TXCAP4228]

I'm very disappointed, TXCAP.

First of all, I'm neither a registered Republican or Democrat, so I'm not sure how you established my "party of record." My general feeling is that Republicans and greedy and Democrats are foolish, but they somehow balance each other.

My comment is disingenuous, huh? Go back and read my post. After a careful review, you'll see that nowhere did I blame George II for the attack, nor did I blame him for failing to anticipate it. There's no way anyone could have anticipated it! But I do blame him and his administration for their failure to react appropriately in the post-9/11 world...for example, failure to profile, regardless of how the left squawks about it. If the President is not responsible for the conduct of his administration, who is?

On the "party of record" comment, I did in fact know from prior conversations that you claim no affiliation so I applogize for lumping into one side. This is my bad.

My point about Bush being blamed for the attack or for not preventing it is that one side of the political spectrum - the side you generally take on this particular issue - criticizes the president frequently for not doing enough. Many vocal members of the political left in America have even blamed him for letting the attack happen. My intention was not to say that you were blaming him, only that many people who share your opinions of the TSA do blame him. Which gets us to the d@mned if you do, d@mned if you don't problem.

Further, anything that you would propose as a more appropriate reaction in a post 9/11 world is absolutely going to be criticized as either draconian or woefully insufficient by somebody.

You can't please everybody all the time. Leaders make decisions. They act. "W" has done that. Compared to America's reaction to the 5 previous terror attacks against us under the prior President, I'd say dubya's solution is about a thousand times better.

Humbly submitted. I didn't mean to offend you, Typhoon.

 

[Typhoon1244]

In case nobody reads history nor watched Hitler on CBS tonight: about thirty days after Adolph Hitler became Chancellor, the German Reichstag burned. Historians still disagree about who set the fire--there are well-founded suspicions that it was the Nazis themselves--but Hitler's administration blamed Communist terrorists.

As a result, Hitler announced that certain civil liberties would have to be curtailed to meet the emergency.

Sound familiar, Mister Ashcroft?

Who were Hitler's strongmen at the time? The "S.A."

Does that sound familiar? Like maybe T...S.A.?

See, I knew if we looked carefully enough, the truth would appear! (I wonder if you could get through airport security faster with a copy of Mein Kampf under your arm...)