Friday, November 26, 2010

Reality Check: TSA

I don't like terrorists. They tried to kill my friends. They should be stopped, but not at all costs.

Why? Terrorism, while visually terrifying, doesn't have a real disproportionate effect on the larger private sector. Regular old non sexy violent crime, disease, and even driving a car can claim more deaths than terrorism. Let's talk about that traffic problem.

Thousands of Americans are killed on American roads each year. Accidents, construction, abuse of police power, and bad driving are responsible for perhaps millions of driving delays each year that effects the flow of American business. Some of the issues with traffic are fixable, like bad driving; while others, like government annual budgeting practices causing lots of road construction at the end of the fiscal year, are systemic. Each one of us can probably name a friend, colleague, or relative who has been killed on the road. It is truly a problem that affects us all.

However, if real effort is used to track down the sources and solutions to these traffic issues you will see real benefit to the American citizenry. Fewer deaths, more on time arrivals, lower insurance premiums, and a better quality of life are the rewards. People might even be happier when they arrive at work!

Terrorism doesn't nearly have the scope that road issues do. Preventing terrorism in America, using current methods, is neither effective, nor apt to bring citizens the piece of mind we would expect with all the money and effort being spent. Grabbing an old man's balls or feeling a busty woman's décolletage accomplishes nothing good. Taking nude pictures of businessmen with X-rays, the same radiation hospital personnel use lead shielding to avoid is both unnecessary and evil. And the fact that TSA spokesmen, media people, and President Obama defend such practices is absolutely perverse. If the solution is more life changing than the problem, what's the point?

The problem is that the government and airlines have already protected airplanes from terrorism. They did this by putting a solid lock on the cockpit door, a gun inside, and thorough background checks to make sure the pilot isn't a nut. Done, over. Cured like polio.

The crap the TSA is pulling all over the country now is at best a farce and at worst unadulterated oppression. I thought a black man would know better than to support this.