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Let's have both. Freedom planes for me, with sane boarding procedures, and safety planes for you, with 4 hour waits while everyone is xrayed, strip-searched, an

Let's have both. Freedom planes for me, with sane boarding procedures, and safety planes for you, with 4 hour waits while everyone is xrayed, strip-searched, and cavity inspected. I don't begrudge you your choice of guaranteed safety, hopefully you will not begrudge me mine of privacy and freedom.

rayiner 14y ago
I take the train because I can't stand the TSA, and I'm willing to take my chances that someone fires an RPG at a train somewhere along the 500 miles of completely out in the open track on the Northeast Regional. My point is that the TSA is bad not because "zOMG any impingement on freedom is bad!" but because it's just bad. They are too invasive for the imagined security benefits they provide against improbable threats. But going from that to "those who trade freedom for safety deserve neither" is silly. I purposefully choose to live in a city (New York) that has a massive police presence. Why? Because I think its a reasonable trade-off of a little freedom for substantial security. Manhattan is like Disneyland now, and it's great, and I don't care if I would theoretically be more free if there weren't a cop on every corner. We trade freedom for security all the time--it's called organized civilization, and it's a good thing. I hate to quote John Ashcroft, but see his response to this Ben Franklin quote: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/080702eighthcircuitjudgesagremarks.htm http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/080702eighth... (first 9 paragraphs)
derleth 14y ago
> Freedom planes for me, with sane boarding procedures, and safety planes for you, with 4 hour waits while everyone is xrayed, strip-searched, and cavity inspected. Thank you for trying to skew the Overton Window in such an obvious fashion. Let's try something else: For you, there are Liberty Planes™, with no metal detectors, no bomb detectors, and no sky marshals. In addition, alcohol is served on every flight. For the rest of us, air security is scaled back to what it was September 10, 2001. Fair? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

rayiner 14y ago

I take the train because I can't stand the TSA, and I'm willing to take my chances that someone fires an RPG at a train somewhere along the 500 miles of completely out in the open track on the Northeast Regional. My point is that the TSA is bad not because "zOMG any impingement on freedom is bad!" but because it's just bad. They are too invasive for the imagined security benefits they provide against improbable threats. But going from that to "those who trade freedom for safety deserve neither" is silly. I purposefully choose to live in a city (New York) that has a massive police presence. Why? Because I think its a reasonable trade-off of a little freedom for substantial security. Manhattan is like Disneyland now, and it's great, and I don't care if I would theoretically be more free if there weren't a cop on every corner. We trade freedom for security all the time--it's called organized civilization, and it's a good thing. I hate to quote John Ashcroft, but see his response to this Ben Franklin quote: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/080702eighthcircuitjudgesagremarks.htm http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/080702eighth... (first 9 paragraphs)

derleth 14y ago

> Freedom planes for me, with sane boarding procedures, and safety planes for you, with 4 hour waits while everyone is xrayed, strip-searched, and cavity inspected. Thank you for trying to skew the Overton Window in such an obvious fashion. Let's try something else: For you, there are Liberty Planes™, with no metal detectors, no bomb detectors, and no sky marshals. In addition, alcohol is served on every flight. For the rest of us, air security is scaled back to what it was September 10, 2001. Fair? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window