My Canadian counterpart explains why the current TSA kerfluffle is nothing but rank hypocrisy on the part of the GOP.
Of course, with everyone flipping the fuck out, it tends to be forgotten that half of America is being more than a little hypocritical. It wasn’t too long ago, after all, that we heard the constant refrain of “We’re at war! The government needs to do everything in it’s power to keep us safe!” As a matter of fact, it was only last Christmas that the federal government was being accused of not doing enough to secure airliners.
I encourage everyone to read through some Republican-leaning blogs this week. Note the outrage over the sexy scanners and feel-coppers at an American airport near you. Then go back through the archives to last Christmas, through the middle of January. And, just for giggles, skip back to late 2005, when the National Security Agency’s “wireless wiretapping” program was exposed. You’ll likely notice a … change of tone over the last five days or so.
One thing that I’ve noticed this week is that Republicans are using the phrase “privacy rights” quite a bit these days. That’s special insofar as these people have spent most of the last forty years denying that such a right even exists, except in the special circumstance of Rush Limbaugh pretending to be Keith Richards.
You can score one for this post. I always thought it would be the eurofools who would whine and cry about security. Not sad to see TSA take some body shots though. I’m all for solid vetting of the scanners, but don’t let the government handle the organization, unless the organization is the USMC.
This ranting and raving over scanning certainly exposes the rank hypocracy of certain GOP elements- most actually. Keep wondering where one is guaranteed the right to fly. Don’t want to be gropped- get scanned. Don’t want to get scanned don’t fly.
Cannot you just hear the GOP scream if scan/grope cancelled and terrorist bombs a plane? Kind of makes one wonder if that not theplan/hope.
They have trains to Bermuda?
Grandma, autistic children, babies and others get scanned not because of PC but because Suicide bombers come in all sizes, shapes etc etc.
And you really don’t need that much PETN ….
Quite frankly i am surprised that we haven’t seen a massive Mumbai/Columbine/Va. Tech in multiple cities, attacks with all the “sleeper” cells we are supposed to have in the states.
Low tech and very effective to cause ‘terror” in the people.
Not a lot of training is needed, as long as you intend to die.
May GOD forbid….
Republicans are hypocrites?
Republicans use hyperbole ?
Republicans have short memories?
Republicans are…..fill in the blank….
What is shocking is that anyone, even brain dead Americans OR Canadiens would feel the need to state the obvious.
What I don’ t get, is why they did not implement the enhanced pat-down procedures A YEAR AGO after Mr. Underwear bomber failed in his attempt to blow up a plan here in the D?
If the scanners and the pat downs are what it is going to take to ensure a terrorist does not kill me or my family on a plane flight, then I am all for it. Hell, make everyone fly nude for all I care…folks need to get over themselves.
“We’re at war! The government needs to do everything in it’s power to keep us safe!”
Since he is saying that we are complaining that the government is finally doing something, and I take it that he is for these increased measures (since I don’t see him offering up any solutions), then how about making us really safe.
Treat the terrorists (Taliban and Al Queada, etc) as what they are enemy combatants and go after them at their core, and not this dancing around the subject. Instead of sending patrols off the coast of East Africa looking for pirates, just go to the towns where their bases are and take care of the problem there.
There’s a little selective memory going on here. The left and the New York Times got all wee wee’d up about wiretapping, tracking bank records and international financial transactions by the Bush administration circa 2004-2005. Various “heros” on the New York Times took great pride in exposing the dastardlyl deeds done by the Bush Cheney Cabal. Almost rewarded their own selves Pulitzer Prizes, yes they did.
Come 2009 and the Obama administration is continuing and expanding those same programs, and nary a peep from the lefties at the New York Times. It’s all good and necessary etc.
Last I heard, unless you are in the military you’re not flying “Government Air”. You’re flying on a private carrier, paying your hard earned cash for a ticket. Now the gubmint is saying that you’ve got no right to fly, or “you give up a lot of rights when you buy a ticket”. I’m all for security. But I’m not for some untrained moron sticking her hands inside some lady’s pants. When I was a horny young rascal, I called that “getting to second base”.
Comanche-actually I think this is one issue that both sides are screaming about. The thing that troubles me is that the TSA agents are caught in the middle-in a lose, lose situation. Most of my experiences with the TSA have been positive and professional and I fly almost 100,000 miles a year. I think its got to be just as hard going to work every day being thought of as a pervert or worse. They did not create this-they just have to execute it.
The point is the Bush administration created the pre-conditions for where we are now with it’s insistence on security at all costs, and an anything goes idea when it came to the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Eight Amendments. So them worrying about their “junk” rings a little hollow.
Me? I’ll be happy to go through the scanners and show my (incredibly large) johnson if it will get through the line and to the bar faster.
Skippy it’s not the “Bush Administration” that’s howling about getting groped. It’s the poor bastard who has to travel every week–or granny off to see the grandkids on her once a year flight to see the little varmints. They don’t want to see some heavy handed TSA agent reach “second base” in front of God and everybody in the terminal. And if my “junk” was still going through airport terminals on a weekly basis, I’d be pissed off about it as well
W is no doubt traveling by private jet on his book selling tour. Who knows where Cheney is–but I doubt that he’s passing through too many airports. I used to travel maybe 150,000 miles a year–and even when I cut back to about 50 K a year in the late 90’s it was a pain in the ass then. And if you travelled internationally back in the Reagan days–and if your name was on a list where there was some confusion, you might take three hours to clear customs–and they wouldn’t tell you why. And the gubmint would not respond to a FOIA request asking for an answer.
No I’m not a big believer in compassion, mercy, or even common sense being displayed by a Federal agent at an airport–then or now.
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To clarilfy, I was primarily writing about the outrage toward the TSA screening by people who had justified and supported other, more intrusive security measures by the government. It seems to me that the howling of the Tea Party, the good folks over at Red State and the 436 Brietbart blogs is hypocritical and more than a little funny.
Whether said screening actually accomplishes anything or not is another matter altogether. It’s also probably irrelevent, since the point of terrorism isn’t to kill a bunch of people, but to change the way they live. The terrorists seem to have accomplished that mission far better than anyone is willing to admit.
As to Maurice’s point, the United States is going to need a significantly larger military than the one it has if he intends for it to “just go to the towns where their bases are and take care of the problem there.” That’s especially true in Yemen, where there are currently two proxy civil wars with combatants being supported by the Iranians and the Saudis.
If you agree that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq didn’t exactly go according to plan, I would be careful about opening a third front that the American people know even less about. If drone strikes aren’t decapitating the bad guys in Pakistan, there’s very little reason to believe that they’ll work any better in Yemen.
Some of you are downright hilarious. Ooooh, the conservatives and only the conservatives despise the TSA for doing useless stuff and molesting kids but aren’t these the same ones that went absolutely apeshit after 9/11 about little things like Gitmo and the Wars and wiretaps and looking up peoples library withdrawals…..yes it is! The same ones that chortled themselves nie on to death as they got the low down on Clarence Thomas’ video rentals because you know, a black man like that behaving white needed to be brought down.
What a depressing and stupid shower of shite.