Some years before 9/11, I traveled a lot. Some for pleasure, mostly for work. I even used to enjoy to fly. Ever since Condi was asleep at the wheel of our national security clown car, ever since the W crapped on a national security report and studiously ignored it, and ever since a couple of dozen religious morans took down several buildings with box cutters, I have hated flying.
The scrutiny, the time wasted, and worthless invasion of privacy was bad enough. To compound the problems, seats have gotten smaller and closer together. Anchovies look upon today's coach seats and breath a sigh of relief for the shoulder and knee room that they are offered compared to today's air passenger.
Despite wasting billions of dollars, adding stress, delays, and discomfort to the flying population, we are not one bit safer with TSA. In fact, an argument can be made that TSA's intrusions are counter-productive and give us a false sense of security.
But Pastor Ag, how can you make such a claim? Don't you know that the TSA is there for our own good? That they protect us from terra-ists, and make us safer?
What rot.
Case in point: On Friday, September 26, 2014, our nation's air system was turned upside down, and virtually destroyed. An outside communications contractor attempted to commit suicide and in the process, took down the Aurora, Illinois flight control center.
As a result of the damage he caused, thousands of flights were cancelled or delayed. The FAA announced that the system won't be returned to normal until October 13, almost three weeks after the attack.
His words, according to the Feeblies: “Take a hard look in the mirror, I have. And this is why I am about to take out ZAU (the radar center) and my life…So I’m gonna smoke this blunt and move on, take care everyone.”
So, what added benefit do we received from taking off our shoes, undergoing anal probes a la the TSA, and being ogled by see-through technology? In a word, NONE.
While this dude did not have a box cutter, he single handedly managed to effectively destroy air traffic control for the entire midwest, in fact, for most of the country.
Next time you are retying your shoes while hoping no one steals your wallet from the x-ray machine, think about how one man managed to elude the entire TSA network and do incredible damage to America's air traffic. Osama would be proud.