For the past eight years, approximately 2 million Americans a day have been subjected to humiliating searches at airport security checkpoints, forced to remove their shoes and jackets, to open their computers, and to remove all liquids from their carry-on bags, except minuscule amounts in marked 3-ounce containers placed in Ziploc plastic bags -- folding sandwich bags are verboten -- among other indignities.Read the rest here.
This, allegedly, was the price we had to pay for safe airplanes. The one security precaution the government refused to consider was to require extra screening for passengers who looked like the last three-dozen terrorists to attack airplanes.
Since Muslims took down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, every attack on a commercial airliner has been committed by foreign-born Muslim men with the same hair color, eye color and skin color. Half of them have been named Mohammed.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Flying the unfriendly skies
Ann Coulter on the increasingly ridiculous security procedures travelers are forced to endure in the nation's airports:
25 comments:
You are welcome to post at this blog. You are asked, however, to refrain from the following:
1. Name-calling;
2. Questioning the motives or integrity of people you have never met just because you disagree with them;
3. Using obscenities or other expressions not appropriate or necessary to civilized discussion;
4. Taking disagreement personally;
5. Demeaning or insulting remarks.
The host will attempt to abide by the same rules and only asks that you not provide him with the temptation to do so in return by violating them.
Failure to comply with these rules can result (depending solely on the arbitrary and inscrutable will of the host) in the deletion of offending posts and suspension of posting privileges. Such measures are more likely if you post anonymously.
"Since Muslims took down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, every attack on a commercial airliner has been committed by foreign-born Muslim men with the same hair color, eye color and skin color."
ReplyDeleteAnd they have all been religious.
Yeah, we should give all religious people extra scrutiny. They're responsible for most (all?) of the acts of terror we see in Asia, Africa, and most everywhere else.
The latest guy, with the underwear bomb, had a different skin color than many of the other attackers. Hair color and eye color can be changed easily, and even skin can be lightened. If we tried to implement security based those measure, we would be opening the door wide for terrorists.
ReplyDeleteOf course, since the current President is Democratic, that's what you want anyhow.
What One Brow said.
ReplyDeleteHow many Christian jihadists have crashed an airline into a busy office building, Art?
ReplyDeleteConsidering the impact communist-style atheism has had on history, I would suggest we keep our eyes on those who shake their fists at the Christian God.
One Brow and Susan: perhaps you mistake the fear that Democrats' weakness on terror will result in acts of terrorism, with the desire for more terrorism.
ReplyDeleteHow many Christian jihadists have crashed an airline into a busy office building, Art?
ReplyDeleteYeah, Christian jihadists just park van-loads of explosives next to buildings and blow up women and children. So maybe we better extend our scrutiny of religious people to all areas of day-to-day life, not just to airport terminals.
> Yeah, Christian jihadists just park van-loads of explosives next to buildings and blow up women and children.
ReplyDeleteApparently, you and Obama's Dept. of Homeland Security are in agreement.
Of course, Islamists might have an even worse reputation for violence that they do already, if it were to get reported in the "news".
ReplyDeleteHere's a Reuters article discussing violence in France: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60010D20100101
It seems that more than a thousand cars were torched by, er, "youths".
Lee,
ReplyDeleteI can appreciate that people who live in fear always worry not enough is being done to protect them, they need Mommy (aka the government) to give them more assurances.
However, in this case we have not only a suggestion that would easily make us less secure (by givig the terrorists an easily identifiable way around the system), but also it is being offered by someone with a stated interest in seeing Obama fail. While you, specifically, may be so patriotic that you would love to see a safe, happy,prosperous america under Obama, I don't get that from Coulter.
I see your point. Only a baby would whine about being bombed into oblivion.
ReplyDeleteLee,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad we agree.
Actually, I think the attitude that your remarks display about terrorism -- and people's expectations that the government do what it is paid to do and protect them -- is the same cavalier attitude that Coulter thinks Obama harbors.
ReplyDeleteGosh Lee, you really didn't agree with me?
ReplyDeleteI expect the government to find a reasonable balance between protection on the one hand, and the invasion of liberties and expense of that invasion on the other hand. Out of millions o flights this year, how many did actual bombers try to board? 3? So, this is an event that occurs one time in a million? It's less likely that a bartender developing disease from second-hand smoke? Do you therefore firmly endorse anti-smoking legislation?
How about Coulter's actual suggestion? Do you see it as an improvement?
> I expect the government to find a reasonable balance between protection on the one hand, and the invasion of liberties and expense of that invasion on the other hand.
ReplyDeleteWhose liberties?
How many terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 do you think the US should be prepared to accept as a "reasonable balance"?
If you think the terrorism issue is on a par with second-hand smoke, I'm not surprised you also characterize Americans who want to be defended by their extremely expensive government as babies crying for Mommy.
Lee,
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with there being three or five attacks in a year. It's the price you pay for a free society.
Do you think there are more deaths in the USA from terrorists in the last 10 years than from the effects of second-hand smoke? I would be surpised if that were true.
My theory is that Lee has his eyes on some of those big internment camp contracts that he wishes to be coming down the pike.
ReplyDelete> I have no problem with there being three or five attacks in a year. It's the price you pay for a free society.
ReplyDeleteWhen it's three or five attacks with nukes, will you be fine with that too?
> My theory is that Lee has his eyes on some of those big internment camp contracts that he wishes to be coming down the pike.
I thought you scientific types needed evidence to believe in something.
I'll have to agree with One Brow here.
ReplyDeleteWhen it's three or five attacks with nukes, will you be fine with that too?
ReplyDeleteI think there are many ways of preventing nuclear attacks that don't work on underwear bombers. High-grade nuclear materials are not avalable in hardware stores. You can't assemble a nuclear centerfuge in a basement. Nuclear bombs require a certain minimum size. Highly radioactive materials can be detected non-invasively. So, I think accepting the occasional underwear bomber as the cost of a free society does not entail the acceptance of nuclear bombs. However, I am willing to listen if you can make this connection.
The venue or every terror attack will not be someone's undergarments.
ReplyDeleteI think we should probably do what the Israelis do and profile the heck out of our airline travelers. I've never been real keen on wasting resources to body-search a 75-year-old woman, just to maintain political correctness.
I think, regarding air travel, if you're a foreigner, male, between the ages of 14 and 45, from particular countries, or named "Muhammad", you should probably expect to be searched more often than the general public.
I think if you're an American citizen, female, are white, black, Asian, or any ethnicity that is obviously not Middle Eastern, you should be expected to be searched less often than the general public.
I think if you're an American citizen over 70, you should expect to be searched even less yet.
But if we're going to continue being politically correct -- that is, pretending we cannot categorize probable offenders based on observable characteristics -- then *everyone* is going to pay the price for more security. I would prefer it to be otherwise, but we can't have our cake and eat it too.
I think that if you are a foreigner, male, between the ages of 14 and 45, from particular countries, or named "Muhammad", and you are going to effort of creating bomb and paying for a plane ticket, that you will also probably take the minimal effort needed to dye/gray your hair, make yourself look older, lighten or darken your skin color, and get a false identification with a different name in order to bypass security measures aimed at that group. Of course, maybe all the foreign males between the ages of 14 and 45 from particular countries named "Muhammad" are just too stupid to come up with that.
ReplyDelete> Of course, maybe all the foreign males between the ages of 14 and 45 from particular countries named "Muhammad" are just too stupid to come up with that.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe people who run for security are too stupid to spot such cues?
Either way, there won't be too many who are successful at looking like 75 year old women.
As long as they can look like white-heaired 75-year-old-men, they can get around profiling.
ReplyDeleteI just want to know, does anyone feel safer because they searched Joan Rivers?
ReplyDeleteThat they searched her specifically, or that they were willing to do so? No to the first, yes to the second.
ReplyDelete