TSA Says Fewer Patdowns For Kids [2]
While this story is a few days old, I always like to keep up on the happenings at TSA, because if we realize it or not it does effect a large portion of the population. Today it is the air system that we are inconvenienced with, but tomorrow it will be that local bus and trolley service that you all use to get back and forth to work. In an environment where more and more people are looking to public transit to save some money on the commute they make every single day, this is the best time for TSA to ramp up their searches and get people prepared for more of the same down the road.
This time there is word from Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano that children under the age of 12 will no longer have to take their shoes off at the airport. This will also coincide with a different pat down procedure for those under the age of 12 as well, since there has been an outcry over the past many months to change the way TSA deals with children when they go to the airport. Can you imagine having to explain to your child why they are being searched in parts where if anyone else touched them there they would certainly call the police? I do not have children and I cannot begin to imagine the anger of the parents that have had to go through this type of conversation with their young kids.
The more important question (at least for me) is why the TSA is not changing the way they search everyone at the airports. This would not be a difficult task to accomplish, of course they would have to hire individuals who were prepared to do the right kind of searches on the people that should be searched. We are still living in a country where political correctness rules the day, and because of that we have gone away from searching those we know could be a threat and searching those who, in many people’s minds, would not hurt a hair on our heads. A nun, child, older lady or gentlemen, or a person who is not able to get up and do things for themselves do not need to be pulled aside and made a fool of just because we have this fear that we might be attacked again. We could be attacked at any time and if we are going to be a nation of people who are afraid to live, then this is the kind of treatment that the people of this great nation will stand behind. If we are a nation of people who are not afraid to stand up to an enemy and call a spade a spade, then we will not only win the war against our enemies but we will also live the way free American’s should be living.
Most of the people that are reading this are probably of the Conservative persuasion, or at least have leanings in that direction. We all understand that we need security and that is why we spend so much money on defense. We hope that our men and women are sent into battle in proper places to protect the homeland from another attack, but if another attack were to come I believe the majority of free-thinking people are ready for it. We understand that no government can protect the people 100% of the time, and we also understand that in the last resort we have the power and the ability to protect ourselves from the dangers of the outside world. TSA, Homeland, F.B.I., C.I.A., and all the other letters do what they can do, but it is not going to always be enough, and we have to understand that before anything else. If we run to the government to protect us from every little thing that goes wrong in America, we will be living in a nation of fear, which is exactly what our enemies want to see.
We also have to remember that the rules the TSA follows will not change in many circumstances when it comes to children. If you think we will never see another video again of a child being searched or a diaper being taken off, you are out of your mind. You cannot have that must trust in a department that could care less about you, your family, or your children for that matter. As the saying by Lord Acton goes, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is a power grab that those of us out there that see it must be screaming it from the hilltops and from the countryside. The problem I see with American’s today is that they are happy with the government saying they are being protected and that is a good enough reason to be searched.
I want to be clear on my stance because I know there will be some out there that may think I believe no one should be searched at an airport. While the Feds may have some pull when it comes to airport security, the airport itself is giving the power to the TSA for these searches to continue. I have no problem with individual airlines choosing to do these kinds of searches, because we can choose not to use that airline and hop on another flight. The problem is with the control the government has, not the search procedures themselves directly. If this was being done by an airline and it was their decision to allow this to happen and another airline decided not to use these types of methods, many people would leave that airline and use another. That is the way America works, and it should be the way our airport security is done as well.
Children are innocent human beings who, for the most part and most of the time, are not going to hurt anyone. They want to fly to Disney World or go see pap and gram on a big plane, and they are not thinking about hurting anyone else in the process. The reasons given for searching children to begin with was as lame as any other excuse we were ever given, but like all the others we fell for it in the name of security. I have my doubts on if this will actually change the way children are searched, but I guess all we can do is wait and see. The government has not earned the right to be given the benefit of the doubt!
(Purchase the new book by Shawn Dougherty, “Losing my Political Mind: The Argument for Sanity” here [3]! The proceeds from the book are being donated by Shawn to the Wounded Warrior Project. If you do not want the book, please think about giving a small donation to the organization, they do great work for our soldiers in need.)
