The Transportation Security Administration revealed in a press release April 22, 2004 that there is no real difference between TSA and private screeners in our nation’s airports. So, why then did Homeland Security spend nineteen million dollars to manage a crisis that did not exist? According to Associated Press, five hundred thousand of that went for things like artwork and decorative plants. And yet, airports are still not switching back to private screeners. They continue to allow our government to spend millions of dollars on unnecessary overhead. Why, because they are afraid of liability. We have become a nation of litigators. Insurance companies control our behavior through the potential purse strings of those to whom we are socially bound. And our courts let them get away with it.
Another catch 22 situation, and our only recourse is to stand in line waiting until it is our turn to be poked, prodded, and personally humiliated. How did it come to this? When did we give up our rights as human beings? Did it happen on September 11, 2001 when the Department of Homeland Security was formed and took over our airports? Did it happen, when we voted for Republican Presidents who put conservative judges on our Supreme Court bench? Did it happen when we stopped caring, acting, and voting altogether? Our nation is blindly following the crowd in line to demise, and no one seems willing to disrupt the flow. Where are the radicals of the sixties? Where are the ideals of youth?
Have you watched the teens and young adults boarding airplanes lately? They act more professionally driven than most forty-year olds. To them, conservatism and following the crowd ARE democracy. Who will show them the truth? How will we change this dismal course, when those who follow us see that course as grand?
The Transportation Security Administration revealed in a press release April 22, 2004 that there is no real difference between TSA and private screeners in our nation’s airports. So, why then did Homeland Security spend nineteen million dollars to manage a crisis that did not exist? According to Associated Press, five hundred thousand of that went for things like artwork and decorative plants. And yet, airports are still not switching back to private screeners. They continue to allow our government to spend millions of dollars on unnecessary overhead. Why, because they are afraid of liability. We have become a nation of litigators. Insurance companies control our behavior through the potential purse strings of those to whom we are socially bound. And our courts let them get away with it.
Another catch 22 situation, and our only recourse is to stand in line waiting until it is our turn to be poked, prodded, and personally humiliated. How did it come to this? When did we give up our rights as human beings? Did it happen on September 11, 2001 when the Department of Homeland Security was formed and took over our airports? Did it happen, when we voted for Republican Presidents who put conservative judges on our Supreme Court bench? Did it happen when we stopped caring, acting, and voting altogether? Our nation is blindly following the crowd in line to demise, and no one seems willing to disrupt the flow. Where are the radicals of the sixties? Where are the ideals of youth?
Have you watched the teens and young adults boarding airplanes lately? They act more professionally driven than most forty-year olds. To them, conservatism and following the crowd ARE democracy. Who will show them the truth? How will we change this dismal course, when those who follow us see that course as grand?