They’re not Criminals

They’re terrorists.

President Obama is following in the footsteps of President Clinton.  He’s treating terrorists whose only desire is to destroy our country as common criminals.  To the current administration, a terrorist is no different from a car thief or jay walker.

Terrorists try to destroy our country from the outside and from the inside.  From the outside, they want to attack our country and its interests.  Those who attack our country are not litterbugs; they’re enemy combatants.  Others try to do the same from the inside.  When they’re US citizens, they are treasonous.  They have gone past simple sedition and have crossed over to treason and should be treated as the traitors to the Constitution that they are.

Treating the Underwear Bomber as a simple criminal with constitutional rights is ridiculous.  I question the sanity of those in the Justice Department who made this decision.  This person is not a citizen.  He has no right to be in this country.  He was granted access as a privilege.  When he demonstrated his intent to harm this country, he gave up that privilege to be a peaceful visitor and showed himself to be a foreign operative intent on killing peaceful citizens through his planned attack on our country.

The 9/11 bomber trials are not much different.  Treating these predators like they had driven a car into a mall is also unconscionable.  Having shown a hatred for the Constitution, they should not be given constitutional rights.  They barely qualify for human rights.

These are all enemy combatants.  This is the reason we built the detention center at Gitmo.  I’m not suggesting torture.  I’m just saying that these people need to be taken out of commission.

Military tribunals are designed to deal with enemies who attack the US.  Let’s use them and keep them off US soil.

Tony’s Grand Unifying Theory of Travel and Health Care

Yesterday I flew to California.  I found that my personal notebook computer did not make the journey safely (I had shipped it ahead) so posts may be spotty for a while until I get it repaired or replaced.  But, enough of that.

I had some concerns about new procedures that may have been put in place because of the Underwear Bomber‘s unsuccessful alleged attack at Christmas time.  Frankly, I have been expecting it for some time now.  IT was the logical “next step”.  I was concerned about the invasive body scan equipment and even contemplated packing a cucumber in my pants just to give the scanners something to look at.  Fortunately, my airport wasn’t that invasive and the normal take your shoes off scan was sufficient.

However, this got me to thinking.  The feds have taken over airport security and are planning to take over health care.  The only thing that’s stopping them is the cost.  This gave me my idea.

Why not replace the body scanners with MRIs?  They can scan you for bombs (and any metal that you might be trying to hide) and give you a health scan all at the same time.

Who knows?  Maybe the next time you fly you’ll find out that you have gall stones that need to be treated.

Does it Take one to Know one?

Maybe it was a smart move for President Obama to nominate Erroll Southers to run the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA.  After all, the TSA is responsible for securing not only our airports but our ports and other forms of transportation (hence the “T” in “TSA”).  He has had experience in law enforcement and has experience with Homeland Security.

The current hubbub about his having misappropriated federal computer systems to check up on his ex-wife’s new boyfriend and then lying about it to Congress may be a bit overblown.  Let’s ignore for one moment that what he did might not just be wrong but possibly illegal.

Why do I say his nomination may not be such a bad thing?  Easy.  What would be his responsibility?  Catching terrorists.  What do terrorists do?  They circumvent laws and procedures to accomplish their own, possibly nefarious, agendas.  He possibly stomped on the poor guy’s civil rights with his background check.

I’m not calling Southers a terrorist and I’m not even trying to imply that he might be one, so don’t read too much into this.  I’m just drawing a parallel between his actions and terrorists’ actions.  If he knows how to sneak around and do dastardly, possibly illegal, things like they do, should he not be able to out think them and maybe stop them?  The USA Network has a show about this called “White Collar” where the FBI recruits a notorious forger to help catch bad guys.  This is the TSA trying to stop bad people.

Officials in the highest ranks of government often see the laws that they impose upon us as inconveniences to accomplishing their agendas.  Why let a silly thing like invasion of privacy, misappropriation of government resources, and lying to the Senate get in the way?  After all the ends do justify the means, right?

People, there is an agenda to push forward and your constitutional and civil rights are getting in the way!  This guy knows how to circumvent them.  He might just be the man for the job.

You can’t have you Plane and Fly it, too

Yesterday I had the pleasure (and I say that with all sincerity) of taking my first commercial flight in about three years.  I flew to what we often refer to as the “Left Coast” to California and plan to stay for a few weeks.  Some call California “Granola Land” because whatever is not fruits or nuts is flakes, but that, like all stereotypes is inaccurate.  True, in the ’60s, the days of MacArthur Park and the hippie movement it seemed like the label fit.  However, I have found the people here to be as honest, courteous, and friendly as anywhere else where the traveler is not acting like the “Ugly American”.  Bravo, California!  I hope you realize that you cannot tax yourselves out of your current budget problems.

The reason I write this, however, is to reflect on my journey out here which, of course, was primarily spent in airports and on planes.

I am quite impressed at how the TSA tries to make passage through security efficient.  Yes, we had to take off our shoes and separate notebook computers from their bags and all that.  I was concerned, however, at how airport security is completely reactive to past events.  There is a government regulation that requires us to pass through metal detectors because formerly hijackers tried to take on guns and knives.  Government regulations require us to take off our shoes because someone tried to smuggle a bomb in his (and according to the news article, he may not be done yet, but I digress).  We have a government regulation that says we can’t bring liquids with us because some bad people took harmful ones on their plane (and so can you – if you don’t mind risking arrest).  There are even sniffer machines to try to detect explosives, however, in the airport from which I left nobody was asked to pass through it.  I don’t know if it is not fully installed or if they only sniff people randomly.  I didn’t ask; I did not want to draw any attention to myself.  Apparently there is no government regulation for that.  Yet.

Even though there is nothing in airport security that is proactive (we’re always one step or two behind the terrorists), I was grateful that there were no strip searches.  I thought that surely since that terrorist had taken a butt bomb past Saudi security, we’d have a new government regulation where we would have to prove that we weren’t packing any C-4 where the “sun don’t shine”.  Maybe that’s coming but since the invasive see-through x-ray systems couldn’t detect that, perhaps we’ll just have to settle for overly friendly dogs checking us out or something.

Irony did not stop at the gate.  Have you noticed that the FAA requires a safety briefing that includes how to buckle a seat belt before the plane takes off?  You are required to buckle your belt before the plane starts moving but did you notice that the briefing on how to buckle the belt is given after the plane has pulled away from the gate?  I propose the instructions be changed to read something like, “Before we left the gate, you were required to buckle your seat belt.  This is how you did it …” This, of course, begs the question: Does anyone not know how to buckle a seat belt?  This, too, shows how government regulation is always in “catch up” mode.  Some planes crashed in the long-ago past with people not buckled in so now we have yet another probably outdated government regulation.  True, many would not be familiar with where the exits are or how to use a life vest so I’m not down on all safety briefings and the seat belt shtick doesn’t take all that much time.  I just find it interesting and indicative of the times in which we live.

So much of this is silliness in the guise of safety and security.  Nobody in government wants his or her name to be attached to the act that repeals something and then have the event happen again.  That would be politically sub-optimal.  Therefore, we live with regulation on top of regulation.  There’s no wonder that we have in this country 100,000 laws to enforce 10 Commandments (well, actually only about 5 or 6 of them because many lawmakers don’t care much about the others).

It’s all About Control

If I want to control you how can I accomplish that?  If I have the authority I can outlaw or tax your current activity.  Harry Reed, the Majority Leader of the Senate has said that our system of taxes here in the United States is “voluntary”.  However, he does admit that if you don’t “voluntarily” pay your taxes, you will be subject to civil and criminal penalties. (Read that “confiscation and imprisonment.”)

I can require you to do something by force of law.  However, if I can tax something, I can make it so expensive that you seemingly choose to change your behavior.  Conversely, if I lower an item’s tax, you may be enticed to spend money on that thing or in that area.  Ask any former cigarette smoker who recently quit what affect increased taxes has done to his or her habit.  If I want to change your behavior, all I need to do is tax your current behavior to the point where you consciously or unconsciously change it to something I prefer. But it’s not always negative.  People are enticed to invest in the stock market and leave money there by giving lower tax rates to long term capital gains.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.  This is the sentiment expressed both by Daniel Webster and by former Supreme Court Justice John Marshall.  What do taxes do in today’s society?  If you want to reduce unemployment, simply reduce corporate taxes.  That will give companies the money to hire new people.  If you want consumers to spend more then lower personal income tax rates.  That gives people more money to spend or save.  Every time income tax rates are lowered, tax revenues increase and the economy improves.  Talk about a true stimulus!  So why does the government not reduce them and keep them reduced?  It’s because through the tax code, the government can perform its own form of social engineering.

Social Engineering is the name of the game and is a polite term for “control”.  If “the powers that be” can get you to change your behavior, step by step there is more control over your life.  A case in point is the airline industry.  Back in ancient times such as the 1970’s hijackers of planes in the US were commandeering planes to fly the hijackers to Cuba or some other foreign destination.  The result: install metal detectors to look for guns and have the airports hire security personnel.  After the attack on 9-11, private security at the airports was nationalized and put under federal control.  The reason ostensibly was to make security more uniform and get a “proper” level of training than the alleged “rent-a-cop” security people could provide.

Were the security people at the airports from where the planes were hijacked lax?  No, not at all.  The hijackers smuggled their box cutters and other weapons in through approved channels.  There was no rule that I know of against box cutters being brought in the way they did it.  Now, however, you can’t even bring a nail clipper on the plane.  When someone tried to blow up a plane by putting a bomb in his shoes, the knee-jerk over reaction is that now we all have to take our shoes off for inspection.  People who tried to mix nefarious liquids to take down a plane only resulted in our not being able to properly hydrate ourselves at 30,000 feet without having to buy water on the plane.  What’s going to happen now that someone smuggled a bomb in his butt?  I’ll forego the word play on “weapon of [m]ass destruction” but the result very well may be everyone having to board the plane naked after a strip search.  I’m taking a trip this week.  I suppose I’ll find out when I get to the airport.

Why does this happen?  It’s because the public demands safety without thinking through the consequences of those safety measures and the controls they impose.  The only way to increase public safety is for the public to give up some measure of control over its lives.  This loss of control actually means a loss of freedom and liberty.

There are all too many people who are willing to usurp freedom and liberty and exert control over the populace.  Many of them are elected officials and others are in the seats of power in the business world.

Benjamin Franklin has been paraphrased in many forms.  One is, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”  Where is our society going?