I haven't flown since before 9-11 and steadfastly refuse too. As someone who used to be a travel agent and flew often and on a whim, I simply can't
condone the demeaning and degrading security tactics at the airport.
It is simply a public show to terrorize the public as illegal immigrants and drug smugglers have no problem at all penertraing our thousands and
thousands of miles of open borders and sea coast.
In my humble opinion it's the opposite of "we don't give in or negotiate with terrorists" doctrine, because clearly the whole Air Travel Industry has
changed as a result of terrorism.
The airports are simply the best place for the government to 'sell' the fear that the 'war on terror' is all about, getting Americans to be fearful of
one another, and every thing, and attempting to make them feel truly unsafe, by public acts designed to make them feel unsafe.
Hardened cockpit doors and air marshalls are more than enough to make sure flights aren't hijacked and certainly less expensive than the trillions
being spent on TSA Security that we really can't afford to begin with.
I can't imagine for the life of me why so many people have so little self respect for themselves that they would allow them selves to be treated this
way for some vague and foggy notion of the "Greater Good".
It is in reality the antithesis of everything being American once stood for, fear instead of bravery, absolute submission to government instead of
dissent and protest, giving up liberties and privacy simply for some illusion of security.
Life is a temporal and uncertain endeavor that can end with something as microscopic as a single cell germ invading your system, there is no way and
no how that the Government can protect us from every contingency, so giving up privacy, dignity, liberties and rights for some rediculous notion on
some level and in some way they can is absolutely absurd.
I will likely never get on an airplane again, I won't reward a business that is supposed to be providing me a service and convenience that is instead
providing me inconveinence and subjecting me to dehumanizing, and degrading and humiliating circumstances to use it.
This is why as Cheyney famously declared the War on Terror won't end in our lifetimes because we lost the war on terror the moment we started living,
thinking and acting differently because of the random astronomical odds that a terrorism event might occure.
We win the war on terror the minute we start acting like Americans again, and shrug it all off, and say "So what, what else you got?"
I hope people start boycotting the airports and airlines every darn day, until life resumes with some real dignity and pride again.
edit on 13/11/10 by ProtoplasmicTraveler because: spelling