TSA Security Head Fired Over Long Lines

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

But Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same turd-coin.

I've come to believe that this isn't necessarily true. Sure they are both responsible for bone headed and poorly thought out decisions and policies, but the thing is that they tend to be partisan laced solutions. So a Democrat's bone headed policy will be more liberal like while a Republican's bone headed policy will be more conservative. It creates a weird pull in both partisan directions that gives the appearance of them being two heads to the same coin, but in reality they are just equally stupid in opposite directions.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

That is what I was implying. They both make equally useless decisions, both increase the size and scope of the government and are both beholden to lobbyists and special interests.

A brain dead sloth would be a better choice than your average Congressperson.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Let me expand on this point. It matters little what the party is. The Libertarian party could very well gain prominence and be one of the two major political parties, but as with all political parties, the larger it grows the more it is weighed down by special interests and a desire to homogenize its beliefs across as wide a demographic as possible. Eventually a Libertarian party would grow large enough and probably closely mimic the current Republican party (or some other miss-mash of varying conservative beliefs).

What we should really do, is stop worrying about government's size. The size of the government will always reflect the size of the country. With 50 states and 300 million people, the possibility of a small government is literally impossible. We should just get right with our government being large. Once we do that, we can focus instead on its efficiency.

See a small but inefficient government is still going to be a cluster# of uselessness. In fact it would probably be the most useless governing body possible since it would have little to no authority and the authority it DOES have is heavily weighed down by bureaucracy. In this sense, a big but efficient government should be the goal of our society. By directly worrying about efficiency instead of size, you get a government that works at all sizes, PLUS a consequence of shedding inefficiency is the shrinking of the government.

originally posted by: Parafitt

7am till 10:45pm for just being 'suspicious'.. yeah Im Australian. let more middle easterners in en masse. welcome.

tsa can grope my big fat.....

Yup.
Last time I fly to the USA I saw that.

Plane from Indonesia and one from China lasted. Were let through customs like it wasn’t even there.

My plane from the UK lands and its 3 hours of ques.......

How does that make any security sense?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I disagree that a big government is a necessary objective or goal. It should be as small an efficient as humanly possible and scaled as population grows or declines. This will sadly never happen.

a reply to: crazyewok

They probably saw your ATS posts.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Well that's what I'm getting at, a direct result of efficiency is a shrinking of government. However by setting the objective for government to be "small government" instead of "efficient government" then you are misapplying your priorities. You could have the most efficient government possible and because of our desire for smaller government instead of desiring efficient government, some yahoo politician backed by misinformed constituents will try to screw everything up by "shrinking" the government and possibly destroying that efficiency.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Well that's what I'm getting at, a direct result of efficiency is a shrinking of government.

The issue though is when we create these superfluous agencies who by their very nature cannot be efficient and should be eliminated. This is the 'shrinking of government' I am referring and advocating. I cannot envision a multiverse where the TSA is any more useful or efficient than the proverbial screen door on a submarine.

I recommend if your going to travel by air.

FBO.

Totally different ball game.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Quantum12

I'm trying to go out to Wisconsin this summer and I told my buddy that I'd rather rent a car and drive out there than fly and deal with all the bull# that goes along with it these days. So we will be doing just that. It's only a 12 hour drive.

12 hours is right in that borderline range where flying or driving are pretty much equal. I just got back from a trip to Arizona. Long lines in both directions, security gropings, PITA travel, cramped seats, forced to check my bags at the gate because the planes had no room, and all the rest. Despite all of that, flying is still the fastest way to travel once you go beyond about 400 miles.

Ask yourself this: Would you rather stand in line for 4 hours and sit on an airplane for 5 hours to make your round trip or would you rather sit in a car for 24 hours? For me the answer is clear, I'll take 9 hours of discomfort over 24 every time.

That said, i still greatly dislike the TSA, it's #1 on my list of government agencies that either needs a serious overhaul or completely eliminated.

originally posted by: xuenchen
Nothing said about *WHY* the long lines appeared?

Internal petty jealousies?

Funding cuts and priority diversions?

Because the TSA is trying to make a cash grab and "encourage" people to pay the fee for TSA Pre. It's what happens when government is run like a business, price tiers begin to improve and ways of encouraging people to pay more begin to appear.

originally posted by: TommyD1966
p.s. It also doesn't help that to TRY to speed things up, PreCheck is sometimes randomly given -- which actually makes it worse because people who aren't used to it still try to take off shoes, laptops and liquids out, etc. Royal pain.

If you can randomly give Pre Check with no security concerns, then you can give it to everyone with no security concerns. Which means the extra time wasting measures most of us go through are a waste.

Remember when pre 9/11 we could head to the boarding gate of a plane with an entire family, everyone and their family going through the security screeners, and the lines were only a couple minutes long?

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Well when you strive for efficiency, then those government agencies don't get created in the first place. Clearly creating an agency that cannot be inefficient is a contradiction to the idea of an efficient government. So the government doesn't need to be shrank at all in this case since the agency wouldn't exist to defund and shrink the government.

There whole recruitment policy seems to be set up for failure too.

Just seems to be a case of getting the fattest , ugliest , non intelligent, bare literate person off the street with a chip on there shoulder and give them power.....

Most TSA agents i have dealt with have been little more than apes with the communication skills barely beyond grunting.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Well when you strive for efficiency, then those government agencies don't get created in the first place. Clearly creating an agency that cannot be inefficient is a contradiction to the idea of an efficient government. So the government doesn't need to be shrank at all in this case since the agency wouldn't exist to defund and shrink the government.

The issue is that these agencies do exist in the present and therefore the government needs to be reduced in size.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Well when you strive for efficiency, then those government agencies don't get created in the first place. Clearly creating an agency that cannot be inefficient is a contradiction to the idea of an efficient government. So the government doesn't need to be shrank at all in this case since the agency wouldn't exist to defund and shrink the government.

The issue is that these agencies do exist in the present and therefore the government needs to be reduced in size.

Well in that we are in agreement. I'm just trying to be a bit philosophical with my reasoning. That's all.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I understand, in practice (if we actually practiced anything efficient in government) your point would work as a preventative. We are sadly past that point and need a remedy, not a preventative.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Yeah and what makes matters worse is that there isn't a private option available right now to replace it. The TSA saw to the eradication of that industry... Thus the go to solution that government will choose (because they always choose this route when they privatize government agencies) is a pseudo-private entity that receives funds from the government as well while letting the government run it. This ALWAYS results in rampant corruption, complacency, oh and just as much inefficiency as before. The whole situation is just one big cluster#...

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I could have sworn that when I was in SFO a few weeks ago they had private security doing screenings.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Did they? That's news to me. You should look it up and confirm.