It is great that U.S. Senator Rand Paul quite publicly had a run in with the TSA airport passenger screeners. Everyone hearing or reading about that KNOWS that Rand posed no threat to fellow passengers, the airliner or anything else. Nobody thinks the world is a safer place if Rand Paul strips down to his birthday suit before entering or leaving an airliner. The TSA ministrations are completely and obviously useless in this case.
Of course they would be every bit as useless were I to be going through the checkpoint. And you. And millions of other people. So why do we do this?
The main value is to accustom the masses to unwarranted search and seizure. Millions of travelers have been conditioned to accept humiliating searches with no warrant and no cause, as the norm. The Constitution and Bill of Rights they were introduced to in 7th grade government-run schools are just as relevant to them today as geometry or diagramming sentences, which they also had to pass tests on back then. Protection from unwarranted searches is an old-fashioned idea. Modern people cope and accept.
Nevermind that not a single threat has been prevented by this complete loss of liberty. Nevermind that the totalitarian regimes the USA government is bombing into oblivion are no less totalitarian than the one strip searching USA Senators. The goal has been accomplished. The masses accept the unacceptable… and, most importantly, they never question the motivation.
The secondary objective is a cadre of people who accept their role as strip searchers. The drones who, as useless as tits on a boar, spend 40 hours a week in mind-numbing monotony with great peaks of joy when they confiscate a wayward set of fingernail clippers, oversized travel shampoo bottle or picture of a gun. Witnessing a genuine resistor to their illegal searches and seizures will bring out the TSA SWAT team who has been training for years for the moment they can draw weapons and threaten lethal force. The entire nation-wide TSA team will cherish and relive the memory of that moment for years.
Their fantasies will have them be a part of the next occurrence.
My fantasy is an end to this nonsense.
In my dream NOBODY goes through another TSA checkpoint. The cash flow stops. Unemployed airlines insist on unrestrained public air transportation. Potential passengers insist on freedom of movement. TSA’s cut of the ticket prices drops to zero until the beast is starved TO DEATH.
I’m doing my share. How about you?