The next time you think of flying, forget about bringing Grandma’s homemade jelly. Make sure that you remember to wear socks without holes in them because you can rest assured you will have to take your shoes off. Boys, forget the hair gel. Girls, good luck with makeup. Don’t even think about sleeping comfortably. If you’re cold, too bad! Blankets will have to be removed before landing. Have to go to the bathroom? You better make sure you go at least an hour before landing.
With the Christmas Day terrorist placing explosives in his underwear, maybe those will be banned too.
In light of an attempted terrorist attack on Christmas, the Transportation Security Administration has added even more useless regulations to flights. One such regulation was forbidding passengers from getting out of their seat within an hour of landing. Gosh, what a brilliant idea! That’ll sure stop ‘em! I mean, what terrorist would ever think of heading to the bathroom to detonate a bomb 61 minutes before landing?
To make matters worse, the public believes that these intrusions make you safer. Do not buy the hype. Gradually we have ceded more and more of our privacy in the name of security. We allowed Congress to pass the “Patriot Act”, granting our government the right to bypass constitutional boundaries. While we may not spend every waking moment thinking about terrorism, we still live in a constant state of fear. Whenever the word “terrorism” is mentioned, we thrust upon the government’s shoulders an impossible duty: stop terrorism.
Terrorism will never be stopped. It is impossible to stop a lone cell from making a homemade bomb and detonating it. Look no further than Richard Reid, an ordinary man by all accounts, who tried to detonate a bomb in his shoe shortly after 9/11. He later admitted he was a member of Al-Queda. Yet he breezed through security and was subdued by passengers…not a member of the TSA or DHS. The attempted underwear bombing this Christmas had a striking resemblance. It is impossible to win wars with the intentions of defeating an ideology rather than a nation. The government cannot be expected to know that John Doe down the street is really building a bomb out of everyday products like batteries and hair gel. It would be “easy” if we could bomb some military targets and end war. This is not as simple.
Instead of demanding that government do the impossible, we should accept some responsibility for our own safety. We should remain vigilant and report those who seem suspicious. As it is, our security officials are spending resources eyeing only the most dangerous potential terrorists such as James Robinson, one of the earliest additions to the Terror Watch List.
He’s eight.
Yes. You read that correctly, an eight year-old is on the terror watch list. Security officials are obviously too busy making sure the real troublemakers—children—do not smuggle aboard a Capri Sun.
Yes, we must remain vigilant and on the lookout, but we cannot afford to rely on bloated government agencies (The TSA exploded from 12 employees in 2002 to 60,000 in 2009—a staggering 500,000% increase) that have repeatedly shown how woefully inefficient they are. A determined terrorist will strike no matter what ridiculous federal regulations are put in place. Allowing fear to predominate our lives comes at far too high a price: the loss of freedom.
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