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June 15, 2005
The sheep at the gate
The Volokh Conspiracy is covering Anne Applebaum who's covering Veronique de Rugy, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Veronique has correctly pointed out that the TSA and their Orwellian theatre of illegal searches has not made us any safer. Nice to know that others are capable of rational, objective analysis.
She doesn't even mention the fact that the searches are unconstitutional, or that the airports have become Kafkaesque Zones devoid of any constitutional protections. That, apparently, doesn't bother her. But, she is right that we are no safer, for all of their effort.
She calculates that "if 624 million passengers spend two hours each waiting in line, the aggregate opportunity cost incurred is roughly $32 billion per year." (Or 142,368 man-years squandered standing in line to be humiliated.) She approaches this from a financial angle, which is valid, though perhaps less alarming that when considered from the angle constitutional corrosion.
If it makes sense to disarm people when they fly, why not when they travel by rail? or by bus? Why not search people when they cross state lines? Are we just one terrorist bombing away from being searched when we go into a grocery store? A Wal-Mart? A church?
Searching and disarming a citizen does not make him safe. It makes him a serf. We will all still die one day. Nothing can change that. Stop frittering away our "inalienable" constitutional rights and demand the right to live and die as a free man.
Related post: 61st Anniversary of D-Day
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Posted by Peenie Wallie on June 15, 2005 at 12:55 PM
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