Thread: Reasonable Tyranny

04-27-2011

Larken Rose
More About: Transportation: Air Travel


Reasonable Tyranny

There are things called principles, that people ought to (but usually don't) stick to even when making an exception seems "necessary" and "reasonable." Usually people start complaining that those in power have "gone too far" long after the actual principle involved has been killed and buried. The current absurdity with the TSA is a fine example.

Once upon a time, those in power decided it was necessary and reasonable to have security personnel rummaging around in everyone's luggage. After all, what if someone had a bomb?!? Isn't it worth giving up that little bit of privacy and freedom, if it meant saving lives?

Oops, there goes a principle.

In short, no, it was not worth it, precisely because that was the moment when the principle died. After that, the slow slide into the ridiculous situation we have today--with everyone who rides a plane being groped or electronically strip-searched--was bound to occur, because there was no principle left to prevent it.

One of the main motivations for the writing of the Fourth Amendment was the knowledge that if you let "government" agents detain, interrogate and search people, "just in case," without any probable cause to think that the person had done anything wrong, then the door is wide open for unrestrained tyranny. After all, in principle, what is the difference between, "I have to look through your luggage, just in case," and "Let me frisk you just in case"? And what's the difference, in principle, between "Let me frisk you, just in case" and "Let me strip-search you, just in case"? And when they get to full body x-rays or cavity searches, what will the difference be, in principle?

Now we have "sobriety checkpoints," and "border checkpoints" (often many miles from any border), and the TSA fascism is beginning to spread from airports to train stations. There are more YouTube videos than can be counted showing that modern "law enforcers" think it's perfectly okay to detain, question and search people at random. They give occasional lip service to that pesky Fourth Amendment, but they obviously take offense that anyone would imagine himself to have the right to not be stopped, interrogated and searched for no reason. Hey, the thugs have badges; doesn't that make it okay?

No, it doesn't. But most people now are in no position to complain, because they not only allowed the principle to be killed; they cheered when it happened. "I'm perfectly happy to put up with a little inconvenience and a little less privacy, if it means being safer." In other words, they were perfectly happy to surrender the principles of liberty and privacy, if some control freak promised them that it was for their own good.

Well, they asked for it, and they got it. And now lots of them are saying, "Well we didn't want THIS!" They should have thought of that when the principle was on the line.

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Opinion/ ... ?From=News


Also

Click on the image below to see a video I just posted on YouTube, entitled "Hooray for the TSA!":



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWcTNGltAME



Kathyet

Whoops not sure if this is in the wrong message board or not..sorry..

Kathyet