Evil But Not Stupid

Faced with the likelihood of massive resistance to the outrageous and demeaning process of obtaining government permission to board a commercial airline flight, what is a tyrannical bureaucracy to do? Answer: simply remove (temporarily) the triggering source(s) of the resistance i.e. the porno scanners and sexual groping. Voila! It worked, and nary a single aircraft was brought down or hijacked by a terrorist.

On one of the busiest traveling days of the year there were no reports of disruptions at any of the airports caused by travelers "opting out" of being irradiated and thus "requiring" to be groped and fondled by the TSA gestapo perverts.

Gee. Do any of you gentle readers now understand that the major reasons for implementing the recent procedures were not really to improve "security" but only to create the illusion of increased safety while enriching special interests and encouraging us to surrender more of our liberties to the all powerful government?

As for this aging Spartan, he will resume domestic commercial flights when he is not denied his right of self defense against criminals and terrorists while hurtling through the troposphere in an aluminum tube.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!!

cross posted at: Eternity Road

From Pete Blome on the TSA

As this is not cited as an official Libertarian Party of Florida communication, I will take this as a personal transmission, albeit with a request for wide distribution. 
Consider it distributed.
All 22 quotes are attributed.
Are we going to sit for this?  If we are, then we're no longer citizens.  We're cattle, and the stun gun is right around the corner.  Mark my words.

(ed: In response to the question in the subject line below, our President has never seen a piece of the Constitution he's not willing to wipe his ass with... oh, and speaking of which, you will be happy to know that he's "making a list" of all who "resist" this new Neo-Nazi crap.  Assuming that report is accurate (and I have no reason to believe it is not) I stand proudly on it along with Ron Paul, Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz and millions of other red-blooded Americans who believe in the Constitution, The Rule of Law and our unalienable rights - rights given by our Creator.  Government may not grant that which it never possessed; rights and privileges are often confused as I noted yesterday on Blogtalk.   I, for one, will not go willingly into the gas-filled showers of the American version of Auschwitz.)

---

Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 16:48

Subject: Violations of the 4th Amendment

Or doesn't that matter anymore?

The following are 22 quotes about enhanced pat downs and TSA groping.  They are presented without commentary because they speak for themselves.  Please share these quotes as widely as possible.  If Americans do not wake up now, when will they ever wake up?….
#1 Blogger Erin Chase:
I stood there, an American citizen, a mom traveling with a baby with special needs formula, sexually assaulted by a government official. I began shaking and felt completely violated, abused and assaulted by the TSA agent. I shook for several hours, and woke up the next day shaking.
#2 ABC News producer Carolyn Durand:
“The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around.”
#3 Wendy James Gigliotti:
“She said ’spread your legs.’ And then she took her full palms and started at my neck and ran all the way down my body, full palms, constant contact. And when she got down to my feet, she was in constant contact from my ankles all the way up to my groin, across my groin, and down the other leg. And she did that twice.”
#4 Female air traveler Ella Swift:
“The female officer ran her hand up the inside of my leg to my groin and she did it so hard and so rough she lifted me off my heels.”
#5 Flight attendant Cathy Bossi:
“She put her full hand on my breast and said, ‘What is this?’.  And I said, ‘It’s my prosthesis because I’ve had breast cancer.’ And she said, ‘Well, you’ll need to show me that’.”
#6 Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano:
“I think we all understand the concerns Americans have. It’s something new. Most Americans are not used to a real law enforcement pat-down like that.”
#7 A 61-year-old bladder cancer survivor:
“One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.”
#8 An anonymous TSA worker:
“Molester, pervert, disgusting, an embarrassment, creep. These are all words I have heard today at work describing me. …These comments are painful and demoralizing.”
#9 Robert Colella:
If some total stranger walked up to you in the street and said “I am either going to see you naked or touch your genitals”, What would be the likelihood of that person walking away from that encounter?
#10 CNN employee Rosemary Fitzpatrick:
“As an experienced traveler for work who was in tears for most of the search process, I have never experienced a more traumatic and invasive travel event!”
#11 Meagan Quinn:
I will not board an airplane in America until the TSA body scanners are gone. No one is seeing my naked body unless I let them. I will also not settle for being GROPED in public as an alternative.
#12 A lawsuit filed on behalf of a female college student from Amarillo Texas:
“As the TSA agent was frisking plaintiff, the agent pulled the plaintiff’s blouse completely down, exposing plaintiffs’ breasts to everyone in the area.”
#13 Bruce Sargent:
The sexual humiliation of detainees at Abu Ghraib is not so very different then the sexual humiliation being heaped on American air travelers at airports. Why is TSA torturing us to protect us?
#14 A 37-year-old Texas woman who had her nipple ring removed with a pair of pliers before she was allowed to pass through security:
“My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way.”
#15 A soldier returning from Afghanistan:
“So we’re in line, going through one at a time. One of our soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the soldier that they’re going to confiscate his nail clippers.”
#16 A flight attendant named Megan:
The agent went up my right leg first and then met my vagina with full force….the same on the other leg with the same result. She then used both of her hands to feel my breasts and squeezing them. At this point I was in shock.
#17 Jay Glover:
I spend on average $30K per year on business travel. The airlines get the bulk of this but hotels, car rentals, meals and miscellaneous expenses add up as well. Where I can cut travel, I will. When those associated with airport travel feel the financial pinch just watch how fast this all will change.
#18 Paul Craig Roberts:
It is difficult to imagine New Yorkers being porno-screened and sexually groped on crowded subway platforms or showing up an hour or two in advance for clearance for a 15 minute subway ride, but once bureaucrats get the bit in their teeth they take absurdity to its logical conclusion.
#19 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when asked if she would like to go through the new pat-downs:
“Not if I could avoid it. No. I mean, who would?”
#20 TSA Administrator John Pistole during a Congressional hearing:
“If you are asking me, am I going to change my policies? No.”
#21 U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller to TSA chief John Pistole:
“I Think You’re Doing A Terrific Job.”
#22 Congressman Ron Paul:
I introduced legislation last week that is based on a very simple principle: federal agents should be subject to the same laws as ordinary citizens. If you would face criminal prosecution or a lawsuit for groping someone, exposing them to unwelcome radiation, causing them emotional distress, or violating indecency laws, then TSA agents should similarly face sanctions for their actions.

Via Karl Denninger

They Still Do not Get It

All members of Congress and Administration officials with a security detail are EXEMPT from the jail booking procedures forced on ordinary law abiding citizens who must fly commercial air lines.

In other words: the crooks are exempt from scrutiny while the rest of us must prove our innocence. Such irony!



ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!!

Boycott Commercial Air Travel!

It has been nearly a decade since Leonidas has refused to travel by commercial air. It happened one day in 2000 when an airline declined to allow him to board a flight from Eureka, California to Los Angeles while in possession of his legally permitted Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver.

He relented one time in 2007 at the entreaty of Mrs. Leonidas for a flight to Antigua in the Caribbean and was only prevented from decking a surly and arrogant Walmart reject TSA "officer" in San Juan, Puerto Rico by his better judgement.

Since that time "alternate" modes of travel have been chosen and it now appears the idea is gaining traction.

THIS IS A NATIONAL BOYCOTT CALL.  

Specifically:

• We will not consent to be sexually assaulted as a condition of getting on an airplane.  A virtual strip-search is no different than a physical strip-search, and a "grope" is a sexual assault.  Period.  Such a "Custody Search" is only permissible under US law when one has been arrested with probable cause to believe one has committed a crime and is being taken into custody.  We refuse to accept being treated as literal Federal Prisoners as a condition of boarding an aircraft.

• We assert that virtual strip-search machines do not in fact, and cannot in fact, detect things such as an explosive device inserted into the anus, which has already been done by a terrorist in an attempt to kill a Saudi Prince.  The so-called "purpose" claimed for such searches is thus in fact a lie.

• We understand that flying carries risk - including the risk of a terrorist attack.  But a terrorist can do just as much damage exploding a device in the security screening line, which of course, a scanner and intrusive grope will not prevent as they haven't been encountered yet.  Again, the claimed purpose of said procedures is a lie as any terrorist intending such an action can simply explode himself while standing in line.
  

• You are more than 100 times as likely to die in a car crash then from a terrorist attack on US soil.  About 42,000 people die annually in a car crash.  3,000 people died on 9/11, and a few in other terrorist attacks since (e.g. Ft. Hood.)  The odds are clear - under 4,000 people have been killed in terrorism attacks on US soil since 2000, while over 400,000 people have died in car accidents.  While terrorism is horrifying it does not rise to a risk that justifies abrogation of our Constitutional rights - especially when the proffered claims of "safety" against said attacks made by the government are in fact intentionally false and misleading.

• We assert that metal detectors are sufficient to detect weapons such as guns and knives. Armed pilots, marshals and even armed citizens with concealed weapons permits would and will stop armed assaults.  In point of fact, United Flight 93 was stopped on 9/11 without any weapons at all by the passengers once they determined the terrorists intended to use it as a bomb.  In short, other than by means of explosive, arming pilots, marshals and/or citizens is more than sufficient to prevent terrorism on board.  Further, claims that gunfire on board would cause "explosive decompression" are intentional lies - the average aircraft intentionally bleeds off massive amounts of air from the cabin to balance cabin air inducted from the turbine bleed as a routine part of pressurization for high-altitude flight.

• We further assert in defense of our position that no prohibited item was brought through security on 9/11.  In point of fact boxcutters were permitted items on board aircraft at that point.  There was no breach of airport security on that day.  No guns, no bombs, nothing but permitted items and determined individuals who were willing to both kill and die.  The reason 9/11 succeeded was not due to "lax security" by the airlines but rather because the government refused to act on reports of suspicious activities at flight schools in Florida and also refused to run down and remove persons in this country on expired Visas!  That is, 9/11 happened due to government incompetence, not due to airline security breaches - and that's a fact.

• We do not, and will not, consent to being under effective arrest just for setting foot inside an airport.  The position that the TSA takes that one cannot refuse screening and decide not to board - that is, you cannot determine what you are to be subjected to in advance and elect to give or not to give consent.  That is, once apprised of the nature of the screen to be performed you cannot then refuse and not fly.  This is an arrest when one has committed no crime.  It is our position that this procedure constitutes unlawful detainment and felony kidnapping.

  ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!!

 

Welcome to Zimbabwe

Hold the Champagne!

Well sports fans, on successive days just past both shoes have fallen: Yesterday the election of the 112th Congress and today the Federal Reserve meeting to "officially" announce the fresh creation from thin air, of at least $600 billion in brand new banknotes.

Make no mistake, the $600 billion is merely the down payment on what the cultural Marxists characterize as "quantitative easing 2". Since the federal leviathan and its agents produce no product and few services that we serfs are willing to purchase, the injection into the economy of these crisp new banknotes only serves to diminish the value of the so called cash we may already have or expect to accrue to our possession.

 The official word on inflation as announced by the government published Consumer Price Index is touted as <1% and anyone foolish enough to accept this garbage as fact is cordially invited to invest in a bridge over the Hudson river which Leonidas is willing to sell at a bargain price. "Since last July, margarine prices have risen 6 percent. Women's dresses are up 6 percent. Beer is up 6 percent. Milk prices have risen 6.5 percent. Candy is 13 percent more expensive. Butter is up 19 percent. Shoes are up a whopping 45 percent. All in just over four months!" For those of you with the time to spare (74min) Leonidas would invite you to view the video here for a somewhat depressing exposition of the present situation obtaining in these formerly "free" United States. Hat tip to my colleague Ol' Remus.

While the government (and most privately administered retirement plans) use the CPI to determine cost of living adjustments to geezers living on defined benefit pension plans, it must be noted that the items EXCLUDED from consideration are food and energy costs. These are precisely the items constituting the bulk of the geezers living expenses. For this reason, and for those willing to connect the dots leading to the Great Government Default, the second consecutive year that SSI recipients will receive no COLA adjustment can come as no surprise. The politicians and bureaucrats in charge realize that the otherwise criminal ponzi scheme is a major contributor to the current financial/economic death spiral. In other words, the dollar train wreck is already baked into the cake. No 65 seat turnover in the House of Representatives can apply the brakes sufficiently without committing political suicide.

In the words of Pat Buchanan the US is looking more and more like the Fourth Republic of France where each election cycle produced radical 180 degree shifts in policy. This situation does however have a few interesting bright spots: What is to become of Speaker Pelosi? Will she retain her current perks including the military commuter jet to shuttle her entourage between her California wine country estate and Sodom on the Potomac or will she "take her marbles and go home"? On the other hand, there are many of us who would assert that her marbles were lost some time ago.