Conservative Donnybrook

The war on terror is not global. It is local. It is familial. As I hope my previous post illustrated, the greatest threat to America is not Islamic jihad (which poses its own threat, no question), but the desire on the part of Americans to feel safe and the measures they will take to achieve that feeling. The real threat to America is from our government, from well-meaning people who believe that it is prudent to exchange their constitutional liberties for the sense of safety. It is our family, neighbors, and coworkers who say to us, “I just want to feel safe when I get onto a plane. If that means I have to submit to a search, then that’s fine with me.” In their reasonableness are the seeds of tyranny. The real casualty of terrorism is the loss of our liberties.

I wrote above that it is the sense of security that people desire. There is no evidence that ceding these liberties will ever lead to actual security. For the life of me, I cannot recall a single news story of any would-be terrorist who was thwarted from boarding a plane by airport screeners. Indeed, it appears that every terrorist who sought to board a plane with explosives seems to have been successful. But, if these measures do not actually thwart terrorism, then why would we simply relinquish our rights? Is the comforting notion that something is being done enough to compensate for the forfeiture of our American heritage and birthright? I suggest we should hold out for more if only because it would be inconsiderate to our forebears who spilled their blood to secure those liberties to us.

We have come a long way from the sentiment expressed by Patrick Henry when he said, “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” I know with certainty that persons like the one with whom I exchanged emails will say that my treasured liberties will lead to my death and that my “warped libertarian hypocrisy. . . would have us all killed. Thank GOD Bush was president. . . I’m sure your Constitution will come in handy when AQ takes over the world and beheads us all.” In Bushian terms, it seems, we must destroy our liberties in order to save them. After all, what good is freedom to a dead man, Patrick Henry notwithstanding? It is a shame if this is how it all ends. For a moment, it seemed like there was really something to this whole American experiment thing. But all good things come to an end and in answer to Abe’s question, it seems that a nation, conceived in liberty, cannot long endure if it is attacked by terrorists.

I spent a fair amount of time last night engaged in an increasingly heated email exchange with an acquaintance of mine. The exchange involved the recent hoo-ha surrounding the Transportation Safety Administration’s new security protocols, namely the nudie picture or sexual grope requirement for boarding a plane. It began when I pointed out that if these jokers had committed these sexual assaults anywhere but in an airport, they would be headed for prison. Exhibit A was this traveler’s experience in the San Diego Airport.

My acquaintance’s response was “Patriot Act saves lives. I support it fully. You’re with the ACLU. Congrats!” I wish I could say I was stunned, but I have had prior conversations with this person who claims he is conservative, but whose every instinct adds power to Washington and removes it from individuals. If ever there was a bigger statist, I couldn’t tell you who it was.

I pointed out that even pilots and stewardesses – those whose lives are directly at stake in the question of airport security most often – have organized a protest against the new procedures. No matter how forcefully I illustrated the evil that is being done by TSA agents, my interlocutor refused to budge maintaining that security was more important than any highfalutin constitutional right like the Fourth Amendment. He explained that as long as the Muslims got their share of the attention, he would be okay with “racial profiling and nude scans, cavity searches or whatever,” adding, “I’m for racial profiling. Period. I cannot be any clearer.”

At that point my argument got muscular. I wrote:

You encourage the molestation of minors in the name of security? If this becomes the norm, what is prohibited by the Fourth Amendment? Would flyers be subject to anal probes (which have FAR more relevance to discovering possible terrorism than gropes of crotches). Won’t you feel upset when some unknown guy with a TSA patch on his shoulder thrusts his hand between [your wife's] legs to determine whether the “anomaly” that was reported from her nude body scan was a Maxi-pad or something more sinister? What if it takes three or four tries to be sure? . . . . In defense of [your wife], I will object!

In response, he blocked my email, called me anti-Semitic (I suppose because he is Jewish and I was arguing with him and also, undoubtedly, because he has learned through experience that the easiest way to get someone to abandon an argument is to insinuate that it is anti-Semitic, whether it is or not), accused me of insulting him and his wife (by pointing out what the TSA agents will actually do to them) and suggested that I must be drunk and that he should call the cops on me.

It is tragic that the description of what the TSA agents are authorized to do is “sick shit” that demands intervention by “the authorities,” but the actual doing of those things by the agents is acceptable in the name of enhanced security. Apparently, defending one’s constitutional rights is the exclusive province of the drunkard. I feel bad for his wife that he would offer her up on the altar of national security to be groped by persons who achieved the level of high school diploma in order to land a sweet job at the Transportation Safety Administration. If she were married to someone with a real backbone, she would be protected from incursions like he would allow her to be subjected to. Moreover, I despair for the fact that he and his wife are young and will likely have children. I hate to think that his 13-year-old daughter, when the time comes, will be subjected to the fondles and gropings of those high school graduates who make up our first line of defense against Islamic terrorism. I would save him the embarrassment, humiliation, and fury that comes with the policy announced by TSA, but he can only respond with fury at my obtuseness, cut off my email address, and tell me that what I write is “sick shit” never pausing to think that what I write is EXACTLY what the TSA will be doing to his wife and daughters. I daresay it is not me who is sick, but those individuals who would defend the TSA’s actions.

I stand by my disgust.

Note to Reader(s): Some of you may have noticed that this is now a different version of the original post. The prior version was a blow-by-blow account of our discussion, directly quoting the email messages. Instead, I have provided a summary of what was written and few quotes.