“The feudal system was one of hierarchy in which nobles, who were sovereign over the most valuable commodity of that time—land—ruled over peasants (serfs) who were tied permanently to the land.” – Feudalism at Encyclopedia.com
“Serfdom was the enforced labour of serfs on the fields of landowners, in return for protection and the right to work on their leased fields.” – Serfdom at Wikipedia
Serfs in the Middle Ages traded freedom for security. In return for protection by the landlord, a serf worked a parcel of land and was legally bound to the land. One can understand why serfs centuries ago made that trade—they were born into servitude and didn’t have a tradition of liberty as we do in the US. What’s difficult to understand is why today you can see many Americans making the same trade.
"If it’s in the interest of safety, it’s alright." - Air traveler the day before Thanksgiving.
Different Rules for Serfs and Their Rulers
“With respect to the TSA, let me, first of all, make a confession. I don't go through security checks to get on planes these days, so I haven't personally experienced some of the procedures that have been put in place by TSA.” - President Obama speaking at a NATO summit[1]
TSA procedures aren’t intended for our rulers—they’re a different class of people. At a NATO summit, President Obama acknowledged that he has not had to be virtually strip-searched or groped by TSA goons. But the President wants us to understand that it’s important that we be groped or virtually strip-searched in the “land of the free.” According to Obama, it’s for our own good.
Our rulers travel in style and would not allow themselves to be treated as serfs. When asked if she would submit to a pat-down, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (D) replied:
“Not if I could avoid it. No. I mean, who would?”[2]
John Boehner (R), soon-t0-be second in the line of succession to the Presidency, pretends to be a man of the people by flying commercial airlines, yet he bypasses security screens that we cannot.[3] The TSA identified other rulers exempt from airport screening:
“Cabinet secretaries, top congressional leaders and an exclusive group of senior U.S. officials are exempt from toughened new airport screening procedures when they fly commercially with government-approved federal security details.”[4]
Gropes and peeping under clothing at airports are for the little people. They’re for:
- 61-year old Thomas Sawyer, a retired special education teacher and bladder cancer survivor, who wears a urostomy bag, and was humiliated and covered in urine after his TSA pat down.[5]
- Cathy Bossi, a breast cancer survivor, forced to remove her prosthetic breast and show it to a TSA screener after the screener felt her prosthetic breast.[6]
- The little boy in this video, who is frisked by a TSA agent.
- Grand Rapids air traveler Ella Swift, reduced to tears when a TSA screener ran a hand up her crotch because she was wearing a skirt.[7]
- Business traveler Penny Moroney, who considered the patting of her genitals by a TSA screener to be a sexual assault.[8]
- A 23-year old woman from Amarillo, Texas who had her top pulled down by TSA agent to expose her breasts in 2008.[9]
- Menstruating women with suspicious material lining their panties (aka panty liners) necessitating additional groping.[10]
TSA screeners in the “land of the free” poke and prod Americans as if they were examining slaves at a slave auction.[11]
Why do “free” Americans let them?
Serfdom Not Security
“But at this point, TSA, in consultation with our counterterrorism experts, have indicated to me that the procedures that they've been putting in place are the only ones right now that they consider to be effective against the kind of threat that we saw in the Christmas Day bombing.” - President Obama[12]
Obama and his family won’t go through the sexual assaults or privacy invasions that you and your family must endure. Our constitutional law professor President tells us we must tolerate these invasions of our Fourth Amendment right to be secure in our persons while he jets off in Air Force One to yet another meeting of the G8 or a global warming conference, or the royal family takes a vacation trip to India.[13]
Pilots and flight attendants complained about being groped at airports and the TSA backed down. Yet even as the federal government makes exceptions, the TSA still assumes it can violate our Fourth Amendment rights with impunity. Why does that assumption go unchallenged?
Despite what the President wants us to think, being treated like slaves will not keep us safe. Acting like serfs brings serfdom, not security.
____________________________
[1] “Text of President Obama,” AP, (Accessed at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101120/ap_on_re_eu/eu_obama_summit_text_1 on Nov 21, 2010).
[2] “'I'd avoid them if I could': Hillary Clinton joins row over 'intimate' TSA airport pat-downs,” By Daily Mail Reporter, 22nd November 2010, (Accessed at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1331781/Hillary-Clinton-joins-intimate-TSA-pat-downs-row-Id-avoid-I-could.html on Nov 29, 2010).
[3] “No Security Pat-Downs for Boehner,” By Jeff Zelany, Nov 19, 2010, NY Times, (Accessed at http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/no-security-pat-downs-for-boehner/?partner=rss&emc=rss on Nov 24, 2010).
[4] “TSA: Some gov't officials to skip airport security,” By EILEEN SULLIVAN, AP News, Nov 23, 2010, (Accessed at http://apnews.myway.com/article/20101124/D9JM7I381.html on Nov 28, 2010).
[5] “TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine,” By Harriet Baskas, MSNBC.com, 11/20/2010, (Accessed at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news on Nov 21, 2010).
[6] “Cancer surviving flight attendant forced to remove prosthetic breast during pat-down,” By Molly Grantham, Nov 19, 2010, WBTV, (Accessed at http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13534628 on Nov 21, 2010).
[7] “Enhanced pat down leaves Grand Rapids airline passenger in tears,” by Phil Dawson and Christa Graban, 11/19/2010, Wzzm13.com, (Accessed at http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_story.aspx?storyid=140233&catid=14 on Nov 21, 2010).
[8] “Woman says her Lambert security screening was sexual assault,” kmov.com, Nov 18, 2010, (Accessed at http://www.kmov.com/news/mobile/Woman-says-her-Lambert-security-screening-was-sexual-assault--109114934.html on Nov 21, 2010).
[9] “Airport staff 'exposed woman's breasts, laughed',” The Australian, November 18, 2010, (Accessed at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/news/airport-staff-exposed-womans-breasts-laughed/story-e6frg8ro-1225955345734 on Nov 21, 2010).
[10] “Sanitary Towel Prompts TSA To Grope Sexual Assault Victim,” Steve Watson, Prisonplanet.com, Nov 25th, 2010, (Accessed at http://www.prisonplanet.com/sanitary-towel-prompts-tsa-to-grope-sexual-assault-victim.html on Nov 28, 2010).
[11] This gives more testimony to Jeffrey Rogers Hummel’s thesis in Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men.
[12] Text Of President Obama, Ibid.
[13] “Bomb-proof tunnel with air conditioning: Obama's security go to extraordinary measures for his tour of the Gandhi museum,” Daily Mail, Nov 6, 2010, (Accessed at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326962/Obamas-India-visit-security-erect-bomb-proof-tunnel-Gandhi-museum.html on Nov 21, 2010).
What? The Obamas weren’t vacationing in India? Was the President helping outsource more jobs there instead?
Posts
9 comments:
I'm afraid it's not as black-or-white as your argument(s) might suggest. To say, for instance, that President Obama "wants us to understand that it’s important that we be groped or virtually strip-searched in the 'land of the free'" is a bit disingenuous, if also hip (pun intended). A more realistic take on the matter is that the President thinks it important to screen airline passengers--i.e. potential terrorists--for concealed explosives, biological or chemical weapons, etc.
Moreover, to say that "TSA procedures aren’t intended for our rulers" or that "Our rulers travel in style..." is to state the obvious: people with power, wealth, privilege, or even physical beauty are not treated like "the little people" who lack the means, the influence, or favorable physical attributes. As President Kennedy--he, himself, of great power, wealth, privilege, and, some would say, physical beauty--once said, "Life isn't fair."
At first, I was quite sympathetic--even empathetic--with those who complained about TSA screenings ["Doublethink (Part 6)"]. But after hearing the constant whine of air travelers and civil libertarians for the past four weeks, I find myself on the side of the airport screeners who have borne the brunt of the public brouhaha.
I assume that airport screeners are, for the most part, decent, ordinary people without privilege. (Some of them probably can't even afford the luxury of air travel.) I further assume that they are among the hard-working "little people" just trying to do their job, just trying to make a living in a ridiculously unfair, absurd universe that inspired Voltaire to ask "Ah, best of worlds, where are you?" and Samuel Beckett to insist "We are all adrift."
Mr. V.,
You say you were at first sympathetic to air travelers and civil libertarians, but tired of their "constant whine."
Are citizens allowed only a limited period of time to complain about their violated 4th Amendment rights? Must they then shut up and put their heads between their legs because Mr. V. has heard enough?
Yes, they are "little" people, but there are lots of them. And if they realize that, life would not be any fairer, but they wouldn't have to bear the added burden of arrogant edicts by hypocrites who pretend to protect them.
I make no assumption about airport screeners being decent. Banal? Yes, history is filled with everyday people who are "just doing their job" or "just following orders." That's how the few who rule can keep so many "little" people down.
The universe might be absurd, but it doesn't need help from our fellow human beings.
Not exactly. Given my limited reserves of sympathy, I'd rather share it with airport screeners than with air travelers who take out their frustrations on them.
As for the whining, enough already! Get over it...or don't get on an airplane. Who said travel by air is an individual's right, anyway?
The Fourth Amendment question is, admittedly, more complex--i.e. whether or not a search is reasonable or warranted under certain circumstances. In this particular case, if there are human beings bent on blowing up airplanes, is it reasonable or warranted to screen airplane passengers?
Finally, whether or not "the little people" realize that they are legion is of no consequence--unless they are willing to take to the streets. If they did, I might even leave my ivory tower and join them. Who knows?
Travel is a most basic right. For proof, consider where it has been denied: Jews in Nazi-controlled European countries in the 1940s, Berliners stopped by the Berlin Wall, subjects of the Soviet Union denied emigration rights, Palestinians denied the right to freely move from their "camps", and prisoners in prisons. Now add American air travelers to that list. Because the federal government has arrogated the right to regulate it, doesn't change the true nature of that right any more than a thief stealing property changes the rightful owner of the possession.
Air travel isn't all that the TSA regulates: they're checking bags on the MBTA and people getting on Greyhound buses with "operation VIPER." Following your logic, the only right people will have is to stay in their homes until someone asks: "Who said being secure in a home is an individual's right anyway?"
As for now, Americans can travel if they submit to being inspected like farm animals by the TSA. What comes next, the TSA equivalent of a USDA seal of approval stamped on our carcasses?
Are there human beings bent on blowing up airplanes? And shopping centers for that matter? That's the subject of a future blog.
C'mon, JPP, don't misconscrew my words.
What I said was "travel by air" is not a right. I wasn't talking about freedom of movement. You conflate the two when you refer to people stopped at borders, walls, gates, etc.
If your new argument is that freedom of movement is a basic human right, then I am in agreement with you. 100%. As I have noted here and elsewhere, the Palestinians, for instance, are systematically denied this most basic human right (along with many other basic human rights) by the Israelis while the rest of the world barely notices.
But to return to the original subject...at risk of senile repetition, I repeat myself: getting on an airplane is not a right. It's a privilege. And privilege is not free: it carries a cost (in more ways than one).
Now, about my "logic" ultimately leading to home confinement--you wrong me with floccinaucinihilipilification.
Nonetheless, I sincerely look forward to your future blog on shopping centers.
C'mon, JPP, don't misconscrew my words.
What I said was "travel by air" is not a right. I wasn't talking about freedom of movement. You conflate the two when you refer to people stopped at borders, walls, gates, etc.
If your new argument is that freedom of movement is a basic human right, then I am in agreement with you. 100%. As I have noted here and elsewhere, the Palestinians, for instance, are systematically denied this most basic human right (along with many other basic human rights) by the Israelis while the rest of the world barely notices.
But to return to the original subject...at risk of senile repetition, I repeat myself: getting on an airplane is not a right. It's a privilege. And privilege is not free: it carries a cost (in more ways than one).
Now, about my "logic" ultimately leading to home confinement--you wrong me with floccinaucinihilipilification.
Nonetheless, I sincerely look forward to your future blog on shopping centers.
Mr. V.,
I don't believe I've changed my argument: if travelers pay for their air tickets, there is no assumption of a right to air travel. But uniformed goons at an airport gate frisking those travelers are limiting their freedom of movement.
The conflation occurred when you asked: "Who said travel by air is an individual's right, anyway?"
Travelers aren't complaining about their right to air travel. They don't have a right to air travel--they pay for their tickets. They're complaining about having their privacy violated and limitations on their freedom of movement.
Do travelers who've paid for the privilege of flying on an airplane have a right to be secure in their persons, just as they have a right to movement?
Do you deny that the TSA, operating at airport gates, or at bus depots, denies travelers both of those rights?
The only people who aren't paying for the privilege of air travel, for whom air travel is a right, are the politicians who travel at taxpayer expense.
By your words, you agree with me that "flying on an airplane" is a "privilege" and that travelers "don't have a right to air travel."
And I agree with you that "travelers who've paid for the privilege of flying on an airplane have a right to be secure in their persons...."
If we cut to the chase, then, we need to find a better way to protect that right to be secure, a way that obviates the crude--some would say, lewd--search of the privates of the public.
This will be hard. But not as hard as finding a way to liberate "the little people" from the ignorance of their true condition.
only 30 seconds, and i've already had far too much of mr. V's whining (and sophistry, and bootlicking).
Post a Comment