I’m a dog lover. I’m one of those crazy people who believe there is no such thing as a bad dog, only a bad owner. As such, I have learned a lot from dogs over the years. They have somewhat complicated personalities. One dog’s personality may have some aspects in common with others, but as you encounter more dogs and spend more time with individual dogs you’ll find that, much like humans, there are no two alike.
One personality trait that appears from time to time is that of the escape artist. This kind of dog simply cannot be contained in a back yard and may very well drive its owner crazy with its attempts to be free. I owned one escape artist, a longhaired Dachshund named Shorty that had a very refined taste for escaping. He would get out almost every Friday night and would return Saturday morning. He did so for years before we figured out his method. Shorty had discovered that if he manipulated a vent just right, he could slip under our house and into the crawl space. From there he could push open a different vent and come out in the front yard, free from fences and free to roam the neighborhood. I owned another dog that was a digger. He would simply walk the fence line until he found a spot he liked and in a few minutes, he was free. We attempted to block his methods with every invention short of putting him on a chain, but he always won his freedom in the end.
One reason the escape artist cannot be contained in a back yard is that we simply can’t watch him 24 hours a day 7 days a week, but he is free to plot, test, and attempt escape continuously. He literally has nothing else to do that he finds more fascinating than plying his art. So what is the owner to do? Well, one response to this situation would be to invest in one of those “invisible” restraint systems where the dog wears a shock collar and every time he gets near the buried wire he gets a little zap on his neck. Another way would be to house train him and bring him in with the family. For some dog lovers, the answer may be as simple as frequent walks with the dog. The most extreme answer would be to get rid of the dog rather than risk him escaping and getting lost or getting hit by a car.
What has any of this to do with the TSA and travel safety? Well, everything, of course.
Taking the dog problem and thinking about it in a logical manner one could come up with any number of workable solutions. Knowing this is a problem for dog owners, several products and services are already available on the market from which the dog owner may choose. And if the dog owner can’t find a solution on the market at a price he’s willing to pay, there’s an incentive for the owner to take on the position of the entrepreneur and develop a solution. The same is the situation in the case of travel safety. By asking the market to solve the problem of dangerous travelers who would seek to harm the innocent, you unleash the unquenchable human spirit at its finest. There is not a single problem humankind can face that the genius of individual invention cannot solve. On the other hand, to trust the State, which has no individual invention, to solve the problem it has created in the first place is like going to your meth dealer to complain about your drug addiction!
How would the State deal with the dog problem? Judging from how they’re handling travel safety, they would attempt to stop and search every other animal that passed through the yard in hopes of finding doggie escape devices, or DEDs. Every time a bird tweeted to a bird in another tree the State would try to listen in just in case they were dog supporters. Squirrels would be stopped and the State would require them to explain all the nuts they were transporting! They would ask probing questions of the squirrel like, “Is this trip for business or pleasure?” and “Why are you transporting nuts across the yard’s border?” or “How many nuts do you have in foreign yards?” Perhaps the State would spend outrageous sums of money installing a special camera that could take pictures of moles in their tunnels and it could see under their fur because you never know what a mole is hiding under his fur. One thing the State would never do is single out dogs to be “profiled”. Oh, sure, canines would be demonized. We would be told how evil wolves are and how coyotes are trying to kill us because they hate our lifestyle. Vast sums of money would go to surveillance programs and when a neighbor’s dog would be spotted digging in its yard, the State would demand the neighbor turn in the beast to the CIA or face an invasion. Better yet, the State would simply kill the neighbor’s dog and anything near it in the middle of the night! It would be unfortunate if the neighbor was having a party at the time and others came under fire, but that’s what happens to people who harbor these evil beasts.
Ok, so you get my point. But what does this have to do with the TSA making things more dangerous? Everything, of course!
The terrorist, like the escape artist dog, has an unlimited budget when it comes to thinking, planning, testing, and recruiting. The target of his intended action is limitless in its weaknesses and limited in its defenses. Most people know the old saying “Locks keep honest people honest.” The moment we forget this saying and assume a lock can keep out a determined thief, we put our selves in jeopardy. Having a false sense of security is worse than having no security at all. And that is exactly what the TSA does. They embarrass, harass, and intimidate the innocent with the purpose of instilling a false sense of security so that people will continue traveling. Oh, sure, some of the TSA people actually believe they’re trying to catch bad guys, but that just makes these simpletons more dangerous.
Another more direct way the TSA makes travel more dangerous is the fact that the TSA is a tentacle of a government that has chosen to plant hundreds of thousands of troops in roughly a thousand military bases around the world, many of which are not welcome in the country they’re occupying. America has become the police force of the world using its troops and tax dollars to support every manner of despot. This makes every disgruntled misfit, every two-bit rebel, and every would-be warlord hate the American government or seek its bankroll or both.
So there are two simple ways to insure travel safety. Get the State’s big fat ugly nose out of private business and bring the troops home so they can actually defend us rather than provoke hate against us. Anything else is simply theatrics and is as effective as searching squirrel nuts to find dogs.
Ben Stone
2011
