Originally Posted by
NonSmokingWindow
Firebug...thanks for doing your best to explain what should've happened and what might've happened.
I don't have a problem as long as all the passengers were treated equally. I can remember a time when we didn't need to worry too much about who was coming and going but times have changed. So, the people were elderly. Some have said, "how can you? They're elderly!" Well, tangentially...remember when the world didn't have suicide bombers...that changed. Then suicide bombers became a male purview...that changed. Then women joined the ranks...then youngsters. It's a dangerous world. The elderly are just as likely now to be "trouble" as anyone else. Now, I'm not suggesting that anyone on the ship was a suicide bomber. The point is, we all looked at the world and the people in it one way, but as time and circumstance have passed we've needed to change that world view.
And this is exactly the kind of mentality the TSA and DHS love. Your point would be valid if everyone in the world had an IQ of 80, but is otherwise laughable. These were not random people entering from different destinations. These were retirees from the UK traveling on a very expensive cruise. The odds of one of them being a member of a sleeper cell, secretly plotting a suicide attack on some target in the great LA area were about as great as a giant meteor striking the continental US at the very same moment. Continuing this charade that everyone must be treated as mad bomber is becoming tiresome. If you really believe this is true then how do you leave your house on any given day? Maybe the old lady next to you at the super market is a suicide bomber, or perhaps that baby in the stroller is packed with C4. After all, if anyone entering the US is a danger, even after already being screened at their departure point, then what about the 300 million people already here that were never screen. Oh, the horror.