Originally Posted by InkUnderNails

I see the Jr. TSA badges as the rough equivalent of the little fake police badges, the stick on firefighter patches and even the plastic wings that the airlines sometimes give out. The purpose of these is to not to indoctrinate as much as to ingratiate.

The difference, using just the examples above, is that I have tremendous respect for LEO's that take on dangerous and necessary duties, the firefighters that willingly risk their life and limb to save people and property from a raging inferno and even the pilots that spend years of their life in becoming a professional that must be able to make rapid fire decisions in their main task of protecting the safety of their passengers and their crew. They are welcome to ingratiate themselves to my children as they are in profession that commands my respect and awe.

I would be proud for my children to join them and to desire to become a person that exhibits the qualities of professionalism and protection of those in their charge as exemplified by the three examples given. There are many others, too many to begin naming as I would certainly miss a worthy addition.

However, I believe that our children should also be taught that there are those whose jobs have an appearance of importance that is much greater than their true value. I also believe that we are at great risk of losing the liberty that was bought with no small amount of blood and treasure. That loss of liberty is the result of an ever-encroaching soft tyranny that evidenced by not just the TSA, but by an almost enumerable alphabet soup of government agencies and departments.

The acceptance of the sticker badges is in a way an acceptance of the inevitability of the loss of liberty. It is nothing against the individual TSO's except that in a perfect world they would realize that they are complicit in our loss of liberty but they do not.

I reject the methodology and the infringement of liberty that is represented by the TSA. The front line people that work for the TSA are for the most part oblivious to their part in the destruction of our liberties, and I generally do not hold them personally responsible, just accomplices. Their loyalty has been bought with a promise of their importance, a crisp blue uniform and a shiny fake badge.

My children are older now, but I still work to teach them that our liberties can be stolen in a moment of time. It will occur as a act of government benevolence, one in which they give us security, either financially or perceived safety, for which the ultimate payment is our freedom.

If they were still small, I would tell them that the little sticker is cute, but the price for wanting to join the people that work to deny our liberties is much too great. They probably would not understand, and I probably would not expect them to. At some point they would.