Originally Posted by
adampenrith
Sharing my personal experiences of terrorism come at a cost to me, I will not share if you are going to be unmoved.
If you are open to understanding why Isreal protects its citizens and infrastructure, I would be prepared to share.
Personally if that is your attitude, I am happy for you not to experience the wonders of Isreal, and I sincerley hope your desire for a lack of security does not end up in a tragic experience for you somewhere on your travels
You had me up till your last sentence.
None of us on FT, except a lunatic fringe, desires a "lack of security." Rather, we disagree with the methods and rationales being used in the name of security by TSA. We believe that the current methodology does not actually provide real security, but that it does have a severe negative impact on the cherished rights and freedoms of all Americans and our foreign guests who transit our airports.
Perhaps you may think us foolish for believing that individual rights and personal liberties are more important than mere physical safety - or, in this case, an illusion of physical safety. But those rights and freedoms are the bedrock upon which the United States was founded. Much like the deep, unshakable, absolutely inviolate belief in Israel's right to exist, America's founders had a deep, unshakable, absolutely inviolate belief that personal freedom is more important than physical safety, and that government should always be completely subservient to the will of the people, not the other way around. They believed in this so strongly that they went to war against the most powerful empire on earth and fought for eight years to win the right to create a new form of government whose sole purpose was to safeguard those rights and freedoms. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their souls to that task. And for the next two hundred years, Americans have shed blood and suffered in that same cause.
And TSA pisses on all of that sacrifice every time they peep, grope, or interrogate someone as a prerequisite for merely
traveling from one place to another by air.
We do want security. But that security must never come at the expense of
who we are as a people. I would never expect a Jew to remove his yarmulke or refrain from his prayers to get on a plane; you shouldn't expect Americans to give up our 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendment rights to get on a plane. Those rights and freedoms are an elemental part of our souls; take them away, and you fundamentally change who we are, forever.