He says, "the metal detector selected you for this screening, not us." I replied, "the metal detector is an inanimate object; it is incapable of selecting anything."
I've had bad days, worse days, and really really bad days with the TSA. I've muttered a snooty comment twice (that I recall) since TSA's creation, but never did so with premeditation. When this happened, the clerk was doing something stupid that I knew he just made up. My emotions got the better of me.
It seems you are being intentionally snotty for the
fun of it. Belittling someone about silly semantics about the machine selecting or not selecting you (which that person had nothing to do with) seems rude and petty. Your argument is not more literal or more proper. It's just petty. This reminds me of a story where somebody yelled "you're fat and stupid" at a little girl that stuttered, causing her to cry and suffer long-term issues.
You aren't making a little girl cry. What you are most likely doing is making an adult clerk mad.
If he is better than you (think about that for a second), then he will shake it off and be a professional with everyone else. Many clerks will take out their frustration
with you on the next person. Did you stop to think that you are likely instigating and perpetuating the behaviors you are complaining about?
Just another day of traveling under the bootheel of the blue-gloved agents of "freedom."
I abhor TSA and their empire building, power grabbing, Constitution-ignoring, security theater. I despise that that they routinely harass people, routinely violate people's rights, and routinely fail to follow the rules (e.g., FOIA, public comments, radiation safety). I'm furious at the money they waste and how insiders get rich by selling junk solutions to their own fear-mongering. I don't have words that adequately describe my disgust at the POS and groping people when it's pretty clear that doing so is neither necessary nor effective. Don't even get me started on the deliberate sexual harassment and blatant cover-up/protection of the offenders/overt actions to shield the clerks and supervisors from prosecution that happened in DEN.
I
politely stand up for my rights at checkpoints with facts and sound logic. I do what I can to try and influence the people at higher levels of TSA that actually make the decisions as well as Congress and the public at large. If everyone focus on doing the right things the right way, we would be much better off.
So, please tell me. How is belittling a clerk going to improve anything? Do you even care that
your behavior may be the cause of that clerk being more abusive to someone else?
Originally Posted by
WillCAD
Seems like a lot of FTers who don't frequent the TS&S forum don't really get the whole anti-TSA attitude.
Well, I do frequent the TS&S forum, so let me explain it to you: OP acted like a jerk.
I don't know why, but acting like a jerk when confronted with mindless government drones makes some people feel good. Kinda like torturing bugs, I guess. I imagine that, if confronted by the other type of TSO one often encounters, i.e. the overbearing power-tripping bully, such jerks usually fold like a road map.
I despise TSA as an organization. But no matter how disgusted I am with TSA and any individual TSO, I like to keep one thought firmly in mind whenever I deal with them:
I am BETTER than they are.
But I am only better, I am only a superior person ethically and morally, when I act better than they act, which means I am never abusive, condescending, confrontational, or insulting. I treat TSOs with far more respect than they deserve, because to do any less would make me just like them.
And I despise them.
:-::-::-::-::-: