Originally Posted by Pickles
This is the core of the argument that ultimately gives us inanities like the TSA. This is the "tragedy of the commons" in a giant scale. Because your life is worth a lot to you you demand safeguards that end up being welfare-destroying. Your life (and mine) isn't really worth much (nobody's is, even if GWB were to die while in office, the world would keep on turning). Everybody, in the grand scale, is expendable, and as long as this separation between private worth and public worth of the value of a human life continues, we'll end up spending more money than we should in things like the TSA and keeping Schiavos alive.
Pickles- I understand the point you are trying to make- and I don't think you are 100% wrong. However, I think there are a couple flaws inherent in your arguement.
First of all, to say that we aren't really worth much and everyone is expendable is gross denigration of our existence and a sweeping dismissal of our potential as humans- it reduces us to "ant colony" status. And in as much as I know some would jump on that and try to argue the validity of that correlation- its simply not so.
However- I believe this where our opinions start to converge. We, as Americans, live in a twisted society where we allow our political leaders, by virtue of their desire to attain power, to appeal to our basic and innate need to be self-important- and thereby bypass the efficient and optimal running of our country. TSA shouldn't have to be "inane"- we simply won't allow them to operate without their hands tied behind their backs.
Case in point: El Al. They are not trying to step on your rights- they're just making sure someone on your flight is not of the proclivity to to hasten his/her own departure from Earth here to check out the fabled 72 virgins- and forcibly invite you and 200 other guests along for the ride. You can thank them later.