I guess they aren't used to people who actually support what the government is doing to protect us? I get security isn't perfect, and I acknowledge that.

The narcissistic attitudes are alarming at best.

Not sure where I expressed shock, or expected everyone to hold the same opinion. However I ask because you express a very strongly emotional affinity to the DHS/TSA corporate line, with poorly constructed arguments and ad hominem responses towards those with counter-arguments.

entitled you keep using that word...I don't think it means what you think it means. Unless you can specify what it is that you believe we feel entitled to.:confused:

You understand that in and of itself, this neither proves nor disproves anything regarding specific TSA procedures and policies.

Is this what they're teaching these days in the DHS "TSA 101" classes the taxpayers are funding at a few colleges?

What on earth are you talking about?

Talk about a tried and true tactic of demeaning everyone and everything that might not agree with you.

The lack of bodies floating in the Atlantic is all the evidence I need to believe the system is working as it should. I'm assuming you believe in a watered down system - one in which would make it easier for terrorists to carry out their deeds? I don't fear flying, I do it every week for goodness sake. I do find those who's wish in life is to dismantle TSA and move back to a private system misguided. We recently read about the low paid contract employees in MSP providing poor service to disabled passengers. I don't wish a return to low paid, poorly trained contract security.

Do I think some stations I've flown through are overstaffed? Hell yes. That may be a easier battle to win, but dismantling TSA and calling for them all to go to prison? Overkill....

You profess to not know what I'm talking about but then you proceed to twist my words and condemn something you profess to be clueless about.

Wow. :D

I wasn't aware it was a prerequisite to don a tin foil hat before posting on this board.

Educated employees are now a problem? May as well ax college tuition for members of the military while we're at it, since the taxpayers are paying for it.

I think you just have to be old with your balls at knee level....and resistant to change....and maybe white? OK white could be a stretch, but the first two seem a given.

Now you understand.

There are NO binary liquid explosives, nor are there liquid explosives that can be synthesized airside without laboratory conditions and/or components detectable with ETP/ETD.

Your specious reasoning is exemplary.

Wrong. The loss of freedom and civil liberties due to the knee-jerk reactions of some scumbags in the US government is far worse.

You own that statement now. I hope you wear it proudly. Maybe change your name to "collateraldeathsaregreatinmybook".

I shall reiterate:

The loss of freedom and civil liberties due to the knee-jerk reactions of some scumbags in the US government is far worse.

Those US government scumbags should be incarcerated for life.

You don't want small government. You just want power.

Yes, I'm old if you consider ~60 old.

I am also white, as if that matters, which it doesn't, but you seem to think it might.

I was once like you. In fact, I was once very much like you and not that long ago. I have learned a few things since then.

There are some things more valuable than life itself. I put the preservation of liberty near the top of that list. I am not talking about military service, but that may be a part of it. I am talking about an informed citizen willing to stand in the breach to protect and preserve the liberties that were bought with a significant and high price.

This weekend is a good one to be reminded of that. I will never be like those that pledged their "Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." I would only hope that I could partially emulate their courage and wisdom.

What has this got to do with anything? Everything. Allow me to explain.

A life of liberty is a life of risk. Liberty involves the ability to place ones fortune on the line to earn a higher return. But, it necessarily risks that fortune. It may involve taking a risk with ones life, but being free to do so is part and parcel of the liberty to pursue those things in life that one wishes to enjoy, even those that involve risk. What about my risk to my sacred honor? That one is the hardest as it presumes an honor endowed by a Creator, thus the sacredness of it. It is an honor recognized by God as acting in a manner that reflects the name and nature of God. Our founders thought our liberty to be endowed by that Creator, standing and risking my honor, my life and my fortune in the preservation of liberty was thought to be acting in the manner of God Himself. That is why I honor liberty.

If liberty is a life of risk, security, particularly absolute security, requires a payment of liberty. That is a payment that I am unwilling to freely make, although it has become a requirement of modern living. Absolute security is only bought through the surrender of liberty to a tyrannical authority. That authority promises security, but they can only deliver an image, a deception, that security is absolute. By the time it is realized that it is an illusion, the loss of liberty has been completed. It is incredibly difficult to purchase it back.

A life of liberty is a life of risk. A life of absolute security is a surrender of risk and liberty to authoritarian control.

Airport security is a microcosm of that surrender. There is little or no liberty at the check point, at least not the type of personal liberty that was envisioned at our founding. The 1st and 4th amendment are openly abused and those liberties surrendered in the name of your precious security.

Although few if any advocate for it, if I am given the absurd choice of "anything for security" or the total lack of security, I will choose the latter knowing that I have been given the liberty to enter into a contract with a private company to move my sorry butt great distances and fantastic speeds without intervention, prevention or circumvention by a government acting outside its enumerated powers. Will I be more unsafe? Probably, but that is a risk I will take. If you do not wish to do so, contract with another carrier that provides you the opportunity to surrender your liberty for payment in security.

I will support your right to enter into that contract. All I ask is that you support my desire to not have to enter into that agreement. As it is, we all must surrender and give up the liberty to move great distances very quickly with the limited freedom we desire.

Let me reiterate, your flawed narcissism makes you a disgusting human being. To demean the lives of 3,000 people who, if, polled, probably wish security had been a little more involved takes a sewer level of thinking. I value their families far more than I'd ever value your issues. Your thinking needs serious professional help.

Let me make something VERY clear. You have no idea who you may be talking to online.