Slashdot Mirror
TSA Facing Death By a Thousand Cuts
OverTheGeicoE writes "The Transportation Security Administration is getting a lot of negative attention, much of it from the U.S. government itself. A recent congressional report blasted the TSA for being incompetent and ineffective (PDF). A bill to force the TSA to reduce its screening of active duty U.S. military members and their families was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives. After a TSA employee was arrested for sexually assaulting a woman while in uniform, a bill has been introduced to prevent TSA agents from wearing police-style uniforms and badges or using the title 'officer.' The bill's sponsor calls these practices 'an insult to real cops.' The FBI is getting involved by changing its definition of rape in a way that might expose the TSA's 'enhanced pat-down' screeners to prosecution. Lastly, public support for the TSA's use of X-ray body scanners drops dramatically when people realize there is a cancer risk."
Now if only America wasn't tied down in the pit underneath it.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Must be an election year coming up, because the government's actually doing shit about stuff we've been complaining about for the past... two, three years?
The TSA is the only agency hated more that the IRS. Considering the head start the IRS had, that is an impressive achievement!
Hire Jerry Sandusky. He is highly motivated and known for his efficiency and thoroughness in body inspections....[ducks head]
Table-ized A.I.
'an insult to real cops.'
Perhaps, if they way cops keep handling these occupy movements are any indication, they don't need any help making themselves look bad.
That's about an order of magnitude too quick for my taste.
How many terrorist have they caught? The same amount as my pet rock. Comparing the 'terrorist caught/money spent' ratio of pet rocks vs. the entirety of the TSA, if I were a venture capitalist I'd be looking for the next bright mind to bring these geological vanguards to market. They'd do at least a good job as the TSA, cost less, and as an added bonus airports might be more enjoyable. And they don't infringe on civil liberties. And they don't pretend to effect powers they do not really have. And they will not unionize.
Motherfucking pet rocks are more efficient than the TSA.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
To argue for more authority and a bigger budget next year.
<plays the worlds tiniest violin>
The headline might as well read "Agency universally reviled as useless, degrading, expensive, criminal, nobody has the nerve to do more than nibble around its edges."
If what they've done so far has earned them only these relatively feeble stabs at powers they mostly just took during their time anyway(they didn't used to dress up in cop costumes or grope people on the record), exactly what would they have to do to earn a reorganization, or even a replacement? Execute a randomly chosen passenger once a shift, just to show the terrorists our resolve?
Yaaaaaaaaaaaay
After a TSA employee was arrested for sexually assaulting a woman while in uniform
You see, this is why I take my uniform off first. But they make a fuss about that too.
The problem is that it doesn't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Administration#Covert_security_tests.3B_gaming_and_failures
Can you show that the TSA has actually prevented that rather than just creating ridiculous rules after an incident happened?
Not enough cuts. Thousand cuts won't cut it, it needs millions of cuts. It needs everybody to step up and cut it.
YOU THERE! Yes, YOU. You have to cut TSA as well (cut an agent, get some bonus points in your next life).
MY OTHER COMMENTS
You sir (or madam) are the problem with our country. We *do not* trade our rights for the illusion of safety.
I misread that as "Death By A Thousand Cats".
Which would be a lot more fun to watch.
Also thought it was a Babylon 5 reference
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Wow. Explosives.
Soooooo........ where are the trials for the people trying to take explosives onto the planes?
You'd think there'd be all kinds of news reports about that, wouldn't you?
What they really need to do is cut them where it hurts--in their budget.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
The only way to stop the pendulum swing is for disparate America to start focusing on its commonalities and stop trying to control each others lives. The alternative is left- or right-fascism followed eventually and inevitably by bloody revolt.
federal agencies are often inept, but they refuse to die.
The TSA is a bureaucratic, money-sucking nightmare that entirely fails to live up to the promises of the politicians who created it. It is incompetently managed and its policies are inept, ineffective, capricious, opaque, invasive, disrespectful, and I would argue they are also fundamentally unconstitutional.
All that said, though, the question remains: if the TSA were to vanish overnight, what would take its place? What SHOULD take its place? These are not easy questions to answer--if they were, we'd be on that path by now, but instead the Kabuki dance that is this "security theater" gets more bizarre by the day. The reality is that certain fundamental questions of how best to address and ensure basic passenger safety without infringing on essential personal liberties remain unanswered, let alone the question of how to do it efficiently (both in terms of financial cost and human resources). Of course that is not to say no ideas have been proposed, but the point is that we've let the genie out of the bottle and we cannot go back to the way things were done before. The TSA may or may not have to be dismantled, but something must serve the function of providing basic safety. After all, our corporate overlords who pull the puppet strings of our politicians, can't seem to stop meddling with foreign countries, so it seems unlikely that the rest of the world will soon stop hating us.
I don't really understand why it takes an actual rape by someone employed by the TSA to make the judgement that they as an entire agency are out of line.
The guy didn't even rape the woman during company time, just with his uniform on. Why is that even relevant? Why don't we use what they are actually doing to people as the reason to take stabs at them, rather than what one sick guy did in his off time?
Federal Agencies never die, they just get re-spun with more responsibility so they can then complain for more funding when their current responsibilities are abandoned.
The examples given in this slashdot article are not cuts, they amount to normal civil-servant bashing and behavior. The only thing surprising is that the unionization of TSA workers isn't the most frightening thing imaginable.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
The bastards burglarized my luggage the first time I flew after the agency went live.
Fedex has gotten a lot of business ever since.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Not one of them should remain.
The TSA was a generally "good" idea... To provide safety for transportation, I thought, but it turns out that it is a typical example of what happens when the government takes control of something it shouldn't.
I truly thought this administration would do exactly the opposite of what it has been doing the last 3 years, and I regret to say that it's as bad, or arguably worse, than the proceeding administration. Make no mistake, the administration is acutely aware of the details of what is happening — It has been behind the scanners, pat downs, and other infringements of its own citizens. A grand marketing campaign, with little substance.
I am not taking sides, but pointing out the obvious, I guess.
...that zooming about in a metal box miles above the ground is an inherently unsafe thing to do?
It is never going to be 100% safe... never ever ever.
incompetent and ineffective, isnt that an oxymoron?
We *do not* trade our rights for the illusion of safety.
Homer Simpson: "I wouldn't have thought so either, but here we are."
The FBI is getting involved by changing its definition of rape in a way that might expose the TSA's 'enhanced pat-down' screeners to prosecution.
Stop the presses. When did enforcement agencies get to write laws? Are they just changing the in-house definition? So it'll be like "FBI internal policy says I have to arrest you, but you'll get off scott free because the law says something different"? This is not a good thing. It sets a precedent that things like "standing in a public area" could be made "illegal" per internal FBI mandate, allowing them to arrest you for literally anything over and over again, while never facing a jury. I'm all for ending the TSA feel-ups, but this is *not* the way to do it.
They'd go back to hiring private security guards like before.
No improvement, but at least they wouldn't have the power of government, and it would be possible to re-bid the contracts every few years to clean out the cobwebs.
...to 1970 when Richard Nixon launched the War against Liberty by dropping a nuclear bomb onto Freedom
How is it ineffective? If we do not screen everyone equally, then screening is useless. If we say that a baby here, or an old women there, or a military family is not to be screened based only on the fact that they are these people, we might as well blow up the planes ourselves. If I know babies are not searched, or old women, then that is where the explosives will be placed. And one cannot forget that an active military person has been known to be a terrorist, not to mention that such document can be forged. Security is zero.
If we are to have real security we have to train the TSA agents as police, not make them less authorize. They have to be able to profile based on actions, not race, age, or gender. As it is we are having the worst and most wasteful parts of the plan saved while reducing the practically nonexistent benefits to all but non existant.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
...that if the TSA were replaced by private security contractors, as all these Republicans would love to see, that not a one of them would have a problem with "police-style uniforms" that "insult real cops" or any other complaints people have?
Did you ever notice how the vast majority of these people never said a negative word about the TSA in their life until Obama became president? They don't care about issues of personal liberty. They care about getting people mad at any cost so they'll vote the Democrat out of office.
I just found the box to change my sig. Um.... [timeless witticism].
You people have no appreciation for the number of small children, pregnant mothers, and elderly veterans the TSA has saved this country from.
A bill to force the TSA to reduce its screening of active duty U.S. military members and their families was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives.
This is silly. Either you do screening, or you don't. Complete ineptness of the TSA aside for argument's sake, if you take the concept of operations for the TSA at its face they're not just looking for active and willing attackers, they're also looking for unwitting attackers. (That's why you screen Grandma in her wheelchair -- How does Grandma know nobody slipped an explosive onto her person or possessions somehow without her realizing it?)
If you're allowing military through, why not the 800,000 people with TS clearances? Or police? Or...? And how do you know that the person is a member of the military? And even if they are, it's not a foregone conclusion that they're automatically safe. (Nidal Malik Hasan? Hasan Akba?)
Screen everyone or screen no one. You're hard-pressed to make a rational risk argument if you're not doing that.
Fast track for active duty military?
Because they can't be terrorists?
What about Nidal Malik Hasan?
How many guns did the airport screeners catch in 2000? For whatever reason, references for comparison are not so easily found, but if you are advocating that this is an improvement, I want to see the evidence.
According to these statistics, crime rates are actually lower than a decade ago and have not been below this level since 1973. That's before the end of the Vietnam War.
I really doubt that Google will enable you to make a realistic comparisons because the TSA, as a unified reporting agency, did not exist in 2000. Screening equipment was in place, though, and it was protecting flights regardless. According to this article there was only one US-related hijacking from 1987-2000
So they're not tasering and pepper spraying enough helpless people? Havent shot any in the back lately either.. How dare they be called officers!
Blah blah blah.. good cops ect ect ect.. mod down.
There are no good cops. Or they'd be doing their FUCKING JOBS and removing the bad cops. Of which there seem to be plenty lately. Cops are nothing more than the largest gang in the country. Same tactics. Same types of people. But they have uniforms. And can get away with anything.
This kind of thing should never have been an issue in the first place.
Your government has successfully given "terrorists" a great victory, in dividing your country against itself.
Looking at the old definition of rape, it is quite outdated. It's a shame the change didn't come about on it's own or earlier.
If it weren't for the TSA, all the terrorists that they've apprehended in airport security lines over the past ten years would have gone on to commit who knows how many atrocious bombings, killing untold numbe wait.. what? Zero? Are you fucking kidding me?!
I'll take a pat on the bottom or pinch on the tip if it means that some drunk can't get in a car after a couple glasses of wine.
Never let it be said the TSA didn't try to over step its authority and become the New Gestapo!
*sigh* Yeah, like the country, its a work in progress.
I have a better alternative. There aren't that many commonalities left in America these days except for a common language (and not even that in many places), so instead of trying to "focus on commonalities", let's agree to go our separate ways and split the country up into some smaller, more manageably-sized units. This country is too large, and history has shown that large nations and empires never last that long, and end up breaking apart or collapsing due to infighting and corruption. Infighting and corruption are about all that's going on in our government these days, so it'd be better to amicably break up now before things get really bad and some people riding elephants invade.
that there's an election coming up is Congress is acting on the public's hatred of the TSA...
Good luck with that. The moment you propose such a thing the "true red-blooded patriots" come running.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
The Roman Empire lasted in some form until the fall of Constantinople. Also, "managably sized units" is not a good reason to split a nation--delegation and limited local governance is possible, and in fact is embodied in our systems of state and local government. Caesar noted that Management of the few was generally the same as management of the many, IIRC. You can have a million people in a city, they have some interests that will be different than those in the countryside, and you need a way to reconcile those interests into a common social contract when it is appropriate--failure to do that raises transaction costs and take value away from pretty much everyone.
In addition, small government *does not* protect against corruption. State governments are far more corrupt than the federal government.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Grandpa Simpson: "I never thought I could shoot down a German plane, but last year I proved myself wrong."
Also, "managably sized units" is not a good reason to split a nation--delegation and limited local governance is possible, and in fact is embodied in our systems of state and local government.
What we have here is a conflict between theory and practice. In theory, it shouldn't matter how large the government is, because you can break it up into smaller regional units that govern themselves to a large extent, and let the top level government only handle affairs that concern the entire nation as a whole. In practice, it doesn't work. The national government draws more and more power to itself over time, increasing its size and duties, until every single issue has to be decided on the national level instead of allowing different regions to do things differently. Then lots of infighting results because people from different regions with different local cultures can never agree on all the issues and constantly fight over them at every election, continuously changing the law back in forth as different groups gain a slight majority and have the ability to alter the law, and do this instead of focusing on new issues. Meanwhile, as "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", the greater concentration of power in the larger nation and its national government draws more corruption (since obviously, that corruption has higher potential profit; what good is it going to do for you to bribe some government official in Andorra, for instance?), and corruption increases exponentially.
In addition, small government *does not* protect against corruption. State governments are far more corrupt than the federal government.
Right, that's why corporate lobbyists spend so much time and money there trying to pass laws and get defense contracts. Try again. Smaller governments have less potential for corruption to be profitable for those who engage in it. As I said before, what good would it do you to bribe someone in Andorra's government? If you're some corporate lobbyist, not much, because there's not many people there and not much money flowing through it, compared to the USA.
The Roman Empire lasted in some form until the fall of Constantinople.
It's hard to say the Roman Empire "lasted" after the city of Rome was sacked. Yes, another smaller empire lasted for some time after the fall of Rome, but it wasn't the Roman Empire, it was an offshoot of it in a different region. That would be similar to the USA collapsing, and Alaska continuing to call itself "the USA" even though the rest of the nation either became smaller independent nations or were annexed by Mexico or Canada. Just like USA/Alaska, Constantinople wasn't even originally part of the Roman Empire, it was conquered later when they grew really large. AFAIC, you can't have something called "the Roman Empire" if it doesn't include the Italian peninsula and most especially the city of Rome. It reminds me of that little rebel Catholic Church organization that calls itself "the real Roman Catholic Church" even though no one else thinks they are.
While I agree with this in principle I can't support it. With 50 states we now have far too many voices for any to be heard above the roar, this country worked much better when there were 13 states and even then it took years to amend the constitution. With the 50 we now have it is impossible, so government has abandoned the amendment process and instituted bureaucratic decree. The existing states should band together in regional clusters and those clusters should be governed by the national government. I can't support that happening though because I would end up living in Jesusland.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
The "true red-blooded patriots" can think whatever they want, but all their willpower isn't going to overcome basic economics. If the economy collapses, no amount of patriotism or talk of "united we stand!" is going to make it better. Heck, we even have "red-blooded patriots" in many states doing things that are pretty close to outright rebellion against the nation and federal government: many states have passed laws forbidding themselves to follow the Real ID Act, Montana passed a law saying they can make machine guns if they want, stamped "Made in Montana", as long as they aren't sold out-of-state, plainly in direct opposition to BATFE policy, Arizona and the federal government are suing each other over immigration enforcement, etc. It seems like the "red-blooded" ones are the ones itching the most to cause division (not that I disagree with causing division; obviously with these and many other issues, Americans in many regions simply can't agree on anything, so I think it's better to simply break apart so that they don't have to agree).
"Anonymous Coward" was never more appropriate. Land of the brave, indeed.
Hmmm, either this is meant to be tongue in cheek, or you're so firmly planted up the TSA's ass that you can't make any original arguments, other than the debunked tripe that has been pasted here over and over.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
"Fuck the TSA."
...or something like that.
giggity
It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
Hubert H. Humphrey
TSA fails this test on every count.
This is a corrupt agency that has had sixty two of its screeners arrested this year, including ten for child sex crimes, four for smuggling drugs and one for murder.
An agency that is strip searching old ladies and denying that they did anything wrong.
An agency that has groped thousands of passengers, often abusively, simply because they can.
An agency that considers groping and traumatizing a 6 year old child appropriate procedure.
An agency that has harassed and abused Downs Syndrome passengers whene they are unable to follow their orders.
An agency that exposes passengers to scanners that they admit will cause 100 cancer deaths per year.
An agency that continues to use x-ray scanners banned by the EU because they are dangerous.
An agency that lied about the graphic nature of the images being taken of adults and children and only admitted they were nude photographs after they added privacy to software to some of the scanners.
that dresses their screeners in faux police uniforms to intimidate and mislead the public into believing that hey are law enforcement when in reality they are little more than mall cops.
An agency that fails over 70% of the GAO security trials.
An agency that allows 60% of cargo on passenger aircraft to go unchecked.
An agency that is flagrantly trampling the Constitution on a daily basis and trying to pass itself off as “protecting or freedom”.
An agency where 91% of its workforce has a High School education or less.
TSA and the sick people it employs are a national disgrace and the present abysmal state of airport security demands change. This agency too flawed to be reformed and must be replaced with something sensible that actually works.
The "true red-blooded patriots" can think whatever they want, but all their willpower isn't going to overcome basic economics. If the economy collapses, no amount of patriotism or talk of "united we stand!" is going to make it better. Heck, we even have "red-blooded patriots" in many states doing things that are pretty close to outright rebellion against the nation and federal government: many states have passed laws forbidding themselves to follow the Real ID Act, Montana passed a law saying they can make machine guns if they want, stamped "Made in Montana", as long as they aren't sold out-of-state, plainly in direct opposition to BATFE policy, Arizona and the federal government are suing each other over immigration enforcement, etc. It seems like the "red-blooded" ones are the ones itching the most to cause division (not that I disagree with causing division; obviously with these and many other issues, Americans in many regions simply can't agree on anything, so I think it's better to simply break apart so that they don't have to agree).
Or we could return to the Federal model the US is actually based on instead of this rule from Washington thing we're doing now. Return the States to their rightful place and make the national government small as it should be. Then people can move to the State that best reflects their view of the world. That is how things were supposed to be in the first place, no? :)
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
You have radiation emission records to back that up? They don't.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
Flying is statistically safer than driving. People like me are choosing to drive long distances because they do not want their children subjected to enhanced pat-downs (or is it pats-down?). Statistically, more people driving longer distances should cause more injuries and death due to traffic accidents. Any slashdotters have an estimate of the expected increase in fatalities, or perhaps an effect that might counter this increase? Either way, I wish they'd just respect the 4th amendment.
He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
Looks more like departmental in fighting. Thought Home Land Security was going to take care of all this when it was formed.
It's hard to say blah blah blah Rome fell blah vlah
And the Chinese? And Russia? You deal in too many extremes and are incapable of thinking outside your established viewpoint. This will be your downfall.
Ah yes, the Fallout model, I like it already.
The difference is that you can run for state office without a multi-million-dollar budget, so when corruption happens, it's much easier to get a wide selection of qualified and competent candidates to replace them.
Also, many states have a referendum process to make grassroots changes to their government. As a result of this, election laws are easily changed to fix the two-party problems that occur at the federal level. There's no good way to fix it at the federal level because the people who would have to vote to change it are the ones who benefit most from it. That alone is reason to suspect that having a much, much smaller and weaker federal government would be a significant win.
I'm not saying it's a panacea, and I'm not convinced that dismantling the entitlement portions of the federal government would be beneficial—it would probably be more expensive if each state were redundantly doing the same job—but dismantling the legislative part of the federal government would probably get us a lot closer to being in control of our own destiny as a nation once again.... Either that or we could try to convince all the state governments to call for a constitutional convention to fix things. Could happen, but not too likely.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The existing states should band together in regional clusters and those clusters should be governed by the national government.
Actually, I've thought this might be a good idea before too, though I'm not sure it wouldn't have the same problem we already have now (where the national government tries to entangle itself into everything and pass one-size-fits-all laws for everything rather than leaving the regional clusters more autonomous as you're obviously proposing).
If you don't like living in "Jesusland", then move out. That's one of the nice things about living in a place like the USA: if you don't like the people you're around, you're free to pack up and move to another state where you can get along better with people. I used to live in the South, and I didn't like it that much either. It's not like other parts of the world where movement is highly restricted, or it's hard to move from place to place because of borders. Though I think this has changed a lot in Europe in recent decades with the EU.
Anyway, currently I think it'd probably be better if the country simply split up into the regional clusters you talk about, but without any national government. They could, however, join an extremely limited confederation with free trade, though the shared currency thing is highly questionable given all the problems it's causing the EU lately.
As for the other poster's Fallout link, that's pretty close to what I envision, but with a few differences, namely that existing state borders would be changed or eliminated as most of them are artificial and have little to do with the people or geography:
1) It seems to me that most of the South (southeast) would be in one country, except for south Florida and maybe Virginia.
2) I think southern Arizona and southern California and part of New Mexico should probably be in one country.
3) Utah would be its own country, along with part of southern Idaho and perhaps small parts of the surrounding states.
4) Southern Illinois and southern Indiana would be part of that "East Central" country in the link, joined with Ohio and Kentucky.
That is how things were supposed to be in the first place, no? :)
Yes, and we see how that worked out.
Returning to that would require either a revolution or a constitutional convention by all the states, and I don't see how we wouldn't get right back to where we are now very quickly given the size of the country and the needs of a modern nation; it's not like we can go back to 1800 and have a government with no Federal agencies to handle things like aviation, communications, etc.
I prefer the TSA over the illegal alien, cheap-ass, high-school-dropout, previous airport security workers.
* I like that the TSA uses citizens and legal workers.
* I disagree that the TSA is still needed.
If the same standards for hiring and training are maintained, private companies could do this and would be responsive to market pressures, unless any government "security" agency.
No special treatment for anyone regardless of position.
The workers are trying to do a difficult job as required by upper management TSA policy makers. If you look at the average person flying, don't think there's much enjoyment dealing with all us fat, sensitive, pricks.
Part of the flaw with everything the TSA does is some people get special treatment. That is unacceptable in the USA. We have a strong sense of fair play, so if 80% of the people are inconvenienced, 100% need to be. Senators, visiting Presidents, Congress, police, pilots, ambassadors AND military people all need the same scans. Heck, I want to see the head of the TSA get both patted down AND body-scanned **every time**. It would be great if his pocket knife were taken away too. I've had 4 knives taken. We're talking 1.5" blades and toe clippers.
In the old days, the added screening process was random. On an overseas trip, I was "randomly" picked for extra screening twice on the way home right next to the gate. Having my dirty underwear (literally) on the table for all passengers to see. That was in Chicago or Portland (if I recall). At the time, I had an active DOD security clearance.
I miss being able to not-check luggage for overnight flights.
I also find it strange that cruise ship security is pretty lax in comparison with airline security. I had a huge bottle of water while in line for 2.5 hours getting onto a ship about 5 months ago. I was drinking from it the entire time and put it through the x-ray. Meh. Nobody was patted down or body-scanned. NOBODY.
Seems like the Israeli's have this security stuff down the best. They use profiling to uncover terrorist / trouble makers. 99% of the fliers there aren't too inconvenienced, assuming they get approval to fly at all. That's a different issue.
No special treatment for anyone regardless of position.
China is rather different since it's an autocracy/plutocracy. It's not a Republic or anything resembling a democracy at all. Are you proposing that we should change our government to that?
We already saw what happened with the Soviet Union: it collapsed and lots of regions broke away from it. What's left is Russia, a country that claims to be a federal republic, but really looks more like China's autocracy in practice. It's also not that large a country, with only 143 million people, not even half the size of the USA and less than twice the size of Germany. Russia is actually pretty similar to Canada: lots of land area, but much of it sparsely inhabited or even uninhabited, and most of the population concentrated in a fairly small zone (in Canada, most of the population is with 100 miles of the US border; in Russia, most of the population is west of the Ural mountains). Finally, Russia only has a track record in governance of about 20 years so it's hard to draw many conclusions from it. China at least has been around since 1949.
They are very easy questions to answer if you look overseas where there are many good examples of airport security.
That secondary role of being a vector to get money in the right pockets and provide welfare for a lot of people that should be doing something of value instead? That's a hard thing to duplicate but I'd argue that there shouldn't even be attempted. Solve the problem instead of keeping the backhanders to former employees with a silicon snakeoil bodyscanner going. The only reason the current disfunctional TSA is there is because the old Russian solution of throwing a lot of untrained people at a problem was seen as being the expedient way of getting something going in a short amount of time. Well, there's been plenty of time, so there's no longer any excuse for the massive, unaccountable, obviously corrupt, Soviet style group that is the TSA.
They should spend less on the TSA (expensive screening machines, special searches, no-fly lists etc) and more on actually getting people on the ground doing the kind of intelligence that lead to the discovery of the printer cartridge bomb before it was detonated, the kind of intelligence that can catch the bad guys no matter what plot they have planned.
Ditch the security theater and invest the money in actual security.
Oh bullshit! you ain't sticking the hogs with them damned longhorns, what are you nuts? Hell we don't want them shitkickers either, you give them to Mexico! We'll take TN and MS along with OK and LA thanks ever so!
As for the TSA what is killing their asses is the YouTube. Being giant douchebags really isn't easy when everyone and their dog and their dog's squeaky toy have a camera in their phone, and its kinda hard for a congress critter to stand up for the TSA when all of their constituents have been passing around links to the latest TSA goon attack, like the screaming 3 year old or the 96 year old they went after for having a soggy nappy.
That is why i've been plastering links and writing my congress critters having a royal shitfit over the blacklisting of websites. We finally have a way to watch the watchers thanks to 24 hour cell phone cameras so its less likely that a goon, be they police or TSA or anyone else for that matter can pull shit without everyone seeing it. if they can just pull the plug on any website it would be too easy to make those 'bad old videos" go away. does anybody here believe the MSM would have done squat about the TSA? nope YouTube and a thousand other video sites to the rescue!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I know the security theatre I'm hearing about in the US airports has kept me away for the last decade. On two occasions I found ways to get around going there for work trips and at another point decided the USA may not be such a fun place for a holiday at the time. The TSA would find me boring but I'm sure they would still find some ways to make my visit unpleasant.
That's just my opinion but I've got an idea that others share it.
Concur. I originally was going to post the word "this" in all caps with a bunch of exclamation marks. The filter told me that was like yelling. Well, yeah...
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money
It reminds me of that little rebel Catholic Church organization that calls itself "the real Roman Catholic Church" even though no one else thinks they are.
Hey, leave the Jesuits alone.
Preach on, my hairy footed brotha!
Letter writing works well with Congress critters.
You can send letters from manufactured names and various local post offices for added effect.
The problem is with interstate commerce. I know libertarians love to blast that part of the Constitution, but it does serve an important purpose. For example, maybe Mississippi decides they want absolutely no environmental protections. Corporations will move their factories there, and start dumping their toxic wastes into the river. Only now the people in New Orleans have to suffer for their neighbors choices. If the states were each independent countries, that sort of thing would lead to serious border conflicts, sanctions, and maybe even war. Instead we have the federal government to unite us and pass nationwide standards. We're already in a race to the bottom with third world nations. The last thing we need is to start a race to the bottom between ourselves.
Or how about immigration? What if Tennessee decides that they want to let in all comers? Do we build a wall around the state, station guards at every border crossing?
Or the FCC? As nice as it might be to have different radio standards in Philly, Newark, NYC, and Stamford, the laws of physics don't allow it.
Entitlements might be better left to the state, but it would be a bureaucratic nightmare tracking people's moves across the nation (so that someone doesn't spend most of their life in a low tax state and retire in a high entitlement state).
There are some cases where we would be better off giving the states more control, but in many ways the old federal model simply can't work in the modern world.
It's hard to say the Roman Empire "lasted" after the city of Rome was sacked.
Not at all. You may define Rome by the city itself, but "Rome" itself did not once Constantine had moved the capital and senate to Constantinople.
Constantinople wasn't even originally part of the Roman Empire, it was conquered later when they grew really large.
Hoo boy, is that ever off. Constantinople didn't exist before Constantine created it, and he did so with the explicit intent of moving the capital of Rome there, to the real hub of the 4th century empire.
AFAIC, you can't have something called "the Roman Empire" if it doesn't include the Italian peninsula and most especially the city of Rome.
AFAIC? OK, then you're being blatantly arbitrary. Did you intend this misconceived analogy to strengthen your argument? It does the reverse. Federalism has its merits, but I suspect from the above that your understanding of the real issues is rather thin.
China has frequently fractured into a patchwork of local states run by strongmen. This happened as recently as the 1920s during the Warlord Era, but has been happening every few centuries since the decline of the Zhou Dynasty. Besides this, China has been home to many minorities which have occasionally been independent. Tibet and Turkmenistan are the most obvious modern examples.
Russia effectively didn't exist until the collapse of the Mongol Empire(s), and could even be argued as a primary effect of the power vacuum created by that collapse after the previous consolidation. The Rus simply reconsolidated in an imperial conquest, and those holdings were reconsolidated a second (or third, depending on your perspective) time when the communists took over. However the identities of the locals were largely unaffected even over the centuries of Russian and earlier Mongol rule, which is what lead to the many breakaways after the USSR's collapse.
The take away to these lessons from history is that the 'empire' only lasts so long as the people at the core of it have the will and the power to rebuild it over and over. That is the case with China and Russia (to a far lesser extent). It *almost* happened with Rome, people are largely unaware that the Byzantine Empire was on the verge of a massive campaign to retake the West that was only scuttled by the cruel twist of the arrival of the plague from Asia. Hard to say how different history might have been if such an effort were successful.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
The problem is with interstate commerce. I know libertarians love to blast that part of the Constitution, but it does serve an important purpose. For example, maybe Mississippi decides they want absolutely no environmental protections. Corporations will move their factories there, and start dumping their toxic wastes into the river. Only now the people in New Orleans have to suffer for their neighbors choices. If the states were each independent countries, that sort of thing would lead to serious border conflicts, sanctions, and maybe even war. Instead we have the federal government to unite us and pass nationwide standards. We're already in a race to the bottom with third world nations. The last thing we need is to start a race to the bottom between ourselves.
Or how about immigration? What if Tennessee decides that they want to let in all comers? Do we build a wall around the state, station guards at every border crossing?
Or the FCC? As nice as it might be to have different radio standards in Philly, Newark, NYC, and Stamford, the laws of physics don't allow it.
Entitlements might be better left to the state, but it would be a bureaucratic nightmare tracking people's moves across the nation (so that someone doesn't spend most of their life in a low tax state and retire in a high entitlement state).
There are some cases where we would be better off giving the states more control, but in many ways the old federal model simply can't work in the modern world.
There are some things that are probably handled on a national level for the sake of uniformity and to be able to efficiently conduct business. However, with the current system and the one you advocate continuing we end up with a largely unresponsive and exceptionally powerful central government running every last facet of life with one size fits all solutions to everything.
Once you start down the path of the Feds regulating everything under the guise of "Interstate Commerce" then you've handed the Federal government a blank check to do whatever the hell they want. After all, what doesn't touch on "commerce" on some level?
Would there be risks to returning to the previous model? Probably. Are those risks worth peeling back the power of government to something that is manageable and controllable? Absolutely. It isn't as if the solution to every problem is "central government".
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
That is how things were supposed to be in the first place, no? :)
Yes, and we see how that worked out.
Returning to that would require either a revolution or a constitutional convention by all the states, and I don't see how we wouldn't get right back to where we are now very quickly given the size of the country and the needs of a modern nation; it's not like we can go back to 1800 and have a government with no Federal agencies to handle things like aviation, communications, etc.
Sitting aside the question of how we would get back there for a moment, why is the only solution to those things and others a virtually all powerful and practically unaccountable Federal government?
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
7th amendment, you sue the people in the other State in Federal court. There is no need for more regulation that that.
Entitlements, offer a cash-out and buy-in option.
Nice generalization. Now please enunciate exactly which policy belong to the states, and which belong to the federal government. That is the crux of the problem, and the Constitution fails to define the boundary exactly (even though it acknowledges in the 9th and 10th amendments that a boundary has to exist).
Caesar noted that Management of the few was generally the same as management of the many, IIRC.
*Which* Caesar? The one that got knifed in the back, or...?
If you can drive, or ride a train or bus, do it. The airlines going belly-up will end the TSA nonsense pretty quick.
Stop trying to keep people from having a knife or gun on airplanes, and specifically permit and encourage it. The loyal citizens on the plane will put down any terrorist attempts, and it won't cost the taxpayers a dime. OK, it might still be a good idea to inspect packages for bombs, but this wanading and metal detector nonsense, and long lines and shoe-removing and person-violating would cease.
What?
The purpose of the TSA as well as DHS is to please the President of the United States of America.
The TSA and DHS exist to be extensions of the President's Executive Orders, his power, his will.
To perpetuate the psychology of terror, the TSA and DHS exist to perpetuate terror, engage in acts
of terror by orders of the President.
Their orders come directly from their Commander and Chief. In this there is no ambiguity. There is
certainty. Every citizen of the United States of America and Territories is the property of the President.
The President, as owner, can exert his will in any way on his property. The purpose of the USA
Department of Justice is to exclusively approve the action and will of the President regards his
property. In this there is no ambiguity.
Greece was conquered by the Roman Republic, about a century before the first Roman Emperor.
Far from being an "offshoot," Constantinople was designated the *official* capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine, the same emperor who made the Empire officially Christian. At that point, Greece had been ruled by Rome for more than four hundred years.
For a period of time after Constantine, Rome itself was deprecated, so to speak. It only returned to imperial capital status when the Empire was formally divided into Eastern and Western halves some 60 years later.
Hoo boy, is that ever off. Constantinople didn't exist before Constantine created it,
The city may not have existed before he created it, but the territory it was located in wasn't part of the Roman Empire until later. It's not like the Roman Empire just sprang into existence all at once with control of most of Europe. Anchorage probably didn't exist either when the US bought Alaska from Russia, but if Obama decided to move the Capitol there and then the continental US broke apart into a bunch of smaller countries and Alaska decided to hang onto the name "USA" (even though it's only one state and calling it "United States" would be rather silly), that still doesn't really make it the same USA as the one we're in now.
Only the police are allowed a free ticket to humiliate and abuse American Citizens with no more than some ethereal justification (Of which there now exist a multitude.) How dare they emulate the status quo. To adress the real issue is difficult. I think the basic problem is that these people (TSA, and too many Police Officers) are not chosen for their good judgement, intelligence, and common sense. They are not allowed to use their intuition and common sense, because they might be wrong. The resulting paradigm is so much worse. It just misses all of the bases. I get that you need thugs sometimes, but can't they be a special division driven in on a short but in very limited situations as opposed to representing the norm?
Good idea, we could separate portions of the US into distinct smaller territories that could maintain their own governments closer to the people that live there. Then we could have a small government on top to set some very basic guidelines for those states to follow then otherwise they do what they feel is right.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
"For the love of god, Montressor!"
"Yes, for the love of God."
Because 50 different (privately owned) systems all doing their own thing is worse?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
This is the most optimistic post I've seen on Slashdot for a while. Hell yeah.
You nailed it.
Times are tough. Some start looking back with rose colored glasses. It's understandable. But we have to move forward and adapt to the modern world. We can't think as a shattered collective. We need to be a damn team. We fight too much. We need solutions that are full of win for all of us. Both of our sides need to look at each other and say, "help us help you." We are one, if we stab the other guy, we kill ourselves. Dig it?
There are solutions that will work and be just down right awesome. People need to stop fighting and start working.
Take the Red Pill.
Dear TSA Thugs,
Thank you for your hard work, but you knew this gig couldn't last. They are onto us all and it's over. It was sweet while it lasted. Meet at the same place and we will all have a big party. Our next gig is coming soon, so enjoy your vacation and try to stay out of prison.
Yours truly,
The Joker
Take the Red Pill.
However, this law does not apply to a firearm that cannot be carried and used by one person, a firearm that has a bore diameter greater than 1 ½ inches and uses smokeless powder, ammunition that uses exploding projectiles or fully automatic firearms.
So no machine guns, unless they are only semi-automatic, which isn't much of a machine gun.
Yes, when you're a large country with problems, it's enticing to think that breaking it will solve all the large country problems. You know what you're going to get instead? Problems with lotsa small countries. Like, I don't know, continent-wide wars between states that think they're really so different from the others.
You might want to look at the reason behind the foundation of the EU. It has nothing to do with economic advantage, and all with 3000 years of near constant war.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Teamwork is socialist. In a capitalist society, we're *supposed* to be fighting one another. We don't come by optimal results by joining together - we do so by pitting everyone against one another and eliminating all but the strongest.
Why do you hate America?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
> After a TSA employee was arrested for sexually assaulting a woman while in uniform
But... but... that's his job!
Why not? Let each state handle it's own rules and regulations for aviation and communication. Each country does this already anyway.
Nice troll. But let's pretend your serious. We have an entire planet to deal with, and some of them for some reason don't like us. We're out number in ways that are hard to comprehend. We have some important things that need done and it's going to take probably the entire human race to do it or else we are all going to die. The clock is ticking and we haven't got forever. And if you haven't noticed we have LOTS of people who aren't doing so well, who need work, the list goes on and on of problems that need addressed.
We can mess around and be stupid about this, and lose everything we have, or we can work together, get through it and get back to whatever. It's that simple. Anything less is a barbarian mindset that needs a serious upgrading to modern times.
Take the Red Pill.
I have traveled a lot over the years. And the ONLY time I am afraid is when I am in line at security.
I am made to stand next to a garbage can full of liquid explosives.
I have to remove my shoes and walk across a dirty floor
I get the choice of walking through a deadly machine, or have some guy stick his hands down my pants.
I get threatened by TSA agents (I'm told "the threat is real" and "you may not be able to fly")
It is the only time my expensive camera and expensive laptop is out of my sight and out of my possession.
I am told this is all for "my safety"
Lol. So we have different radio radio standards? So what? One station might broadcast over another one? Life is not about maximizing efficiency. It may bother controlling OCD types but disorganization is perfectly acceptable. We don't have to maximize efficiency at the expense of freedom. And the pollution issues you bring up are a perfect example where one group is violating the rights of another. That's not the same thing.
The Roman Empire lasted in some form until the fall of Constantinople.
It's Istanbul, not Constantinople.
Yeah, how dare the TSA overstep its bounds! Only real cops should be the ones allowed to routinely sexually assault and humiliate their victims.
I'm pretty sure you are wrong on this, in that Byzantium (later, "Constantinople") was part of Bithynia province during 44-27BC (from Julius Caeser's perpetual dictatorship to Octavian's aggrandizement as 'Augustus'), i.e., the beginning period of the Roman Empire. So, even if it was a "free" city, the territory was an initial part of the Roman Empire, not merely a "later" part. I would need a good citation otherwise to shake me from this opinion.
The USA that is now is not made the same as the one in 1780 by virtue of the two having the same name either. But we still consider the one the same as the other. Why? Not because they have the same territory (they don't), nor because they have the same capital (they don't), but because there is a certain, direct connection between the political institutions of that era and those today.
Or we could return to the Federal model the US is actually based on instead of this rule from Washington thing we're doing now. Return the States to their rightful place and make the national government small as it should be. Then people can move to the State that best reflects their view of the world. That is how things were supposed to be in the first place, no? :)
This ended with the Civil War. Although it was arguably the MORALLY correct thing to do, the north had no LEGAL right to prevent the southern states from seceding. The Constitution says nothing about LEAVING the Union, and DOES say in the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
By applying the conspicuous absence of secession procedures together with the above, the Constitution logically implies that it is the states themselves that decide how to implement secession, and that they have the right to do so.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
For example, maybe Mississippi decides they want absolutely no environmental protections.
Indeed. Ron Paul is old enough to remember how filthy the air and water were before the EPA. Maybe he liked living in toxic filth, but I didn't.
The libertarians want the corporations to be free to screw you over. I'd like to see a Social Libertarian Party that realizes that governments aren't the only entities that can trample your freedom.
Free Martian Whores!
Some start looking back with rose colored glasses.
Only the young, who don't realize how good it is now in comparison to then. You would NOT want to be operated on in a 1960 hospital; even a simple tonsillectomy was pure hell.
Free Martian Whores!
See Israel for a clue.
When was the last time they experienced air terrorism?
Do they screen everyone?
libertarians love to blast [the interstate commerce] part of the Constitution
Or perhaps statists love to use that clause to water down the small whitelist of delegated powers into a federal-government-can-do-whatever-it-wants-except-violate-the-bill-of-rights-for-any-reason-besides-child-porn-or-drugs-or-poverty-or-terrorism-or-protecting-sanctified-tradition-or-other-really-compelling-interests wild card.
If you think the federal government needs more powers, that's fine. Amend the constitution and give it authorization to protect the environment, authorization to coordinate airwaves and airspace, authorization to run entitlement programs. But doing it without authorization is constitutionally illegal, and a law enforced selectively (or never) is no law at all.
The empire was split into two halves in the late 3rd century, by Diocletian. The split governance of the empire was already well-established by the time Odoacer came along and declared himself King of Italy. The Eastern half of the empire was really always the richest half anyways, since it had Egypt.
There is no comparison with Alaska. The east was the richest and most powerful half even in the silver age; and although the seat of power still lay at Rome, it was the east that funded her adventures.
You can't call the eastern half of the empire an "offshoot", it was an integral half of the whole. The citizens of Constantinople called themselves Romaioi, they held to Roman traditions of governance, and the imperial line in the east was unbroken until the 15th century.
Lastly, unaware though you may be, the "fall of the west", ie the transition of power in Italy, was largely ceremonial. Rome wasn't conquered, although yes it was sacked. The 'fall' was really the culmination of several centuries of German and Gothic ingress into the lands of the empire, during which time they were employed as mercenaries, and they were integrated into society by the time the shift in power occurred. Odoacer spoke Latin and called himself Roman.
Good gosh, The comment was that there is a race to the bottom. I ask of what? If you look at fear mongering, HS and the bureaucracy thrives on this fear, and informs Americans that they are better protected today than prior to 9/11. My answer is, hogwash. HS was a political move to protect a president.
The FBI alone can do what HS does, and efficiently. All that overhead can be and should be restructured away to reduce income taxes and improve efficiencies throughout every state of the union. Imagine that your tax bill can be reduced by a dollar a day, or close to $350 per year. The scanners and pat-downs are adult paedophilia (remove and replace paed with appropriate word). Ae you going to do pat-downs for every car that crosses a state line, or heads in or out of a major city?
I think that if a terrorist wants to do damage, he would use a 53 foot trailer loaded with explosives, and recognize that he can drive that truck through any state, unimpeded. Why would he take a plane with explosives strapped to his body?
Wake up people. You cannot protect yourself against crazies. The way to have increased protection is via infiltration of suspected terrorist groups, and not by subjecting everyone to no-fly lists, and invasion of privacy. I am statistically certain that the agents doing pat-downs joke about the small or missing organ, or the oversized one. Shame on showing and demonstrating stupidity.
You don't need to shove everyone into a single global nation with everyone subject to the exact same laws in order to avoid war. You avoid wars by having lots of trade; it's the way the West has avoided wars since WWII. With countries dependent on each other for trade for various goods, no one wants to bother with wars because it'd be too damaging.
And the EU is a much better model for how things should be than the USA: notice that all the countries in the EU are still separate countries, with their own laws and ways of doing things, unlike the USA where it's impossible to have any issue, no matter how small, decided by the states rather than the national government. The big outstanding issue is the shared currency, which is obviously causing a lot of problems.
Only a tiny fringe of people would argue that the federal government has no legitimate role. But that in no way justifies our current federal Colossus. You are making a straw man argument.
That's weird, I thought it did apply to full-auto stuff, or did I confuse it with silencers?
Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks'.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
I agree - it's all those video cameras. I predict two things: 1). Video cameras (functioning) will be made illegal. 2). OK, we give in - USING video to capture "sources and methods"... Well, gee, that has worked for other federal agencies - why not us in the TSA? Because they are "Thousands Sanding Around" They are NOT COPS. They are as far down the food chain as algae. They are not medical people. They are actors in the "Theatre of Security" - we are the props. Really - WE ARE THE SHAREHOLDERS and should get rid of whatever idiot created this theatre - and hired actors that do not have the medical training to poke around in places, that if *I* did it would get me free room and board at the State B&B. (I speak of congress-critters - we need a new bunch) In KCI I was run through the magnetometer 3 times - did I get wanded? NO! A huge idiot tells me I will be groped. My wife was distracted so she could not see what was going on - NOTE PEOPLE - tell your travel mates to video the testicle (breast) exam and tell anyone that gets in their way to MOVE. What was the problem? Snaps on suspenders! A fast wanding would have discovered this, but I got something just short of a prostate exam. [The TSA with the McJob asked me if I had "anything sensitive" in my genital area.] I told him "only the usual male anatomy". He offered to take me in the "Privacy Room" - I told him I preferred witnesses. That caused McFeel to inform me this was not a joking matter. (Who did this idiot think was joking?) My main witness [wife] was intentionally blocked visually and distracted. Don't let it happen to you! I DO think the "privacy room" is a good idea [Adult Diapers, Colostomy Bags - uhg don't want to think about it - BUT TAKE A WITNESS! This too, will pass - but we have to do it. Occupy the USA!!
you are clueless and baiting
Can anyone say Battle Royale!
your command of the english language is epic.....
it’s already broken up into manageable sized chunks, they’re called states. We need to stop using the federal government as the be all and end all of places to go to solve every problem we face.
Sitting aside the question of how we would get back there for a moment, why is the only solution to those things and others a virtually all powerful and practically unaccountable Federal government?
Because that's how things happen when you concentrate lots of power in one place; it's unavoidable. Either you can be like China, which makes no illusion of being a democracy/republic, or you can be like the USA which claims to be a republic but it's mostly a farce because the politicians are so corrupt, but either way you're going to have a very powerful central government. You can try to architect a government that isn't that way, and leaves most of the power to the smaller regional governments, but we've already seen how this gets eroded away over time as more and more power is concentrated in the central government. This is happening in Europe too, though they've certainly tried to avoid that with the way the EU is set up, but it appears that the EU central government is trying to slowly draw more power to itself, leaving less sovereignty for the member nations.
As for why you need Federal agencies, you don't; you can have all the member states/nations do their own thing instead. The problem with that is that it's really inefficient and adds tons of confusion. Let's take the FAA for instance. Right now, to be a pilot or operate an aircraft or airport, you have to meet various FAA regulations, that are in place so that there are standards nation-wide, which is useful because airplanes very commonly fly between states, rather than within them. In fact, for commercial flights, a very small minority of flights don't cross state borders. So, we could disband the FAA and let each state do things their own way. So what happens when someone has a plane in Wyoming that meets the WAA standards, and he wants to fly to Utah, but his plane doesn't meet the UAA standards (mainly because WAA has no standards at all), or worse California where standards are strict? Now you've suddenly got a giant mess where aviation has completely ground to a halt because no one can agree on any standards. What if a plane crashes? Should it be investigated by the state it came from or the state it crashed in? What if one state decides they want to add an additional tax on every plane that flies over their state, even if they don't land? How about pilots? What if a pilot is certified according to Wyoming standards (which are basically non-existent) but he wants to fly to California, and California says no way because in their eyes, he's not a real pilot because they don't recognize Wyoming pilot's licenses? The Framers of the Constitution rightfully recognized that issues involving interstate travel and commerce were the domain of the federal government for reason of pure efficiency and simplicity, so that's why the FAA was created, just like the FHA was created to handle interstate highways. The annoying thing is that we have a lot of problems in this country, IMO partly because it's too big and there's too much power at the federal level, but agencies like the FAA and FHA and FDA are NOT places where we're having any significant problems (budget or otherwise), yet it's these agencies that the Republicans are targeting for elimination, while completely ignoring the one federal agency that's the cause of most of our problems: the DOD (and also the DEA). I also don't see them taking any steps to fix the problems at the SEC, even though failures there were absolutely a large part of our economic crash. Instead, they want to eliminate agencies that actually do help regular Americans, but hurt the profitability of corporations run by sociopaths who'd be happy to fill our food with melamine.
This has already been proposed - go rear Red or Blue which one 4 You by Robert Jackson (author)
The issue is then that the poor and stupid states inflict their citizens on all the other states. If we went back to a federal model, I want a fence between my state and yours.
Because 50 different (privately owned) systems all doing their own thing is worse?
HOW?!
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
The Roman Empire lasted in some form until the fall of Constantinople.
ISTANBUL!
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
The whole point of a small federal government is to force the smaller entities to sort these issues out without an omnipotent third party, the federal government, making decisions that are one-size-fits-all. If two states have a disagreement because one pollutes into a river shared by both, better to have those two states work it out than need to mandate rules that apply to all states where the circumstances may be very different.
There are many gray areas, and life is better working to solve those disputes at the lowest level, not escalating immediately to the highest level. That is the problem with a large federal govenrment...it's TOO EASY to attempt solutions at the highest level, which are bound to be unbalanced in application throughout the spectrum of grays in which the people live.
A bit of chaos and disorder promotes a competition rather than attempting to enforce centralized order which extinguishes competition. This is all about complex systems management.
Immigration, national defense, and a few other areas are all that should warrant federal authority, as they are truly nation-level issues. Environment, education, health care, and the vast majority of issues that affect people on a daily basis are better solved at much lower levels...thus they aren't written into the federal government charter, our Constitution.
you insensitive clod.
You were probably thinking of silencers, which are allowed by the montana bill.
"Lastly, public support for the TSA's use of X-ray body scanners drops dramatically when people realize there is a cancer risk."
The risk is only one in thirty million.
However, the risk of dying on a flight due to terrorist actions is only one in sixty million so, to be fair, the TSA doubles your odds of dying.
"It's hard to say the Roman Empire "lasted" after the city of Rome was sacked. "
Not for the Romans it wasn't. Constantine established a new capital in Constantinople for strategic reasons having to do with the geography of the borders. Even after the Empire was divided, a Roman Emperor still ruled in the West for several decades after Rome itself was sacked. That Constantine had been right, about where was the best place to run things from, became obvious from then onwards, however. The idea that the Roman Empire collapsed when the West was starving is simply untrue.
The Empire continued in its richer Eastern Provinces, and it was the bulwark of Europe for 1000 years after the sack of Rome. Only the poorer provinces, that were in the West, collapsed. To say that the Empire was gone with them was only a conceit of those looking to the Roman Pope for guidance, instead of Constantinople. The central capital in Constantinople, from which Constantine and his immediate successors had ruled the entire empire, continued to be the wealthiest and most powerful city in Europe for the next 800 years *after* the sack of Rome.
Note that even though the people of "The City", and its provinces, spoke Greek more often than Latin after the 7th Century, their name for themselves was still,..."Romoi".
Teamwork is socialist. In a capitalist society, we're *supposed* to be fighting one another. We don't come by optimal results by joining together - we do so by pitting everyone against one another and eliminating all but the strongest.
Why do you hate America?
Well, no. In a free market society, we compete with others to win cooperation from yet others, and we cooperate with others to compete, on many levels of action. Teamwork, extended to networks of different groups, is the basis of industrial levels of productivity.
Regards,
Tom Billings
It's the scores of travelers who don't know how to travel. They:
* Overpack, including items they're not supposed to bring on board
* Cannot navigate simple lines
* Do not heed signs, placards and other warnings
* Are inconsiderate of other travelers
* Become argumentative for not following instructions or hearing what they don't want to hear
As for me, I dress light, pack light, make use of hotel supplied toiletries - although I feel that having to remove my laptop is too much hassle, have ID/boarding pass in hand, and usually the security checkpoint is nothing more than a minor inconvenience and I've never had secondary screening. The longest wait on line was 45 minutes at LAX.
I'll agree that yes, these checkpoints are largely theater, but as any ex-burglar will tell you, they don't like detection. The very risk of being detected is enough to make them look for softer targets. With that, we'll never know how many would-be terrorists have decided hijacking a plane ain't gonna work. Besides, a good number of airline pilots are now packing heat, and a classified number of armed Federal Air Marshals are sitting somewhere on a plane.
With that, the biggest risk to airline safety isn't the wannabe bomber... it's the two bozo's at the controls. The majority of fatal airline disasters are due to pilot error as Colgan Air 3047 in Buffalo and Air France 447 over the Atlantic have highlighted.
Want to reduce human rights in your country without being blamed?
- create scapegoat agency
- have scapegoat agency implement harsh policies, generally violate human rights, and rough a bunch of people up while making lame excuses about how it's all for security
- let dissatisfaction with scapegoat agency grow to huge levels
- eventually disband scapegoat agency citing 'the will of the people'
- continue with violation of rights but not quite as much as the scapegoat agency
- keep telling people things are much better now
The problem with the commerce clause was when the supreme court extended it beyond interstate commerce, to commerce within a state that could affect interstate commerce. That removed all rational limits, and gave the feds unlimited economic power. If the commerce clause was returned to its original meaning, of only applying to something that actually crosses a state line, a lot of problems with fed overeach would go away.
And the 2 problems you cite, pollution crossing state lines, or immigrants crossing state lines, would still be covered inder the original constitutional commerce clause. But how about pollution that never crosses a state line, or labor safety standards within a state, or product safety for a product that never crosses state lines. In that case, I see no reason for fed involvement. Only that state lives with the consequences if the regs are too lax, so only that state should have authority. Of course other states might be affected by lower regulatory cost and taxes in a nearby state, but I consider that a benefit, not a problem, since each state competes to get the balance right, between citizen safety, and a friendly business climate. That is our chief problem today, we have abandoned the sound original constitutional principle of federalism, and tried to do everything at the national level.
One of the biggest problems with doing things with gov is that gov is a monopoly, with no compeditor, and any monopoly naturally becomes less capable than anything that is subject to compedition. But returning most powers to the state level introduces beneficial competition even for gov, since the states compete with each other. Each state has a natural compeditive interest to keep away freeloaders, and attract business, while still providing a reasonably safe environment for their citizens, so there is a natural compeditive counterbalance to the natural inclination of gov to grow, and give out handouts for votes.
No need to actually break up the country though. just return to the original principles of federalism, and the original meaning of the commerce clause, commerce that actually crosses a state line. Once you do that, and most gov functions are handled at the state level, as originally intended, most problems go away, since states have to compete to attract taxpayers, and repel freeloaders.
I didn't realize that I hated America. Thanks for pointing out that since I don't like the way the country is being run into the ground, I must hate America. Good logic. Oh, and America isn't capitalist, we're a democracy if you'll remember (at least we were at one point).
To address your issue instead of pandering and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning: The vast majority of the people who live here make very poor decisions. They're blissfully ignorant of what goes on around them until it's too late to do anything. If everyone took the time to look into the candidates, proposed bills, and pieces of legislature that come around, and then consider the ramifications of their vote, then they might be able to make an educated decision and vote accordingly. The problem in America isn't with the government model or even the elected officials who run said government; the problem is with the under-educated, ignorant people who live here being lead like lemmings toward the ever closer precipice of economic death. "Why do we have such a poor economic standing?" you may ask. Because we spent all our money on crap that we don't need, and then still have to spend more money on the things which we do need. In short, our priorities are completely ignored because we want a new big screen T.V. that wasn't made in the U.S. and then we wonder where the country's money went. How do these big companies that OWS is complaining about end up with all that money? WE GAVE IT TO THEM. Now go return your iPod, cancel your cable, and stop going to the tanning salon. Use that money to pay off your credit cards and put food on your table. Maybe even get a nice retirement fund going so that when you hit retirement you don't become a drain on the economy or your kids.
That would be similar to the USA collapsing, and Alaska continuing to call itself "the USA" even though the rest of the nation either became smaller independent nations or were annexed by Mexico or Canada.
I would love to see Canada doing some polite annexing. We'll take the west coast, thanks. Your teenagers will hail us as liberators because of our lower drinking age, and when the sled dogs get tired we'll open mystery-meat stands by the highway.
You should take the west coast down to Silicon Valley, but you might want to leave LA alone.