Our suspicions have been proved: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) doesn’t secure much of anything; it is mere “security theater.”
After revelations that TSA screeners failed to find weapons and other deadly contraband in 96 percent of tests, David A. Graham, writing for The Atlantic, asked “what kind of theater this is. . . . A period drama, satirizing the 2000s? Vaudeville farce?”
Easy answer: the genre is “statism.”
Statism is the worship of government, or the reliance upon government to do many more than a few tasks. It is very old.
The ancient states arose from conquest, developing as a way to milk the masses for the benefit of the few. That’s what states traditionally do: use force to move wealth from one group to another.
Along the way, the states did do some good. Amidst all their horrors.
But mostly rulers just leveraged myth and bluster to cover crimes.
In more recent times, in this great country, the idea arose that the state should be limited to a few necessary jobs, tightly controlled by the people so that government might actually defend rights, not abridge them.
But this revolutionary democratic-republican ideology did not alter the basic nature of reality, turning the sow’s purse of the conquerors’ art into the gold of the Public Interest.
Without our vigilance, government always reverts back to its roots.
The TSA is simply the latest myth-and-bluster-backed scam aiding the ludicrous notion that government is all-powerful . . . while providing only faux security. Get rid of it; let its people go. Then watch airlines come up with more effective, less intrusive, more passenger-friendly security systems.
Want theater? Try “vigilance theater.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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