We've got a job to do!
My daddy worked very hard to feed us during the war. He just had to repair the railroad tracks...
C-
ed note: This post requires a bit of a stretch so i'll elaborate. I just finished some research on the Nazi camps. Somehow, I found myself thinking about the 'grunts'. not the people who worked in the camps, but everyone else. What about the guy who just did maintenance on the rail cars and tracks? He was probably glad to have some kind of job in a war-torn economy. he came out after-hours and didnt see many groups of anyone getting in the cars, and didn't see where they were going. So is he guilty of the holocaust?
How about the guy who kept sanitation up back in Berlin or whatever city. If cholera had wiped out or incapacitated most of the headquarters staff in Berlin, it may have helped end the war. My assumption being that that guy didn't know about the camps, but he sure did know he was in a nation at war and it was hard living.
So even though you may be part of the 'war-machine' (even by just paying taxes), you are not personally guilty beyond the direct results of your own free-willed actions.
OK, so the TSA screener...
He believes with all his heart that he's doing the right thing: protecting America from terrorists or whatever. But there's a difference here: Mr. TSA-screener had a MANDATORY education, to at least the GED level. A civics/govt/american history class is part of every cirriculum in public schools (how it is misrepresented is another thread topic); so Mr. TSA is in fact responsible to KNOW the constitution, and the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure- unreasonable being defined as occurring when no evidence of a crime is observed. Buying an airline ticket is NOT prima facie evidence of a crime and does not authorize a search. Period.
Sure, case law, new regs, the TSA, and whatever else may say otherwise; but that doesn't make it so. Its wrong under our professed system of government. Mr. TSA might be judged innocent if he couldn't have known the Constitution and the freedoms it protects. But he IS expected to know, and he is therefore freely participating in his job, and working very hard at it apparently.
"I am giving you guys the reasons why you are chosen for the additional screening, now the actions taken by some of the people in TSA aren't reflected on those of us who do their job with professionalism. There are alot of us here who like what we do... "
He's just trying to explain himself, that's all. Why can't you guys understand??? (sarcasm) The issue is, Mr. TSA, that NO ONE SHOULD BE ON THAT NOR ANY OTHER LIST AT ALL!! The fact of that not even occurring to you is exactly why you are part of the problem.
Is it more dangerous? Absolutely. Freedom isn't free, as the saying goes. Allowing me and the other good guys to board an aircraft with a rifle slung over my shoulder means that there's a chance a bad guy might do it, too. That is the price of freedom.
The last time I flew civillian aircraft, and I hope that was indeed the last time, I told my wife that I couldn't believe an American would do that (a physical search) to another American. Of course, I misused my terms- the person doing the search wasn't American at all.
No it isn't because of their lack of English as a fluent language; it was because of their actions: they were freely choosing to pat-down someone who has offered no evidence of having committed a crime. That disqualifies you as an 'American'. Why?
The USA was extraordinary in history because a person could come here and not tie their national identity to their country of birth, or their parents nationality. Rather, anyone from anywhere could come here and as long as s/he embraced the principles of the United States of America, s/he could call him/herself an American. All you had to do was love and live the ideals on which the country was founded.
Mr. TSA willingly acts contrary to those ideals, removing himself from the category of 'American'. Deal with it, brother.
C-
