Ooops, I did it again (airline/knife incident)

Part of the price of our individual and personal freedom is to accept a few of the random acts the sleepers perpectrate. At one extreme, you have total anarchy and, at the other you have a big brother controlled state like the former East Germany.

The ignorant masses in American society today are willingly giving up their freedom for these perceived improvements in security we see today. If we are really getting better security, it MIGHT be worth it. To give up our freedoms with no real improvement in our personal security is a tragedy. Our ancestors fought and died long ago so we would not be forced to live in the type of society some are advocating in the current environment of over reaction and paranoia.

There are SLEEPERS in any society. Do you punish an entire society to possibly get at a single person or small group?

It is one thing to voluntarily submit to background checks and lie detector tests, etc. (which I do). It is an entirely different thing to force me to do that without prior consent.

How do you balance personal freedom with security?

Sid
 
Funny, no one has touched the fact that with all the local, state, federal laws it is even theoretically impossible to avoid breaking something somewhere. If nothing else there is allways the sleeper law that has not been enforced for 50 years but it still exists to be evoked. Is somewhat easier here but not much. Some one said that he allways follows the law, no you don't, you have broken something without knowing it!

There seems to be a general tendency to accept that a knife is a weapon, can be but mostly not, a knife is a tool and anybody calling a knife a weapon should be kicked in the nuts.

Mostly still carrying a knife but a cheap one.

TLM
 
Do any of you think the knife ban on commercial airliners will ever be lifted? I can only hope. In the meantime, I refuse to fly.
 
Airline deregulation has proven to be a disaster. Passengers today can expect delays, long lines, lax security, poor service, poor baggage handling, few cabin amenities, weak mantenance, and yes more delays. Two years ago we were talking about a passenger's "bill of rights", last year it was "air rage", this year it's "terrorism". We have an industry that is simply doing a very poor job. It is an oligopoly that hides itself behind the FAA. They are simply using the cover of the latest air scare to find ways to reduce services even further.

A real security improvement would require a major redesign of the way the process is currently conducted. The level of traffic going through these check points has to be reduced to give the checkers enough time to do an effective job. That means either setting up a greater number of checkpoints, or reducing the number of flights.

Security checks should also be redundant, so that each passenger goes through the process at least twice, and the process should be recorded. If a guy has a metal plate in his head, we should note it the first time, so we can avoid harrasing him about it on subsequent trips.

The flight recorder story is another anachronism. Why are we storing data onboard the aircraft? Can anyone suggest a less secure location than a jetliner about to be involved in an catastrophy? If they were to transmit the information to a ground station in real time the system might be able to detect flaws in time to help the crew.

What happened to fracmeister can happen to anyone. It happened to me a couple of years ago. It wasn't a big deal at the time (the knife was well within the FAA carry rules), but I was still concerned that I might be delayed at the checkpoint. The airlines are going to have to find a customer friendly way to deal with these ommissions. It is hard to make a business work after you have jailed many of your customers.

n2s

BTW, anyone who believes in zero-tolerance should not be allowed to vote. If they don't trust their own judgement on the simple stuff then they should definitely avoid something as complicated as an election. Just behave like the lemming you strive to be and endure.
 
This whole thing breaks down into two parts in my mind....

1 There is no way that anyone can ever make anyone else completely safe.

This is a principle. This is a standard. It is shown time and time again, in nature, in business, in war, in society. What one man or group of men do to control a situation can be thwarted by another man or group of men.

Let us take for example, a prison. A prison has all sorts of security devices and systems, keys and locks, armored doors, barbed wired, spot searches, cameras, codes, special teams of officers, fences. But yet, prisoners die in prisons at the hands of fellow inmates all the time.

Why? Because of the infinite inventiveness of the human mind. What someone sets out to do, he can accomplish, against great odds, despite the best efforts of many that may be arrayed against his intentions.

2 There is a really large percentage of the population that does not understand this.

My belief is that this is due to lack of education.

And I believe that this lack of education is encouraged by a government that increasingly offers to take care of us. Institutions, guided by the misguided Marxists, the greed of Capitalists, the intensity of Fascists, and the zeal of Fanatics the world over, offering worldly and other-worldly benefits if you will only do it their way, and trust them. And so, the common man finds the group that he can most easily trust, and joins the parade, dancing to the tune, and here is the critical part..... Now, when he is questioned, when he is challenged to think, more often than not, he parrots the pat answers of the institution to which he belongs, be it church or philosophy.

The Solution---> I honestly do not know that there is one. But I do know that no amount of fences, cavity searches, magnetometers, or biometrics will keep us safe.
 
Very well said, I couldn't agree with you more.
I wonder now, what will it take to change this way of thinking in our society?
 
Knowledge is power.
Imagine if "The Masses" were all well educated...where would the power brokers be?
This is not an accident. Another example of the 'haves' keeping the 'have nots' in their place.
"Social promotions' in grammer and high schools come to mind.
Zero tolerance is for people who don't want to think!
Sorry for rambling;)
 
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