I'd gladly fly "Shit Happens Airways"...

Seriously, was the Transportation Safety Agency specifically created as a means to "ease" Americans into tyranny, a la the parable of the frog and the boiling pot?

It's a well-known fact that most of these gubbmint lackeys are little more than McIdiots that managed to squeak through a security check, which tells me they aren't exactly the greatest people on the planet to be ensuring that we don't die in a fiery airplane crash.

That being said, I have a pair of questions to ask of the TSA (and government, in general) regarding the arrest of Sam Wolanyk in the very same airport as John Tyner of "Don't touch my junk" fame.

1) What are you hiding? If your general activities (your "pat-downs" and other related searches) are on display for the public who happen to be waiting in line for their turn to get molested by the PornoTron scanners and rubber-glove-wearing agents of the state, WHY IS IT A CRIME TO FILM THIS ACTIVITY? Surely, it can't be because "the terr'ists" might see what you're doing, if EVERYONE IN LINE CAN SEE IT! Why is it a crime then, for a private individual who helps pay your salary, to film you as you perform the duties he is paying you to do in public?

2) If a man is willing to strip down to his skivvies in order to show you that he's not carrying any guns or explosives, why would you not simply see that he's hiding nothing and allow him to move on? Why is it necessary for him to put his clothing back on, for the sake of allowing you to give him a "pat-down"?

Is it the job of the TSA to search for weapons, with pat-downs and PornoTron scanners being a tool to help in this search for those who don't want to remove their outer clothing? If a man is wearing skin-tight undies and nothing else, what is a pat-down going to tell you after he's put his clothes back on?

Could it be that it's not really about security, but rather, only about showing travelers who "The Boss" is when you go through an airport?

Undoubtedly, this incident was completely staged by Mr. Wolanyk, simply to prove a point...and, for what it's worth, it's hard to deny that his point was very well-made! That point is, of course, that our government is completely and totally full of shit when they tell you that their pseudo-security measures are there for your protection (as opposed to being yet another mechanism for conditioning people toward authoritarianism).

They can't stop anything from getting onto an airplane, as long as a TSA agent making barely more than a shopping-mall rentacop can be bribed with an extra hundred bucks to pad his kids' Christmas gift fund. The moment "following procedure" becomes more important than "getting the job done", the TSA becomes just another gov't bureaucracy.

Personally, I think airport security should be privatized...but not in the "opt-out" version given to us under federal law, where an airport is given the choice between gov't rentacops or one of the handful of "approved private security agencies". Personally, I think airport security should be handled by the airlines themselves. Instead of paying a federally-mandated tax to cover the ridiculous cost of the TSA (in addition to the income tax money diverted to them via "Homeland Security"), a minor $2 fee could be instituted to the ticket price for air travel that would provide more than enough to handle the cost of equipment and manpower for pre-flight security screening.

Not only would this be infinitely cheaper to the passenger, as well as being much more efficient (like everything else the private sector does when there is no gov't involvement), but it would provide for the AVENUE OF ACCOUNTABILITY that is sorely lacking with the TSA.

Imagine the possibilities! An airline could tout itself as "more secure" than its competitors, for those pansy-ass cowards that willfully submit to getting rape-scanned and felt up because they're afraid of funny brown people in pajamas. "Iron-Fist Airlines" could probably charge that left nut they're gonna grope in the security line, because some people think it's a good idea to pay for such things.

Meanwhile, at the next ticket counter, people like me could take their chances with "Shit Happens Airways". It's like the Greyhound of air travel. Security consists of some dude with a hand-held metal detector, and their firearms policy consists of "Keep your guns and ammo separated until you get off the plane!". You would, of course, be allowed to keep your nail clippers, scissors, box cutters, Benadryl, et cetera. You'll be offered the choice of domestic beers, in your choice of 12 or 16oz cans (24oz when available), and no one will have you arrested if you bitch about the temperature! In fact, no one will have you arrested at all, unless you seriously interfere with the property or safety of another passenger. In short, you're paying low-budget prices for low-budget air travel...because you aren't concerned about comfort, nor are you really that concerned with the extremely minute possibility that someone will smuggle a bomb onto the airplane you're flying on. You're more concerned with getting where you're going for as little money as possible, than you are with being comfortable...and you feel even more comfortable knowing that if you see someone lighting his boxer briefs on fire, you're free to start beating him over the head with a tray table without fear of being arrested for either beating the shit out of him OR for ripping the tray table off of the seat in front of you before you do it!

Then, of course, there could be a multitude of other airlines that choose to split the difference all the way through the scale. You'd see higher or lower security, comfort, and ticket pricing depending on what the owners of the airlines themselves thought was necessary to keep their bottom line in check.

If given the choice, I'd much rather send my family on a slightly less-comfortable airplane and be in charge of keeping my own family safe, than have to submit them to gubbmint PornoTron operators so they could take kiddie-smut pictures or feel up my kids. These people couldn't stop terrorism if it was laid out front and center, with a giant red "OFF" button. Then again, I'm that same kind of guy who thinks depending on the police to keep me safe is like depending on a public school teacher to actually educate someone. I guess I'm just crazy like that...