So Rand Paul (Jackass-KY) apparently set off the alarm going through the line at the Nashville airport. And as you would expect from a libertarian with a stick up his ass, he refused the patdown. From the AP article: “Paul said the situation reflects his long-standing concern that the TSA shouldn’t be “spending so much time with people who wouldn’t attack us.”
Because, as we all know, a white person is not A Terrorist. Just like Wall Street crooks are not A Criminal. As PJ O’Rourke sardonically noted at the height of the 80s drug war, when his friend’s kid got popped, “it’s not like he’s a criminal – if he were a criminal, he’d be poorer and darker-skinned.”
It’s the same thing we went through ten years ago with all the white women in line for the Baltimore-Birmingham flight who were incensed that they had to take THEIR shoes off. Despite the fact that we were flying to a place where terrorism has mean “white people with bombs” for a good fifty years. The 16th Street Baptist Church. New Women’s Health Care. Judge Vance’s house.
Now that said, does TSA need to be overhauled? In the worst way imaginable. Ideally by the Brits, with a little help from the Israelis perhaps. The knee-jerk-reaction model needs to be reviewed so we can determine if it’s still necessary to put all the shoes on the belt or dump any liquid over 100ml or God only knows how many times they’ve gone back and forth on lighters. But much as some people want it to be, the solution is not “Leave white people alone” and the sooner we get that through our heads, the sooner we’ll be having an intelligent conversation about the security demands of 21st century air travel.
Meanwhile, I’ll be driving.