More on the TSA (The Sexual Assault) Controversy

Leonidas, over at Eternity Road has the best explanation I have seen for the outrage being expressed by air travelers of late. You can find it at Boycott Commercial Air Travel! The picture at the top says it all. When the original 9/11 terrorists took over airplanes with mere box cutters, I said at the time that if civilians with concealed carry permits could carry their weapons on board, it would not have happened. I still believe that.

Like Leonidas,  I have also refused to fly, only once relenting in 2006 to fly Las Vegas, where we were there to babysit with the grand daughter, while her parents partied.  But, if you still have any doubts, read Leonidas post.  The most intriguing, to me anyway is here:

You are more than 100 times as likely to die in a car crash than from a terrorist attack on US soil. About 42,000 people die annually in a car crash. 3,000 people died on 9/11, and a few in other terrorist attacks since (e.g. Ft. Hood.) The odds are clear - under 4,000 people have been killed in terrorism attacks on US soil since 2000, while over 400,000 people have died in car accidents. While terrorism is horrifying it does not rise to a risk that justifies abrogation of our Constitutional rights - especially when the proffered claims of "safety" magainst said attacks made by the government are in fact intentionally false and misleading.

This probably presents the leading argument for why we should not allow our freedoms to be taken away from us like this. And frankly, I do not think the TSA is not using these naked body scans and groping sessions to further security, but to numb us to having our privacy invaded in this fashion. Once we become used to it, there will be more, and at more places. Court houses would seem to be next. Then it will be sports stadiums, and finally anywhere at all. Soon enough, backscatter devices will be portable enough that they will be used at routine traffic stops. Precedent already allows police to stop everyone at drunk driving checkpoints (a thoroughly unconstitutional development.)  So, take a car to grandmas house, or take a sleigh, or a train, or bus.  But do not take a plane.  We have to send a message that Americans will not tolerate further intrusion on their persons for any reason.

Update: The American Thinker has a very good article, by Selwyn Duke, that bears on the topic at hand entitled Profile Muslims or Pat Down the Masses. Among other things, Mr. Duke brings up:

Now, we all know what kind of suicidal idiocy engenders such blindness: a politically correct brand that panders to the sensitivities of vocal, politically favored minority groups such as Muslims. But what about the sensitivities of millions of Americans who have to tolerate intrusive body scanning and pat-downs and watch their children subjected to same? And the kicker is that when Janet Incompetano (as Mark Steyn calls her) was asked if Muslim women sporting hijabs would have to go through the same full-body pat downs, she equivocated and said, "adjustments will be made where they need to be made" and "With respect to that particular issue, I think there will be more to come." Are you kidding me? Is this Total Recall meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Muslim women are the demographic second-most likely to commit Islamic terrorism. If they aren't subjected to scrutiny, what is the point (besides "security theater")?

What's the point, indeed. Every one of the terrorist attacks have been committed by Muslims. No one else. If we can't screen Muslims, why even bother-unless as I think, the exercise has other purposes.