What "Radicalized" Me

My wife, the lovely Ms. PolyKahr (who married me anyway) sometimes makes the comment that I have changed. I formerly didn't have what she considers "politics" on my mind all the time. I didn't used to listen to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh all the time.  I used to play music on the radio, like "normal" folks.  I have to admit to having become "radical" about guns and the Constitution. She asks why that happened?

Arctic Patriot provides an answer in his post Having the Courage to Look in the Mirror. Please read the whole thing, and a hat tip to David Codrea at the blog War on Guns for pointing to it.

I fit the description they paint to a tee (except of course for obtaining explosives.)   I speak out on the Internet about abuses of people by the TSA, the police, the EPA, and other government entities. I feel I do not speak out enough. Every day there are stories all over the news of people whose Constitutionally protected rights are violated. Just today we learn that the Federal Government is forcing Catholics to purchase insurance against their religious objections, that Senator Rand Paul was detained by TSA for refusing a pat down, that another citizen, a Navy SEAL team member was arrested in New York City for possessing a 9 mm handgun and ammunition. All of these things violate Constitutionally protected natural rights of citizens.  Of course, I have guns and ammunition, and I am a small time "prepper" as well. Does this make me a domestic terrorist?  Since when is evaluating risks and taking steps to protect oneself and one's family illegal, or cause for extra scrutiny?

Arctic Patriot seems to be offering the Government an extremely good deal. He asks only that they keep him in Coca Cola while he teaches them to ask, "why?" But if you really want to know why, look in the mirror. Then re-read the Constitution. It should become obvious to you.

The TSA: Stealing your Rights and Liberties Every Day

I haven't done anything on the TSA (Testicle Squeezing Agency) lately. It is not for a lack of things they do that are worth writing about. In fact, they seen to do something outrageous ever single day. But, in the interests of keeping from going insane, let's take a look at just one little outrage, over at the American Thinker entitled TSA Stops Dangerous Looking Purse. The American Thinker piece links to a video news report from Jacksonville Florida News 4 station. The purse does indeed have a design of a handgun on it. Oh my!

For a number of years now, I have been suspicious that my trusty 1911 might just be going out at night while I am sleeping, and holding up people. Guns do that, you know.  They just go off whenever there is a fender bender.  So, of course, little plastic replica guns probably go off all the time too.

I can believe that there is indeed, somewhere in the thousands of pages of Federal Regulations, a regulation that prohibits replica firearms inside airport "security" perimeters.  Probably the original intent was to keep someone from carrying a realistic replica into the airport, waving it around, and getting shot.  I get it.  But looking at her purse, it is pretty clear that this is not such a replica, and it is pretty clear that it is also not a weapon.

But, all of this begs the question, are we really any safer? The government now violates the rights of every American who steps on a plane.  After all, we don't have to fly, they say.  Flying is a choice, a "privilege."  You could drive a car.  But of course, you can see the slippery slope.  When they start setting up roadblocks on the highway, will they then say say that you don't have to drive, you could walk? This is nonsense.

The 4th Amendment to the Constitution states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Note that the Amendment, like most of the Constitution, is pretty clearly written. A non lawyer can understand what it says. Note that it doesn't say anything about "privileges" that the government may rescind at will. Notice too that before a search begins, a Warrant must be issued, usually signed by a Judge, stating that they have probable cause, and that a specific person is to be searched, and specific things seized. Searching everyone, or even random searches of people in general, is not allowed, unless they have a reason to search a person, and have obtained a Warrant.

The government has no business placing itself into the middle of a private transaction.  You purchase a ticket from the airline which entitles you to fly on their planes from point A to point B.  If the airline wishes to perform a security check, they are entitled to do so.  After all, it is their airplane and their business they are potentially risking.  If passengers feel that the airline is not doing enough, those passengers are free to take a competing airline instead.  The government does not need to get involved in this process.  The airline could offer to run background checks on people as a courtesy, and have them pre-screened before they get to the airport, for instance.  Such background checks would be perfectly legal as a condition of traveling using that airline.  Otherwise, travelers would face airline security at the airport.  All of this would be legal.  What is not legal, no matter what the Supreme Court may have said, is allowing the government to search everyone who comes to the airport on the grounds that someone, somewhere, might be a terrorist.

I remember as a kid that we could go right out to the airplane to greet a passenger who had just arrived.  Having come to a strange city and a strange airport, it was considered a courtesy to greet them and guide them to awaiting ground transportation.  Will we ever be able to recover any of our lost liberties?  

Restaurant Turns Back on TSA at Lunch Counter

A while back I had a post about the TSA called Dominate. Intimidate. Control in which I advocated humiliating and embarrassing TSA agents as a way of changing policy. Of course you should only do this when they are away from work. Now I read that a Seattle area restaurant refuses to serve TSA agents here.

Good.

If I lived anywhere near Seattle I would eat lunch at this place every day to support him. He has the right idea. TSA agents should shunned like the Jewish collaborators who collected taxes for Rome were shunned. They should be humiliated as the French collaborators with the Nazis were humiliated. Our government has, in some ways, become a foreign invader using home grown collaborators to carry out their agendas. But those agendas trample all over our rights, and take away from the citizen the responsibilities that should be his. Get mad citizens, and begin to resist. Here you have a blue print for how to resist.

Court Rules TSA Naked Scans Constitutional

Of course they did. Did you expect anything different? From Forbes.com we learn that Federal Court Rules that TSA Naked Scans are Constitutional because you can opt out of the naked scans and get a pleasant pat down instead. That the pat down is just as much of an affront to our dignity, and just as much of a violation of our 4th Amendment rights is overlooked.  It will be one intrusive method or the other, but either way, we are going to violate you, and there is nothing you can do about it.

I am reminded of the mugger who corners his victim, then offers "I can either shoot you, or stab you.  Which way do you want it?"  Such kindness. 

Dominate. Intimidate. Control.

Back on June 21, 2011, I had a post up about the TSA coming unannounced to a bus station and begin their security theatre schtick here. John Whitehead has more to say about it at the Rutherford Institute website entitled VIPR Searches and the American Citizen: Dominate. Intimidate. Control. Sipsey Street and War on Guns have also featured this author's piece, and I recommend you read them as well over in the side bar. The danger, as Whitehead sees it, is that we are being conditioned to accept a police state by a slow, but steady diet of violations of our persons and papers in open violation of our Constitution rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The transition to a police state will not come about with a dramatic coup d’etat, with battering rams and marauding militia. As we have experienced first-hand in recent years, it will creep in softly, one violation at a time, until suddenly you find yourself being subjected to random patdowns and security sweeps during your morning commute to work or quick trip to the shopping mall.

Perhaps you have yet to experience the particular thrill, and I use that word loosely, of being manhandled by government agents, having your personal possessions pawed through, and your activities and associations scrutinized. If so, not to worry. It’s only a matter of time before more and more Americans will experience such a military task force knocking at their door. Only, chances are that it won’t be a knock, and they might not even be at home when government agents decide to “investigate” them. Indeed, as increasing numbers of Americans are discovering, these so-called “soft target” security inspections are taking place whenever and wherever the government deems appropriate, at random times and places, and without needing the justification of a particular threat. Worse, not only is this happening with the blessing of the Obama administration but at its urging.

What I’m describing--something that was once limited to authoritarian regimes--is only possible thanks to an unofficial rewriting of the Fourth Amendment by the courts that essentially does away with any distinctions over what is “reasonable” when it comes to searches and seizures by government agents. The rationale, of course, is that anything is “reasonable” in the war on terrorism. What the powers-that-be understand--and Americans remain oblivious to--is the fact that by constantly pushing the envelope and testing the limits of what Americans will tolerate, the government is thus able to ratchet up the level of intrusiveness that Americans consider reasonable.

Further down, Whitehead explains that:

VIPR is the first major step in the government’s effort to secure so-called “soft” targets such as malls, stadiums, bridges, etc. In fact, some security experts predict that checkpoints and screening stations will eventually be established at all soft targets, such as department stores, restaurants, and schools. Given the virtually limitless number of potential soft targets vulnerable to terrorist attack, subjection to intrusive pat-downs and full-body imaging will become an integral component of everyday life in the United States. As Jim Harper of the Cato Institute observed, “The natural illogic of VIPR stings is that terrorism can strike anywhere, so VIPR teams should search anywhere.”

The flaws in this jackbooted thug's wet dream should be obvious, but in case they are not, let me explain. First, as with police officers, the TSA can not be everywhere at all times, even if that was desirable. And it is not.  Imagine that you are taking the family out for a treat to an Applebees, only to discover that TSA has set up a security theatre operation there. Most people would just drive on by, and go to Ruby Tuesday or Friday's instead. Would Applebee's be somewhat upset at the lost profits? Yeah, I think they might just be. Same goes for Wal Marts, or Shopping Malls, and most other such venues where people have a choice to go or not.  Most terrorist would be even more alert to avoid such places.  So, while the TSA is harassing Americans who have never contemplated shooting up their friends and neighbors, terrorists will be able to easily evade detection.

Second, the venues mentioned are not within the Federal Governments mandate, but in the State's mandate. It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court saw fit to uphold drunk driving checkpoints (see here.) It was yet another balancing test of the desirability of catching drunk drivers versus the inconvenience to the general public. But the 4th Amendment doesn't have any balancing test; it gives a general command not search people without a warrant or probable cause.  In any case, I am sure that will be used at some point to argue that security theatre operations are also legal when the "goal" is to stop terrorists.  I am not a lawyer, nor a Constitutional scholar, but so far I am still allowed an opinion, and in my opinion, this case was wrongly decided.  It would be better to have someone out there driving under the influence, than to have everyone's rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures absent any probable cause be destroyed.  Of course, a full scale security theatre operation inconveniences the citizen more than a checkpoint, but then if time is the defining point, how much time is acceptable, and how much time is clearly beyond the pale?

Third is the cost.  We are at the moment debating whether to raise the debt ceiling to cover the deficits the government has been running.  Now here comes John Pistole wanting $110 million, up from an exorbitant $30 million in 2009.

It is up to us, the citizens of the States, to resist this police state action at every turn.  Short of shooting the bastards, you can do your best to humiliate them in return.  Loudly crack jokes about the "testicle squeezing agency" if you see a TSA agent in uniform away from his place of work.  Crack jokes about the latest outrage.  Call them perverts for sexually assaulting little girls or boys.  If you have one living in your neighborhood, place a sign in his front lawn with something like "A Jackbooted Thug lives here."   Make them hate their job, and feel ashamed of what they are ordered to do.  When you go through the airports, don't tell others it wasn't as bad as you thought.  It was bad.  If a stranger on the street came up to you and wanted to run his hands over your body, you would be deeply offended, and if he did it, you would have him or her arrested.  It is really no different when someone puts on a state costume and does it.  You have a right to be offended.  Be offended.

Be offended.

These security theatre operations are designed to numb the citizens to police state actions.  They are designed not to provide actual security, something they could never actually accomplish, but to change the relationship between you, the citizen, and the State.  They are designed to eventually dominate, intimidate, and control you.  In the eyes of the elites, YOU are the terrorist.  Indeed, this administration doesn't even see an enemy abroad.  It sees YOU as the enemy.   

Update: Ron Paul has introduced a bill to turn airport security over to private screeners here.

Jackbooted Thugs Step on People's Rights-People Say "Thankyou, can I have another"

Once again we read of innocent Americans being patted down and groped, their luggage gone through, and their rights violated in the American Thinker article of 20 June 2011 entitled TSA Now Storming Public Places 8.000 Times a Year, by Tara Servatius.

Americans must decide if, in the name of homeland security, they are willing to allow TSA operatives to storm public places in their communities with no warning, pat them down, and search their bags. And they better decide quickly.

Bus travelers were shocked when jackbooted TSA officers in black SWAT-style uniforms descended unannounced upon the Tampa Greyhound bus station in April with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and federal bureaucrats in tow.

I am always surprised at how readily people seem to buy into this kind of "security theater," and how quickly they are ready to give up their rights for the illusion of safety. Nobody wants to push back, since that will involve some discomfort and inconvenience.  Didn't anybody object to being groped at the bus station? The guy ABC news interviewed was a pretty articulate guy.  Do the views he expressed represent most of the people on the bus?  Is this really so noncontroversial that ABC felt no obligation to present the other side, and is it truly that difficult to find someone to speak for the other side? Was there no opposing view to show? Or was this an advertisement by the State controlled media for the latest installment in the "Resistance is Futile" show.

First of all, there was no basis for these agencies looking at either the passengers or their belongings, by their own admission. There was no claim of a credible threat, no Warrant to look at either the people or their belongings. So, the first thing we note is a gross violation of peoples' 4th Amendment rights to be secure in their persons and papers against unreasonable searches and seizures. Where are these jackbooted thugs going to show up next?  At a checkpoint on the highway?  At the local Wal Mart or shopping mall?  Perhaps at your house?  Will they have similar documentation, namely none?  Will their excuse be that they are doing random searches of all houses, to see if their is terrorist activity, or if you might be hoarding cash, gold, or silver to seize?  Will they perhaps take your computer to look through at their convenience?  And what "incentives" did the TSA offer Greyhound to allow them to come onto their property and perform this little spectacle? Was Greyhound blackmailed with the "Cooperate or we will make running your business very unprofitable" line?  Was that all it took for Greyhound to agree to the violation of its passengers' rights?

If you want to know what a police state looks like from the inside, look no further than the Tampa Greyhound bus station.  But don't believe for a moment that police states only exist elsewhere.  They are building a very solid one right here at home.

Update:  According to this, the Texas bill to limit the TSA groping, at least in Texas airports is back. Let us hope for some sanity, and a return to common sense. There is a principle in this country called equal justice. Do you remember it from school?  It was taught to us old farts in civics. Equal justice means that everyone is under the same laws. Because a person appears claiming "authority" does not give them special powers. Only you can give them the authority to abridge your natural rights.

The War on Guns: Messin' with Texas

The War on Guns: Messin' with Texas

Contrary to what you may have heard, you can apparently mess with Texas, and get away with it. That once great republic has apparently been wussified as well.

Way up North has a little more on this bill at Feds Threaten Texas No Fly Zone. Apparently someone in Texas has some intestinal fortitude, just not Sen. Patrick, (R Houston).

Why the TSA believes it has the right to do to innocent private citizens what constitutes sexual assault is beyond my understanding. If someone on the street decided to do this to passersby, they would be arrested, and rightly so. So, in asking for a warrant before the Testicular Stroking Agency (TSA) can grope an individual and take nude pictures of them seems quite reasonable.  What am I missing?

What Do We Mean by Limited Government

We Constitutionalists often talk about the need for limited government.  We often cite Thomas Jefferson's famous saying that "A government big enough to supply you with everything you need, is a government big enough to take everything you have..."  Indeed, unlimited government is most obvious every April 15th, and with the mounting debt burden.  Such a debt places us all in jeopardy of becoming slaves to those foreigners who hold our debt.  It is assumed that a government acting solely within the scope of duties delegated to the Federal Government by the States in the Constitution will therefore necessarily be limited, and the problems we currently have with debt will be more manageable.  While such is not guaranteed, it is more likely.  But there is another aspect of limited government that I think nags at nearly everyone, be they conservative, libertarian, or liberal.  That is the number of laws with which we don't necessarily agree, or find violate our own principles, that are being executed in our name.

Right now, I have a so-called "Representative" who is a committed Progressive, and who votes for things that I find repugnant to my principles as a Constitutionalists.  Oh, I write to him to express my opinions, and on occasion he writes back.  Not in so many words of course, but reading the meaning, what he usually says is that when he wants my opinion, he'll send some goons to beat it out of me.  He and Mr. Obama see eye to eye apparently.  Now, for the "But Bush (fill in the blank)" crowd, I found much of the stuff he did equally anti-Constitutional and repugnant to my principles. Indeed, if you followed Sunday's post, you will discover that this has been going on since before I was born, and getting more pronounced with each passing year.  But this is not merely a problem for us Constitutionalists.  In the next district over, they have elected a Tea Party candidate.  All of the liberals and the Progressives who live in that district have the same problem as I do; a Representative who doesn't represent them.

The solution, for everyone, is limited government; fewer laws and less regulations that deal only with those things delegated by the States to the Federal Government.  In the American Thinker today, Tom Roberson has an article entitled Overachievers with Low Self Esteem. It is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at some of the recent attempts to impose other's ideas of how we ought to be living on all of us.  An example:

Michelle Obama's weight problem and lack of self-control is channeled into a childhood obesity campaign to rid us of high-calorie foods she can't resist. The reasoning that if they don't exist, Mrs. Obama won't be tempted. Sorry, Michelle, but you'll just find something else to eat...so get over it and embrace the salad bar

Now, Mrs. Obama is free to yammer on all she likes about eating healthily, but when it is enacted into law, or policy, that is when I object. It is clearly outside the scope of the Constitution. Wouldn't it be better to leave menu choices to private individuals? The so-called "experts" certainly don't have a great track record when it comes to deciding for us. I remember when low fat was the thing. Then Atkins came along and showed that low carbohydrates were more effective. Who knows what will come next? It is better, I think, to let everyone decide for himself. But Tom Roberson says it quite well:

Now we've got a government that forces us to use detergents that won't clean, low-flow toilets that won't flush, pesticides and herbicides that don't kill, food with no taste, and light bulbs with bad light. They also want us to use unreliable and expensive energy such as solar, wind, and ethanol, while pretending that our vast coal, oil, and natural gas reserves don't really exist or are too dangerous for the environment. We're supposed to trust these idiots? "Green" has become a codeword for "useless" on product labels, warning consumers to look elsewhere if they need an effective product.

and:

Personally, I'm sick of the government trying to keep me safe and do my thinking for me. I like a little danger and excitement every once in a while to let me know I'm still alive. I want to ignore the label warnings and use a product in a manner inconsistent with the directions. I want to rip the tag off my mattress and ride my bicycle without a helmet. These trifling brushes with danger are made exciting by the fact that the elitist power set have sucked all the fun out of life with their endless rules and regulations.

Of course, there are more serious issues over which the philosophical divide is so great as to never be resolved.  Some people believe the TSA keeps us safe at airports, and are therefore willing to undergo massive intrusions upon their persons.  I do not share that belief, and instead would rather take my chances with a terrorist.  How to resolve it?  I would suggest getting rid of the one size fits all TSA and instead return to having the individual airlines perform such security as the market will bear.  The airlines will find solutions that do not involve groping at the risk of going to jail, I assure you.  Guns are another issue, that the framers had solved with the Second Amendment.  Those who believed guns were efficacious were free to own such guns as they desired without infringement.  Those who equally believed guns were evil were free to not own them, or to have them in their homes.  The framers wisely recognized that everyone took risks whenever one went abroad in public.  Problem solved until the Government began acting outside the scope of Constitutional powers.

That is what we mean by the term "limited government."

Now Leftists are Changing the Meaning of "Dignity" and "Respect"

An article in the Raleigh News and Disturber today tries to make the travelling public out to be the bad guy, and poor little TSA to be the good. You can find the article Pat-downs anger RDU fliers. A quote:

"Our officers are trained to treat all passengers with dignity and respect, and to fully communicate with each passenger to ensure they understand the process throughout screening," he said.

It is not possible to treat someone with dignity and respect while groping their intimate parts. Dogs are treated like this. Slaves used to be treated like this. But citizens with rights are not treated like this.

The Ubiquity of Evil

Ol' Remus, at the Woodpile Report has a must read post up entitled It Can't Happen Here, but it is. Ol' Remus often posts as well at Eternity Road, but I didn't find it there. Instead, I have David Codrea of the War On Guns to thank for pointing me to this one.

Ol' Remus uses Babi Yar, the site of the Nazi's great killing of Jews, and other dissidents during the invasion of the USSR as a cautionary tale to remind us that the evil being perpetrated by the DHS and TSA can be found in any population.  Evil is, unfortunately, ubiquitous as well as banal.

The "reason given for it" was security. To review, at Babi-Yar, a ravine near Kiev in Ukraine, German security units assisted by local volunteers worked day and night until 33,771 captive Jews had been "processed" in this largest of such special actions. It took two days of nonstop killing. Eventually about 100,000 others—POWs and various civilian hostages—were also stripped, murdered and interred at Babi Yar. These and other security agents protested at their trials they were merely following orders. That they did what they did at all condemns them, orders or no. That they did so under pretense of security, with enthusiasm and macabre inventiveness, earns them an eternal place in the annals of the unspeakable.

Warrantless strip searches and hands-on violation of ourselves and our kids, our sisters, wives and grandmothers as a condition of travel is something we of a certain age believed wouldn't happen here. That it's being done in the name of security recalls events and regimes we thought well behind us. That DHS has labeled dissenters as domestic extremists suggests something else truly ominous is in the making. To be clear, the only acceptable course for DHS is to back away from this. Well away. Alas, it appears they're determined to make this blunder all but irretrievable.

The "something else truly ominous" is, I believe, the strategy to transform America into a socialist dictatorship. The regime is squeezing Americans from the top down. They want us to feel as helpless as possible. No doubt many do. One can imagine that there would be many TSA agents and police officers to beat down anyone who objected to having his wife or children groped. One can also imagine that few of his fellow citizens would come to his aid.  At the same time, union officials are organizing to create chaos, like the riots in Greece and France, to squeeze Americans from the bottom up. No doubt members of the MSM have already written the stories, leaving only blanks for the names and places.  The hope is that these actions will turn us inside out.

When all this starts, we must remain calm. We must be prepared to provide for and defend our families, but we must otherwise remain calm. The regime will be looking for people to call for more security, to which they will respond with legislation calling for sweeping powers. We must stand firm on that day, that what we want is for the government to act within the Constitution.

Bruce Walker "Gets It"

Bruce Walker is another person who "gets it." His article today, in the American Thinker entitled Bombs Don't Kill People, Terrorist Do is a classic argument against the instrumentality theory of crime. The Left, in an attempt to absolve the perpetrator of the crime, wants us instead to get rid of the tools that he uses.  In this case, he is arguing against searching every airline passenger, in the benighted belief that all are guilty until proven innocent.  He also notes that the criminal himself never cooperates. If a gun isn't handy, a knife will do. If neither a gun nor a knife is handy, a baseball bat, a chain saw, even a rock will do.  As Walker says:

This is precisely the disconnect which the Left faces with airport security and passenger examinations. The danger is not that someone will bring a handgun, a knife, or even an explosive on an airliner. Properly stored and maintained, none of these will do the slightest harm to anyone. In fact, if every passenger on September 11, 2001 had been armed, the terrorists would almost certainly have been stopped. Disarming the innocent never stops violence.

Moreover, the "things" which can be used to cause injury are as endless as human imagination, and in the hands of terrorists, almost anything can be used to murder large numbers of people. The variety of methods and tools of destruction are as broad as the bored minds of evil men. Anyone who has toured a prison can hear from guards about the remarkable ingenuity with which inmates can make real-looking "guns" or very real knives and other weapons.

With the new Tea Party driven Republican majority coming into both houses of the State legislature, I can only hope for more sanity and common sense to follow. We have had in recent years, laws proposed to keep concealed handgun licensees from carrying their handguns in a McDonald's, for heaven sake-for the children, of course. Once again, the emphasis is on the instrumentality - handguns - and not on the type of persons wielding them. People who have gone to the trouble (and it is considerable expense and trouble) are not likely to be the ones threatening their children. Rather it is those who don't obey the law in the first place who are most likely to be the ones who shoot up a McDonald's.  Yet somehow these soccer moms believe that if they can keep their children from a knowledge of violence, they will be able to inoculate them for life against any violation of their persons.  Using that logic, they should also be against sex education in schools.

As it is, the law current excludes concealed carriers from most anyplace where one might have a need for a gun:  banks, movie theatres, restaurants, riots, parks, schools, including college campuses, and on, and on, and on.  If a man can be trusted with a gun, he can be trusted almost anywhere with it.  If he can't be trusted, he can't be trusted anywhere.  We need to get rid of the "criminal free fire zones" the State has set up.  But more importantly, we need to stop looking for the instruments of killing, and instead do the real police work of looking for criminals.  

Americans Learning How To Be Serfs

Following up on yesterday's post here is an article in the American Thinker entitled Americans Learning to Submit by Anthony W. Hager. Hager makes many of the same points I did yesterday, so it is worth a read. I say this because I am often accused of exaggerating; of being a wild eyed radical. "They would never do THAT" I am told.  To further queries of what, pray tell, would stop them, I get just vague notions of human decency and the fact that the public wouldn't go along with it.  If you are one of those people, and you have been paying attention the last two years, I submit that there is no bridge too far.  Our "ruling class" is determined to "rule."

Some quotes to stimulate a quick trip to the American Thinker:

On Animal Farm, appeals to necessity, subtle changes to established rules, and revisionist history were the tools used to control Boxer and his comrades. Boxer willingly accepted his marching orders until his fate was sealed. The tactics that led to his demise and the enslavement of his friends are now deployed at airport security checkpoints across America. I can't help but wonder if we've become a nation of "Boxers."

and

The TSA has released images from both the millimeter wave and backscatter imagers currently in use. The fact is that the TSA images aren't exactly fodder for next month's Playboy centerfold. Other images are circulating that depict an inverted scan that reveals both nudity and identity. But such photos are easily faked, and there appears to be no proof that they are authentic. That's little comfort to air travelers who are exposed to humiliating body scans and invasive pat-down searches. Even the stance assumed for the scans -- feet apart and hands held above the head -- portrays a submissiveness that belies a free people. Fellow Americans, our government has declared us guilty until we prove our innocence.

Emphasis mine.

It has been said that our Constitution is not a suicide pact.  Perhaps not, but any official who violates Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights should have to answer for it, and defend his actions.  Until then, it would be wise for everyone to remember that our Constitution was written for both good times and bad.  There are ways to increase airport security that do not violate peoples civil rights, their dignity, and do not assume citizens are guilty until they can prove their innocence.  There are also laws against officials violating civil rights under color of law.  It may be hard to find a prosecutor to do it, but if you do, the "I was just following orders" defense will not stand.

Update:  Yet another outrage from The Sexual Assault agency can be found here courtesty of the Drudge Report.

The War on Guns: Should those who oppose TSA excesses be ‘prohibited persons’ for gun ownership?

The War on Guns: Should those who oppose TSA excesses be ‘prohibited persons’ for gun ownership?

As requested by David, I'll pass this along to my reader, and stand proudly with him as a "domestic extremist." If David or I meet the definition of "domestic extremist," who, I wonder, does not?

Hagmann’s information, if confirmed, presents a new danger in light of the government‘s predilection for blacklists, and the stated goal of the anti-freedom camp to use those lists to prohibit gun purchases.

I say “if confirmed.” While the existence of such a memo would not surprise me because it is consistent with an observable pattern of freedom erosion, I would need to see it. I don’t say that to challenge Hagmann’s report, merely to acknowledge a standard I impose on myself before presenting something as validated.

We need to be cautious here, but if this turns out to be true, it would seem to confirm the TSA, and Homeland Insecurity not as a bumbling agency that just does not understand, but as a malevolent force trying to provoke the American people.