Policia de Catalunya

What is unique about the US � and indispensable to the understanding of it � is that it is a country of the displaced and dispossessed: a nation which invented itself for the very purpose of permitting people to reinvent themselves, to take their fate into their own hands, to be liberated from the persecution and the paternalism of the old cultures they had left behind. Almost every American either is himself, or is descended from, someone who made a conscious decision to pull up his roots and take his chances in a land he had almost certainly never seen and which, until quite recently, offered no protection or security if the gamble failed. And what a terrifying gamble it was: I had not realised until I visited the Ellis Island Museum that one of the conditions of entry to the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries was that the immigrant did not have a pre-arranged job. This was presumably to ensure that cheap labour gangs could not be imported to undercut indigenous workers. But the effect was that everyone who came to America had to be willing to take the risk of starting with nothing and making his own way in the world. Can you imagine what the character (and the desperation) of these people must have been? To travel 3,000 miles in steerage, with all your worldly possessions on your back, to an unknown future � and all to escape from the demonic power of a state which had oppressed or demeaned or maltreated you? Not only is hatred and suspicion of over-powerful government embedded in the consciousness of ordinary Americans, it is inscribed in the Constitution, which provides, probably more than any document in human history, a literal embodiment of political values and a bond between disparate people which gives them a sense of national identity.Wow.
Read Janet Daily's full article here.

Labels: America, Exceptionalism, Freedom, Goose Bumps, Immigrants, Janet Daily, Liberty

The federal government, through the TSA, believes safety is more important than . . . well, anything. Hence, the "groin checks" we are now forced to endure in order to fly. That, or get virtually naked and subject ourselves to an intimate visual inspection, and radiation.
My new-found hero, John Tyner, stood up to them. "You touch my junk and I'll have you arrested," he told the would-be genital groper. And he got most of it on tape.

The TSA groper, who sounds eerily like Dexter (or, for us older folk, Carlton the doorman), took it all in stride for the most part. (Click here for new CNN video and you can hear Dexter yourself).
Some of the other agents, though, were not amused. It's not a molestation, one female agent can be heard arguing. "It's an administrative search."
In the end, American Airlines refunded his ticket. And the TSA threatened him with a $10,000.00 fine and a civil lawsuit if he left the airport. He took the gamble and got the hell out of Dodge. Note to John: I'll contribute to your legal fees.
You can read his blog post about it here.
Ah, safety. It is of such paramount importance that we must give up our rights and essential liberty.
But why stop in the air! What about Greyhound buses? Shopping malls? Football games? Street festivals? Block parties?
Speaking of safety, child abuse is a major problem in our country today. Now we have the ability to keep children safer: by installing a government-monitored camera in every kitchen in the country. That would curb a lot of abuse.

Then there's the issue of domestic violence. It's epidemic. Why not install cameras in the bedroom, too? Think how much safer women will be.
We could keep college women safer by stopping bulimia with cameras in every college bathroom.
What's that, you say? That allowing the government to watch us while we're naked, having sex, or putting on our clothes is just . . . wrong?
Oh, calm yourselves. We're already letting the government see us naked and feel our genitals and breasts. Might as well give them a few more jollies with a little sex.

After all, if we're willing to undergo searches of our bodies in the name of "safety" so quickly -- and the sheep-like masses clearly are -- what aren't we willing to do?
James Madison said, "The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home."
He also said, "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
A more modern-day statement, no less profound, comes from an unnamed teenager in Juarez, Mexico. Although he was speaking of drug lords rather than tyrannical government, he makes my point just the same.
"We prefer to die in one year standing up than living all our lives on our knees."

Labels: Breasts, Fines, Fondling, Genitals, Groping, John Tyner, Liberty, Naked People Machines, Privacy, Radiation, San Diego Man Ejected From Airport, Tsa, Whole Body Scanners