I love to fly. I flew for the first time in 2001, when I was 29, and afterward felt like a fool for never having enjoyed air travel sooner. In the almost ten years since, I've flown dozens of times, and have never had what I consider to be a bad experience. I just love the idea that I can board a plane in Portland and find myself thousands of miles away in just a few hours. Having driven from Portland to LA several times, cutting the 18 hour drive to two hours still strikes me as almost magical.
I haven't had the opportunity to fly since the new TSA procedures have been put into play. To be honest, I would expect that our security measures would be creeping back to a more reasonable state by now, but the fear machine must roll on, and now we're increasingly faced with either full body x-rays or intrusive pat-downs by TSA officials. While I have nothing to hide (literally or figuratively, luckily I'm in pretty good shape) I am really shocked that the country as a whole is rolling over on this imposition of our liberties.
I didn't really mind having to take off my shoes and put them through a machine, although it's silly and pointless, it's just an inconvenience. The regulations against liquids kind of affected me, since I tend to fly without any checked baggage, but I adjusted... that rule actually seemed to make some sense.
These new scanning/patting methods, however, don't make any sense. What are we afraid of? How many people have actually managed to sneak through security with explosives in the last ten years? One? Two? And for this, we're spending a lot of money to prevent... um... well, it's unclear what we're preventing.* Other than convenient, dignified air travel.
By now you've surely heard of the man who declined both a full body pat-down as well as the scan in San Diego last week, the "touch my junk" guy who has made headlines. Earlier in the year, an airline pilot raised a similar fuss when refusing the same intrusive searches. Two of the nation's largest Pilot unions have advised their members against going through the x-ray scans, citing the health concerns of radiation exposure.** Even today's most well-known airline pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger has come out against the screening, suggesting our resources should be spent elsewhere.
As has become the norm in our modern day opposite sketch America a vast majority of Americans approve of the new procedures. 81% according to a CBS news poll. 81%! Nate Silver, the polling genius at Fivethirtyeight has an interesting article discussing the reality of these numbers. Considering that only about 40% of Americans fly in any given year, and only about 5% of those have been subjected to these scans/patdowns at this point, one has to wonder how this figure will hold up as time goes by. Right now, it looks like the vast majority of supporters are happy about something they won't have to go through themselves. It's easy to vote to take away rights when they don't affect you.
In 2002, I never would have believed that our country would still be so crazy worried about the phantom threat of terrorism in 2010. Yet here we are. Still freaking out about something that kills less Americans each year than falling out of bed. Putting into place "remedies" that are so pointless, they almost write themselves as sketches for late night comedy.***
It's good to be able to laugh at such an absurd part of our lives, but really the constant attack on our freedoms (mostly from those claiming to be standing up for them) is a serious threat to the ideals of America. It really pains me to see our country continuing down this road, where fear trumps reason and all money for the social good is funneled to pointless corporate profiteering. If I couldn't imagine today's America back in 2002, I shudder to think where we'll be in 2018.
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* As usual, I ask myself, could we save more lives if this money were spent elsewhere? How about if it went toward safer roads? Or health care, education, addiction treatment, poverty assistance, veteran's assistance? How many people die from air terror compared to car accidents, addiction, or exposure? Why is our priority on something that takes so much and gives nothing in return?
** Our air pilots are already under a ton of pressure, from their industry cutting costs at every corner, and this only adds to their difficult, important jobs. Which has caused more airline-related deaths since 2002? Airline employee error, or terrorism? Is subjecting airline employees to more pressure really going to reduce the deaths associated with their industry?
*** I've been wanting to work in a Conan reference for the last week. To be honest, this whole entry was built around that clip, and I almost cut it in the end because it's kind of clunky to include it in such a serious discussion. I suppose we have to be able to laugh at these things, because if we can't all that's left is to cry.
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