It is primarily libertarians who are raising the issue of the TSA body scanners and pat downs, from Lew Rockwell.com to Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox Business channel. But one ironic fact that this all highlights is how 'unlibertarian' the bulk of both Republicans and Democrats are.
Bob Cesca of the Huffington Post makes the point:
But the opposition isn't making much of a dent in terms of rolling back this unconstitutional security measure: a new CBS poll released today shows that 81 percent of Americans favor the use of the scanners. Sad.
It's not a stretch to suggest that the post-9/11 fear-mongering and massively exaggerated anti-terrorism hysteria created this supermajority of acquiescence to flagrant government overreach and violations of privacy and personal dignity.
And who's to blame for the fear-mongering? People like Matt Drudge, of course, who aided in the effort to scare the crapola out of us about the so-called "terrorist threat."
Drudge, along with Rush Limbaugh, Fox News Channel and the highest ranking Republican officials in Congress, demanded that all of Washington buy into the notion that you can't have a Constitution if you're dead. How do we know this? Well, because they actually said it. Over and over. A few examples for the record:
"You have no civil liberties if you are dead." -- Senator Pat Roberts, R-KS
"None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead." -- Senator "Big John" Cornyn, R-TX
"Our civil liberties are worthless if we are dead! If you are dead and pushing up daisies, if you're sucking dirt inside a casket, do you know what your civil liberties are worth? Zilch, zero, nada." -- Rush Limbaugh
I should note here that all of this was said at a time when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress, so big government and dangerously over-the-top violations of constitutional rights and civil liberties were a-okay with the far-right. Now, in 2010, these very same Republicans are insisting that "Big Sis" and the "little black man-child" are forcing us to "grab the ankles" and submit to Muslim fascist Nazi policies. Never mind that all of these policies were invented by Republicans and ballyhooed by Drudge in an atmosphere of manufactured fear during conservative control of, well, everything. In fact, Janet Napolitano's predecessor, Bush administration Homeland Security Secretary Michael "Shirt Off" Chertoff runs a security consulting firm whose clients include the manufacturers of the naked body scanner machines.
Throughout the duration of the Bush years, any opposition voices to these policies were shouted down as being "terrorist sympathizers" who are undermining American security and endangering the troops, while evildoers were lurking under our beds like jittery suicide-toe-monsters ready to spring forth and crash airplanes into our feet. In those years, "patriotism" was defined by the speed and vigor by which we gave up our civil liberties in lieu of a lot of extra security (to paraphrase the famous and overused quotation).
Most Americans are still trapped in this nationwide panic room despite the reality of the so-called "terrorist threat." Again, 81 percent support for the body scanners, even though, contrary to the Bush Republican bed-wetting, there is no terrorist threat. It simply doesn't exist as a serious danger to you or your family.
Let's compare and contrast. Your odds of dying from cancer are about one in seven. Your odds of dying in an airborne terrorist attack, according to the very liberal Wall Street Journal, are one in 25 million (your odds of being hit by lightning are one in 500,000). Yet throughout the Bush years, the federal government spent twice as much on anti-terrorism measures as it spent on disease prevention. Hell, you're more likely to kill someone else, be convicted in a court of law, sentenced to death and legally executed than you are of dying in a terrorist attack (odds of death by legal execution: one in 58,618).
In a free society, there aren't any guarantees of absolute safety. If you insist on 100 percent foolproof protection from acts of terrorism, you should probably go ahead and lock yourself in an underground bunker and leave the rest of us alone.
This is all essentially correct, and it points to the fact that, for their own reasons, most conservatives and liberals (and therefore most Republicans and Democrats) value security, of one kind or another, over liberty. Only a minority of 'liberty-minded', small-government, Jeffersonian libertarians find what the TSA really objectionable.
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