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Re: TSA Harrassing You in Train Stations Now
Posted by **fishamaphone** on Aug 8, 2013 at 8:29:41 AM:
In Reply to: Re: TSA Harrassing You in Train Stations Now posted by **comic relief** on Aug 8, 2013 at 4:09:50 AM:
****Americans are so docile about it that people in other countries are astonished to see us taking off our shoes and otherwise disrobing at airport security without even being told. (They don't have to.)
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***I observed this in Paris, Amsterdam and London. I told a couple American girls that were in front of me in Paris that it wasn't necessary, and they just looked at me with total surprise. They didn't bother observing the fact that not a single person in front of or around them hadn't pulled off their shoes, and they just automatically did what they've been conditioned to do. It is sad to see.
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***I was actually surprised when I was asked to take off my shoes when I flew out of Kigali...that was the only airport outside of the states where I was required to remove my shoes.
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***Airports in South Sudan didn't even have functioning x-ray scanners, they just did a quick look in your bag and then sent you through a metal detector.
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***On the flip side of that, you have to go through security guards and get a wand swipe just to enter a mall in Nairobi.
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**In Israel, almost all malls have metal detectors, some other public areas (hotels, supermarkets) have wands, but almost all such places will, at the very least, open any bag you have on you.
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**While I agree that airport security has gone overboard in the US, this specific "conditioning" phenomenon really isn't that insidious to me. It's on the same level as taking the turn-off to my house when I want to go to someone else's, or accidentally typing out "bagism.com/webboard/current.html" when I mean to type "badger." Security is one of those things that we simply need to submit to on an individual level, same as we pull over when a cop flashes his lights at us, even as we recognize and work to solve the systemic problems that need fixing. If that causes some people to get into certain habits, well so does almost anything.
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*Do you think it's a good habit to get into? Should it be habit to be ready to strip down in order to board a plane or enter a public place?
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*It is a conditioning to make people complicit. That's a slippery slope without a soft landing.
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*I recently traveled to Rwanda, and I spoke with people that had survived that genocide. Specifically, I met someone who had lost both his parents due to one being Hutu, and the other Tutsi. I asked him how it could have happened, and he said that it was an overall compliance. The people were so accepting of what was said over the radio, that they were willing to kill every single person that wasn't them. The broadcast told them that the Tutsi should die, and they set up road blocks and began a mass killing of everyone that wasn't Hutu. It was human nature at its worst. Comply, or die. The delineation was established based on how many cows you owned, and a million people died because someone said they should.
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*This is obviously an extreme example, but it demonstrates what can happen with people being too complicit.
Slippery slope arguments are problematic. You can use them to make any point. To wit: if we start questioning whether we should take off our shoes at the airport, how long is it until we start questioning metal detectors? The authority of the police? Rule of law? The last time something like that happened in US history, it lead to four years of bloody war and an assassinated president.
The question at hand: is it really that big a deal to take off your shoes at the airport? The answer, to me, is no. I don't know anyone who's ever objected to taking off their shoes because it made them somehow uncomfortable, including observant Jews who believe that their feet should be covered at all times (other religious beliefs I have less knowledge on). That's the point where we need to be worrying, where the line goes from "inconvenient" to "uncomfortable" (which is to say, *before* it gets to "harmful") and, aside from a few isolated incidents for which people were later reprimanded, I just don't think we're in danger of crossing that line.
Are current policies a bit excessive? Yeah. I think we'll agree that some were never necessary, and the water bottle thing gets very close to that "uncomfortable" line. But, to me, it's a worse situation to start thinking you should ignore laws you don't agree with than one where people are a tad over-cautious. There is zero harm in my opening my backpack to show the confused security guard whose job it is to simply sit near the entrance to Best Buy (not to me, but it's happened), but there is plenty of harm in my ignoring the security guard when I *do* need to open my bag for them.
I don't think the US, at this point, is capable of moving to a situation where we trust the government unquestioningly, but you do need to have some level of faith in the system in order for it to work, even when it's not working perfectly.Followup Messages:
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Last updated on Aug 8, 2013