It should be up to the private owners of airports (they should be privately owned) and airlines.

The TSA should not exist – and nor should the government be telling people what security measures to take on their own private property.

It should be between the companies and their customers.

Nor is this really about “security” – it is about demonstrating POWER.

Barack Obama could not give a toss whether a few hundred Americans are blown up by terrorist bombs or not (newsflash – he HATES Americans and always has, his mother did before him, as did his childhood mentor as did ……..), but he is interested in demonstating power (in getting people used to OBEYING).

If he thinks he can get away with it.

Simply ask the pro Obama crowd the following….

“How would you react if it was BUSH ordering his security thugs to grope you and your family?”

I don’t think it’s entirely a function of the strategy. Part of the advantage the Statists have is that they’re more willing to use strategies in the first place.

I think it works better for us when the object of the panic is Leviathan itself.

You point being along the lines of “if you lie down with dogs you’ll get up with fleas.” Certainly true in some cases, but I’m not convinced so here. If I’m bothered by some strangers fondling my wee-wee ostensibly in the name of “airline security”, and I seek to limit their power to do so, I can’t see how you can twist that into a basis for increased governmental power. Power to limit its own power? Sorry, but I find that nonsensical.

We might just have reached a tipping point where moral panics actually reverberate on the side of liberty. The heavy hand of the state is weighing more and more oppressively upon us, and people are awakening to that fact. And that’s a good thing, whatever the triggering mechanism.

In other words, libertarians naively using a moral panic strategy are likely to have it blow up in our faces.

As an example, enviromentalism increases the State by increasing the population’s sensitivity to pollution. A libertarian attempting to use pollution sensitivity against the State- e.g. a moral panic about government buildings discharging effluents is likely to result merely in more environmental regulation, rather than the removal of the government buildings.

The sexual puritans- a major group of the Proggie logroll- use sexual sensitivities to introduce all manner of pernicious regulation, particularly intervening in family life, censorship, control of the workplace, sexual harrassment laws, ad nauseam. A moral panic like this based on sexual sensitivity is thus likely to merely strengthen that statist cause, rather than weaken it. We will pay in the end with more regulation. It makes it ever harder to argue against that general body of state regulation of personal interactions when grown men are wailing in the corner about somebody touching their wee-wee. We need to dismantle their narratives, not reinforce them by using them ourselves.

Until such time, it’ll be the open road for us — and we are heading to Quebec City in the summer. (That’s about 3,100 miles roundtrip, for the Brits.) Something of a hassle, but more pleasant than having to deal with the Gauleiters at DFW.

If I do have to fly, I’m going to have a T-shirt printed with the words: “While You’re There, Suck My Dick” on the front, and “While You’re There, Kiss My Ass” on the back. If they’re going to abridge my Fourth Amendment rights so cavalierly, let’s see how they respond when I exercise the First.

As for this point, “what do we actually expect the State to do, in this real world situation”, that’s an easy answer: focus the passenger review process on those whom are most likely to be the primary instigators.

Now, the obvious question-would this be considered profiling? Allen West, who recently was elected to a political office in Florida, described this process as “trend analysis”, because there’s a certain demographic section which is the most likely group to attempt this.

The Israeli process of passenger review, from my perspective, would be more effective at airports around the world instead of the current kabuki theater which recently included a 3 year old boy being scanned with a hand held metal detector. How can this child be justified as a threat to the aircraft he was going to fly on?

Grog, indeed. That’s a very important point. The question is whether there’s a conspiracy to condition the population, or whether it’s simply a response to over-sensitivity to terrorism leading to ever increasing “security”.

The real problem here is that issue of sensitivity again. If some nutter with a bomb does get on a plane, the immediate hue and cry is why the government had such lax security that allowed it to happen. So they’re really driven to this stuff. Indeed this is my general argument; rather than a Soviet-ish model of a powerful central government, the anglo-socialist model is largely one of a weak government responding to powerful interest groups, who get their way by arousing sensitivity in the populace, or at least among significant opinion formers if not the general masses.

Who’s doing the herding?

I’m not actually in favour of any of this security theatre. My point has been why everyone is so sensitive about cock-fondling but not the rest of it. Considering there are apparently some people who may want to blow up planes, and the State will be held responsible if they achieve that, what do we actually expect the State to do, in this real world situation in which it will be held responsible if the terrorists get a result?

1-the intrusive searches started two years ago, and have been increasing in frequency since they started. This is called conditioning, and those who deem themselves as superior almost invariably perform this in small increments. Ergo, this is why Sec. Napolitano recently announced the possibility of these techniques being implemented at train terminals, et al

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/130549-next-step-for-body-scanners-could-be-trains-boats-and-the-metro-

Small steps to herd the sheep.

Johnathan, the point I’m trying to make amid this hailstorm of righteous moral outrage is the question of “why get upset about this thing rather than that thing?”.

Security checks are not new. Random checks by policemen are not new; to be anecdotal, I was stopped and searched several times in the 80s heading home from work (late, theatre work back then); required to empty my pockets in the streets for the delight of police on fishing expeditions. That was introduced by the Thatcher government. What were the libertarians doing then? Oh yeah, rushing to the polls to vote for it.

Where has been all the moral outrage about state security powers? Us libertarians have complained about them in general, sure. But nobody else, including most of the people now whining about their unmentionables, has. This isn’t about State power. It’s just junk. Literally.

It is worth mentioning that most of these physical searches are occurring because these sensitive souls are refusing to walk through a scanner that shows some bored security guard an outline of their body. Presumably they’re people at one or other end of the bell curve who think they’re either going to be ogled or ridiculed by their viewers. Well sorry folks, people do that when you have your clothes on too.

Unless you’re a muslima, of course.

So look, I’m just not very impressed by this, I guess. I started off making a minor point and said it would probably incite opprobrium, but I must admit even I’m disappointed by this bunch of big girls’ blouses screaming in the corner about somebody touching their willy and unable to engage in a discussion beyond that point, displaying all the emotional hysteria that the Proggies use over and over again…

Look at the poor little bunny rabbit! How can you let people do this to a poor little bunny rabbit?!

Well, this is where I rhetorically exclaim “I give up”. Keep squealing and watch the State grow another smidge to accomodate your ever intensifying sensitivities. But don’t say nobody warned you and I hope none of you folks are ever going to claim to be adherents of the “reason” that is supposed to underpin libertarianism because frankly from where I’m standing all I can see is another bunch of hysterics yelling that tiresome refrain SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!.

calling me a “progressive” is pretty hilarious.

You apparently didn’t read the whole of what I posted.

TSA ‘amended’ the terms of my ticket without my knowledge as a matter of deliberate policy. I did not have full knowledge of that change until someone was preparing to shove his hand down my pants.

That is no longer a contract. That is assault.