Ah, so--in their ever-escalating war against the nefarious forces of terrorism, the TSA ups the ante and looks at you naked. Or gropes your children.
Abhorrent? Yes. Tantamount to sexual assault? You betcha. Exposure to (small amounts of) radiation? Absolutely. Beyond-words stupid? That above all else.
These new checks do nothing to make us safer. Nothing. If you want to get a bomb on a plane, stuff it up your ass. Even a bomb small enough to fit inside the human anal cavity is large enough to punch a hole in an aircraft. In fact, these new procedures have made us more vulnerable: all it would take is for an enterprising terrorist to pack some huge-ass suitcase full of nails and C4 and wheel it up to a three-hundred-person TSA line.
An expensive, counter-productive, traumatizing, and irradiating assault on human dignity.
But all you folks who object to government agents staring at you naked, let me ask you something--where were you when this happened? You people who are justly horrified at your screaming children being groped by men in uniform--aren't these someone's children? You jet-setters who seethe and the interminable delays--where was your outrage when your government set up a Cuban concentration camp?
Did you think that you could abandon human rights and human dignity and still maintain your own? Did you think that the torture and indefinite detention you applauded would stop with faceless Arabs?
Did you honestly believe that the bell you so gleefully tolled for the Other would never toll for you?
These assaults on privacy and dignity will only escalate unless people resist. We have an ethical responsibility to speak up against these acts.
ReplyDeleteTantamount to sexual assault? Are you joking? How is this even remotely close to someone violently raping you? Talk about hyperbole!
ReplyDeleteNobody forces you to fly. You have a choice...If you don't want to walk through the scanner, or get patted down (yes, patted down, NOT molested or groped, let's be real here) then drive. Take a train if you have the option. Take a bus. Get where you're going any way but by airplane. Nobody is making you do this.
Not so much when you're sexually assaulted. Take it from a rape victim...I had no say. To him, I wasn't even a person...Just something he could use to get his rocks off. And it's left a permanent scar on me. You might get a little annoyed if you get held up for a few moments. You might get a little uncomfortable that a stranger can see your body. NO comparison whatsoever.
If you can compare rape with having to walk through a scanner at an airport with a straight face, you belong on Faux Noise good sir.
This entire outrage is just people looking for a reason to be angry. If someone actually touches you in an inappropriate manner, slap them and then slap charges on then. Til then, act like the mature adult you are.
And before anyone starts jumping down my throat, yes. I've had to go through this "indignity." Twice, actually. Neither time was I traumatized, or touched in an inappropriate manner.
i'm not going to jump down your throat at all. i understand your reaction in the light of your experience, but i would like to explain myself.
ReplyDeletesexual assault, in my understanding, is "unwanted sexual contact that stops short of rape or attempted rape."
i'm NOT comparing it to rape, nor would I ever do so. I'm truly sorry that you read it that way.
your comment--"This entire outrage is just people looking for a reason to be angry. If someone actually touches you in an inappropriate manner, slap them and then slap charges on then. Til then, act like the mature adult you are."--leads me to believe that perhaps you stopped reading after the line about 'tantamount to sexual assault'. i would encourage you to read the rest. the point of the entry isn't to complain about the TSA*, but to highlight the hypocrisy of the cheerleaders for torture, indefinite detention, and other assaults on human dignity who now find themselves outraged that their own dignity is treated as somewhat less than sacrosanct.
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*though i obviously don't like the new regs, especially in regards to children: I do think that we can all agree that when children--who do not choose to fly--get their genitals touched by a stranger because their scan came out blurry, then that's a bad thing.