How Far Would You Let It Go?

As an afterthought to my previous post,

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

--Thomas Jefferson

The inconviences of too much liberty is that shit can happen. Perhaps an airplane or two would go down every year through the acts of pissed off people.

How far would you be willing to go to prevent that?

0. Freedom

1. No weapons (federal laws that violates the 2nd amendment prohibit carrying on airplanes. Those who are licensed to carry weapons are among the most law abiding citizens. Just think if one of them had been on each of those 4 flights on 9/11. The muslims with the box cutters couldn't have gotten one of those. Would we be in the middle of this "war on terror" if we weren't disarmed on plans on that fateful day?).

2. Metal detectors.

3. X-rays of your luggage.

4. Prohibitions on all fluids (this just occured today; I read that they are expecting it to last 12 to 72 hours. We are now in the middle of that time frame). This means no water, contact lens solution, handcream, etc. Does the American woman with 2 young children carrying a purse full of handcream really worth this extra effort?

---Now that we've gone this far, how many steps below are you willing to let us fall?---

5. Prohibitions on ALL electronic devices. No cell phones to alert people if your flight is late, no iPods to listen to music on the 5 hour flight, subjecting your $3,000 laptop to baggage "throwers".

6. No more carry on luggage. No books, no magazines, no change of clothes, no nothing.

7. Strip searches. What if someone wrapped an explosive around their penis or tits? Suddenly you would have to go fully nude in front of the TSA.

8. Body cavity searches. Next a terrorist could put a condom full of explosives into their assholes, vaginas, whatever. So boarding an airplane would require everyone to take off all their clothes and have someone of the same sex stick their latex-gloved hand up their ass.

I'd personally like to see us go back to level 0.