On Monday, U.S. Senator Rand Paul was detained by the TSA for about two hours at an airport in Nashville. By doing so, TSA officials directly violated the U.S. Constitution and they demonstrated once again why the rest of the world is coming to regard us as a bunch of disgusting, arrogant “pig people”. Do we really want to get such a bad reputation that virtually nobody will ever want to visit this country? We are going to absolutely destroy our tourism industry with this nonsense. Yes, we all want to fly safely, but other countries get the job done without their security officials running around acting like a bunch of Nazi prison guards. The TSA should be shut down, but if Congress wants it to continue to exist it should be given a dual mandate. It should be directed to protect the dignity of the American people first, and the safety of the American people second. If those running the TSA don’t believe that this is possible, then they should be immediately replaced, because there are a whole lot of good people out there that could get the job done. Right now, TSA officials are treating American citizens like they aren’t even human. The truth is that Rand Paul got off easy compared to what has happened to many other Americans. As I have written about previously, some elderly Americans have been strip-searched, some have had their adult diapers removed, and some have even been left covered in urine by invasive TSA searches. If the TSA will treat Senator Rand Paul like a scumbag, and if they will brutally strip-search elderly women, than what do you think they are going to do to you when the time comes? (Read More...)
Tourism
Will TSA Groping Destroy Tourism In The United States?
One of the things that has not been considered in the debate over the horrific new TSA security procedures is the economic impact that all of this is going to have. The rest of the world is watching what is going on, and millions of people are going to decide that they simply do not want to go through the hassle of flying to the United States. There are some cultures where allowing a strange person to touch your private areas is unthinkable. In 2009, 54.9 million tourists visited the United States, and those tourists spent approximately 93 billion dollars. That doesn’t even count all of the internal tourism in the United States which is far greater. Tourism is the first, second or third biggest employer in 29 U.S. states. So what happens if a significant chunk of tourists decide that they are simply not going to fly because of the new full body scanners and the new “enhanced pat-downs”? (Read More...)