Defending People

I wrote here about my theory that airport security measures are intended to remind us that we are in danger, and that we need the government’s protection. They are intended to convince us that the government is doing all it can to keep us safe, but that we aren’t entirely safe. The government holds out the enticing possibility that if we give it a little more power we’ll be safer.

I’m traveling today. While waiting in the security line at Houston’s Hobby Airport, I observed the TSA personnel trying to make the security system work.

I used to think that TSA was scraping the bottom of the barrel in their hiring efforts. But today, watching the slackjawed morons gathered like apes around the monolith, trying to figure out what they were supposed to do with the rectangular packages that the big beige box kept excreting, I had an epiphany:

If the object of the exercise is to make us feel that we are in danger and must give the government more power to keep us safe, then those people whose primary qualification is that they don’t have enough brainpower to say “d’you want fries with that?” are the ideal candidates for the job!

Technorati Tags: fear, government