I will never fly in this country again.
POSTED BY: dragonwine
UPDATED: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 15:39
VIEWED: 3742
PAGE 1 of 3
Where will it end. We cower in fear and hand over all our freedoms.
My brother served 2 years in the army, stationed in Germany with tours in Afghanistan and Kosovo.
Now he works as a baggage handler at a Southern California airport which I will never go to again.
According to my brother the second you hand over your luggage it is no longer your property, it's his. The TSA is just a new form Gestapo...Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia are alive and well right here. Whats next, check points and people stopping us on the sidewalk to see our "papers"?.
All hail the Department of Homeland Insecurity. I sure don't feel safer, do you?
In my brother's words he feels like God, but really he's just a high school drop out who mangaged to get his GED then had to join the army because he couldn't hold a job. LOSER! With a god complex!
And of course this new pat down that is all over the news. If your are a loser or pervert that likes to grope people, in public, and get away with it....not to mention paid...then we have the job for you. I feel sorry for the women who have perhaps been previously molested our violated and yet have to relive it all over again.....at the airport!! I also feel sorry for those in this job who find it just as uncomfortable....my advice....get another job!! I wonder if they stop at adults or will we all be subjected to wonderful displays of public child molestation. I can see Michael Jackson dusting off his resume right now. Well I'm not prepared to take that risk, my 9 year old daughter will not fly again either.
Due to high crime, and the criminals that seem to have more rights than your common citizen, we are somtimes prisoners in our own homes...homes we are not allowed even to defend. Now due to faceless terrorists we are prisoners in our own nation. And since we can't sem to find the terrorists out there we will just have to find them here, whether they're here or not.
It's no longer a country of the free, unless you can afford it. This is a contry of the demeaned, violated and subjagated (damn where's spell checker). And by now any that have read this far will be suggesting I go find a better country.....can't, this plague is worldwide. We are doomed, who's flying this thing?
In any event, thanks for letting me rant. This Thanksgiving has been, for me, quite the living hell.
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It's a nothing part til you don't got one, then you have to go to ebay.....aaaaagh!
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Quote:
Originally posted by dragonwine:
Where will it end. We cower in fear and hand over all our freedoms...
I can't quite see things as grimly as you've painted, but it is getting worse. "Living hell" though? I can think of a few other places in the world that might make a more valid claim to that. (Iraq, or Afghanistan perhaps?)
Quote:
Originally posted by dragonwine:
..We are doomed, who's flying this thing?
Oh right, that would be us. Seriously, we've really moved past the place where we can complain that our government doesn't represent us. If we're going to change direction we're going to have to convince the red states that things need to change. They seem to like the Gestapo approach so far.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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I gratefully give up some freedoms to ensure that the plane I'm flying on doesn't have a bomb on it.
As for your bags not being yours once you check it? I think it's great. Once again, let's make sure no one is checking a bomb.
We are at war and there are many people living in our country that want to terrorize us. Unfortunately, that's just the way it is.
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Quote:
Originally posted by dragonwine:
And by now any that have read this far will be suggesting I go find a better country.....can't, this plague is worldwide.
Actually, this is pretty much only in the US. I know for a fact that in Canada, we've turned down *many* 'suggestions' that the US has 'asked' us to do with regards to these types of things.
On a similar note, there is clearly a large schism between the US and the rest of the world. I've been watching it for about a decade now and the gap has just gotten larger (especially in the past couple years).
I expect this to continue. And I thank all the world leaders for there wisdom in creating and continuing this.
But, I definitly respect your decision not to fly again. After all, there's the train and bus. And if you want to go worldwide you could go to Canada or Mexico and fly from there.
Best of luck for a better week
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"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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@dietcoke:
"They that can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin 1706 - 1790
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"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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"Give me Convenience or Give Me Death."
-The Dead Kennedys - 1987
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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So the red states like the Gestapo approach? What a load of crap. Where exactly in red states are all the kick-ass SWAT teams? Metropolitan areas - those little islands of blue counties in seas of red (and blue in blue). Surveillance cameras? No knock warrants? Blue and blue.
About two years ago, former Vice President Gore was searched twice while travelling by air. If this doesn't paint the TSA as a bunch of morons, I don't know what will. The man was at the highest level of government (and did a great guest spot on Futurama) and he gets searched. Morons. I may never fly again.
To the pissing and moaning brigade: If you pot-smoking hippies ever decide to do something constructive instead of joining hands, writing poetry, sending positive energy all over the world, etc., why not help make certain that the provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to sunset actually do sunset or try to repeal the whole stupid thing.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
...Convenience...
What convenience?
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"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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Quote:
Originally posted by wildbill:
If you pot-smoking hippies...
I love it when people call others "pot-smoking hippies" as attempt at an insult, when that movement had many benifits. Ones that are being taken away right now... at least in the US.
Quote:
Originally posted by wildbill:
...ever decide to do something constructive instead of joining hands, writing poetry, sending positive energy all over the world, etc.,
And how is this not constructive? Sending the message of love instead of dropping bombs is always a good thing. It's just not the only thing one should do.
Quote:
Originally posted by wildbill:
...why not help make certain that the provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to sunset actually do sunset or try to repeal the whole stupid thing.
Of course this should be repealed. But, people have tried to get the word out on this before and the people that would even listen were few and far between.
Of course this is something that should be done and is a wonderful idea in theory. But in practice, how receptive has GW been to protests, etc in the past? He said (paraphrase), "I don't base my policies on focus groups." when speaking about the *mass* protests against the current Iraq invasion. So, what'd you think he's going to say about a little lobbying about some obscure law that most don't even know what it does?
On a last note, perhaps you should word things in a... less aggressive tone. You catch more flies with honey...
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"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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Should we really be surprised that the guy who emulates Jayne is going to say anything different?
The "pot-smoking hippies" aren't the ones doing anything about the patriot act anyway. They don't do too much in the political arena.
There are plenty of people (rep's and dem's, mainly dem's) who are working to repeal the patriot act though. It seems when you realize that talking about things is doing something, then you will realize that you've already joined what you so affectionately call the pissing and moaning brigade. By telling other people to stop their moaning, you've joined them. Ha ha.
Fortunately, for the majority of the world, we realize that we're just having a normal discourse, (we're educating and changing perspectives... a very important thing) so we aren't really threatened by name-callers, who call others names in an effort to get them to stop expressing opposing views. It's ones of the devices used by weaker debaters in their attempt to win an argument.
I like that Ben Franklin quote too. I was actually thinking it in my mind when I read one of the first posts, then I saw it posted... coincidence? I doubt it.
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Inara: Who's winning?
Simon: I can't really tell, they don't seem to be playing by any civilized rules that I know.
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