Homeland Insanity

A few weeks ago, I flew SouthWest Air, L.A. to Albuquerque, for a wedding. First airline flight for me since 9/11. I was THIS close to flying myself out there in a Cherokee Archer, but I thought I'd give SW a try since I had some credit, it was 1/3 the cost, and I wanted to see for myself how absurd our head-in-the-sand "Homeland Security" system really was.

I showed up late, since there's no way in hell I'm ever going to show up two hours early for a flight unless there's a damned good reason.

Declining for PC considerations to rationally profile passengers, and refusing to arm pilots out of an irrational fear of guns, are not good reasons.

The line, over 2 hours long, snaked through the terminal, out the door, and down to the middle of the next terminal. Major cluster hose. I waited about 10 minutes and was about to leave when they came by asking everyone whose flight was leaving within a half-hour to follow them to the head of the line.

Ha! My reward for showing up "late" was fitting punishment for the herd of American authority-worshippers who think it's our duty to thank the government for PC-strip-searching 85-year-old native born American grandmothers and Medal of Honor winners... And for fighting a "War on Terror" the way we fight the "War on Drugs" - namely by lying to ourselves - as if 100% of the terrorists are not easily profileable Muslim males; like our enemy's not openly out to exterminate the "infidel" and rekindle medieval Islamic imperialism. (Talk about retro!) Still, I felt sorry for the older folks standing in the hot sun.

I must've looked and acted "suspicious", because the Securitat boys shook me down, felt me up, and performed five or six kinds of spectrographic analyses and carbon dating on my cowboy boots. You know, probably because I was a clean, well-groomed, well-dressed, native-born American citizen of European descent who speaks perfect American English with no trace of an accent. I mean, it would've been way too obvious had I been a middle-eastern male between 18 and 45 years of age with a strong accent... They'd never try THAT again!

At least I didn't get the colonoscopy. Meanwhile, the cretins forgot to inspect my cell phone and laptop, which is where I keep most of my James Bond weapons. See, I don't like shoe bombs, because it's unseemly to blow yourself up with one boot off. Unless you're Maxwell Smart, then you can make that last call to 99.

Anyway, I ended up sitting next to an airline pilot. I took a nap, and after the seat belt light went off, I got up to go to the bathroom. I waited with this woman, chatting about the huge "security" line. Of course, I slipped in that all we had to do to avoid that mess was arm pilots. Besides, I added, thousands of lives would've been saved on 9/11 had pilots been armed. She agreed. But a flight attendant overheard us and chimed in, as he was preparing to serve snacks.

"We don't want them to have THAT power!" he said, as horrified as he would've been if my colors hadn't matched.

"That's ridiculous", I replied. "They already have a lot more power than that. You trust them with your life every day. They could fly the plane into the ground any time they want and kill everyone on board. And you don't trust them with a gun?"

"WELL! We don't want them to have THAT power!" he repeated, in a "pattycake, pattycake, guns are bad!" tone.

I was tempted to snicker, "yeah, you'd rather risk having your throat slit than arm pilots", but I rolled my eyes instead.

Meanwhile, the woman went into the bathroom and the off-duty pilot took her place behind me. He didn't say anything until the attendant left, but I thought I detected a "yeah, that's what we have to put up with" grimace.

"Hey, we're fighting for that. All the major pilot unions have endorsed it, but the airline management types are against it."

Had to chuckle at that, and we chatted about a few planes. I said I thought it'd be fun to fly an A-10 Warthog, and if I ever struck it rich, I'd have to look into buying one surplus when they retired them.

"So, they trusted you with bombs, but they won't trust you with a handgun. Is that about it?"

"It's better than that. A lot of our guys are pilots in the Reserves. Soon as they're off duty from a job where they're not trusted with a handgun during a war with terrorist hijackers, they go to a military base where they're trusted with a fighter jet, air-to-air missiles, and orders to intercept and destroy the same airliner they were just flying, if it gets hijacked."

"God, I hadn't thought about that", I said. "That's really crazy. Any chance the pilots would strike over this?"

He doubted it, as I figured. I told him my idea of pilots striking with their wallets, holding Bush accountable for his administration's policies and refusing to support or donate to any politician who won't work to arm pilots.

"But if we lose Bush, we'll just get someone worse in", he pointed out. "If Bush hadn't won, we probably would've run out of smart bombs and cruise missiles long ago, assuming we even fought."

I couldn't dispute that. I couldn't imagine the Gore team fighting terrorism any more than he could. I asked him if he'd heard the story about how Gore reacted to Bush's astonishment during the phone call when Gore retracted his concession. He hadn't. (Gore supposedly said, "WELL! You don't have to get SNIPPY about it!")

Widening my eyes, pursing my lips, adjusting my shoulders and head, and popping my neck a bit, I said, "Well, Mr. Bin Laden, you don't have to get SNIPPY about it". He laughed.

Yes, we might end up with someone worse. But worrying about that is what enables spineless "Republican" weasels like Bush to keep airliners defenseless, preferring to risk having to shoot them down rather than arm them. The weasel Republican establishment types KNOW that we think we have nowhere else to go, and that we think we have to support them whatever they do.

But we wouldn't lose lesser-of-two-evils Repubs if we held their feet to the fire. They'd be scared of losing their political base - or worse, turning it over to their opponent. They'd authorize flame throwers in the cockpit before it went that far.

It was a short flight and unfortunately I didn't get the pilot's name. He lives behind the mountains outside Albuquerque.

"Soon as they're off duty from a job where they're not trusted with a handgun during a war with terrorist hijackers, they go to a military base where they're trusted with a fighter jet, air-to-air missiles, and orders to intercept and destroy the same airliner they were just flying, if it gets hijacked."

No more commercial flying for 45Auto until the pilots, at least, are armed. That would be the second best solution - the first being that 45Auto gets to take his 1911 on board.

The PC morons will destroy the US if we allow it. The first thing out of the mouth of the piss-ant mayor of LA after the "alleged hate crime" at the airport, is that it was "the lack of sufficient gun control measures that caused this "tradgedy". Never mind that the rag-head perp was shot dead by ARMED El Al security. Never mind that refusal to profile the bastards who want to destroy us will lead to more of same. My bet is that security checkpoints will now be set up at the entrance to the terminal as well as at the departure wings.

The last thing the one-worlder, socialist PC creeps want is for firearms to be seen as helpful tools in the fight against these islamic fascists. The poor deluded politicians really think that this problem will be solved if only we all just "learn to get along". Soner or later even they will have to admit that we are in a war of monumental proportions - just that it hasn't really gotten as big as it is going to get - yet.

The whole security mess is a big joke designed to make people think something has changed. A friend of mine took his aunt to the airport earlier this week - she's 82, in bad health, and uses a walker. Guess who got picked out for the big messy luggage search (which was then searched by a man who looked 80 himself and kept forgetting where he had already checked). And then guess who got picked out for the big shakedown at the gate. If you guessed the 82 year old woman both times, you were right. My friend was outraged (justly so) and said some foolish things before he left.

They scan you with other machinery, and if it's in your knee, for instance, they have you pull up a pant leg. I imagine this is a real problem for all the infantrymen who still carry bullets in their butts.

It doesn't matter what rules they pass, when the average person conducting the screening has an IQ that exempts him from execution in this country.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

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