Posted on 12/04/2002 7:02:25 PM PST by Sir Gawain
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Whenever I think I've heard the ultimate in strangeness from the agents of the State, I run across yet another incident that cautions against succumbing to such premature finality. The mess that our airports have become is hardly a secret. Even before the destruction of the World Trade Center, security procedures at airports did not inspire confidence in either the sense or the abilities of those charged with keeping flyers safe from criminals, saboteurs, and terrorists. Air travelers were subjected to such "duh" questions as, "Did you pack your own bags?" and "Has anyone handed you a package?" and "Have you had your luggage with you at all times?" I'm sure such clever queries caught many an unwitting would-be terrorist off-guard: "No. Yes! Dang! Ya got me. I confess. My terrorist cell leader packed my suitcase. He didn't tell me what was in there, but I'm sure it's all good." While such pointless interrogation is thankfully no longer de rigueur, the brilliance of other procedures and policies remains unproven. The stories of abuses are legion: A mother is asked to drink the breast milk she has pumped and bottled for her infant; not a sample on the arm, mind you, but the whole magilla. She doesn't explode. A student with a jar of pond water collected for a school project is forced to drink it and becomes sick from the little nasties swimming around in there. But he doesn't explode, either. Little girls are wanded. Women are strip-searched. Old men in wheelchairs are subjected to intense scrutiny. Prominent politicians are given the hairy eyeball. (Okay, okay: the latter example is merely just desserts.) A Congressional Medal of Honor winner from World War II is given flack because his medal — signed by the President — "might be used as a weapon." A college student is forbidden from flying because "security" officers do not like the title of the novel he is reading. Tweezers and nail clippers and eyebrow curlers and pen knives and a plethora of other ordinary items are confiscated without compensation as "threats" to airline security. Travelers are forbidden to travel anonymously or to carry any item that might actually be useful for self-defense, security personnel are magically transformed into "competent professionals" by becoming federal employees, and the airlines squeal for your tax dollars to bail them out of their financial doldrums. Such a wacky bunch of guys! When a British tourist — a grandmother — had the inch-long plastic toy gun confiscated from the GI Joe doll she purchased for her grandson, I thought those playful folks manning the checkpoints had reached the zenith of their loony fun. A brief story in the December, 2002, issue of NRA's First Freedom, however, must, I think, be in contention for top honors in this Absurdity Competition. A man from Colorado had a "4-inch milk chocolate pistol wrapped in plastic wrap" in his luggage; a gift from his daughter. The screener said, "I don't care if it's chocolate, you're not taking a gun on the plane." Even the passenger eating the "barrel" did not satisfy the ever-vigilant security dweeb. No "gun parts" were permitted, either! Only after eating the rest of the "gun" was the man permitted past the checkpoint. Now, don't you feel ever so much safer knowing this kind of diligence is to be found in our nation's airports? For the moment, let's accept the screener's statements at face value and see where that leads us. Let's see if I have this right: A chocolate gun is a kind of gun. Even if part of it is missing, it still consists of gun parts. Therefore both the whole chocolate gun and/or its components are potential threats and thus cannot be allowed on an airplane. Hmm. Maybe there's potential here. After all, this screener is a representative of the State, and we all should follow the lead of our betters, right? Okay. A GI Joe doll's gun is treated like a real gun and prohibited. A chocolate gun is treated like a real gun and prohibited. I bet any toy gun would be treated like a real gun and verboten. Think of the possibilities if we extended this "logic" to other realms. Instead of subjecting myself to endless hours of teaching and grading and travel to earn my living, I could get some chocolate coins and treat those like real money. Better yet, I have a three-inch stack of play money from my childhood sitting on one of my bookshelves. "Toy gun" equivalent to "real gun," therefore "play money" equivalent to "real money." Right? Wow! I've got quite a few hundred-thousand dollar bills in there. I'm rich! I'm rich! And if I run out, heck, I can just draw some bills on scraps of paper, just like those students who got in trouble for drawing guns and tanks and bombs. Or, if an extended finger and a raised thumb can get a student expelled for pointing a "gun," I'll just pretend to hand the cashier at the electronics store enough money to buy that sixty-inch plasma TV monitor I've drooled over. And surely the State will treat these examples as the equivalent of real money and accept them when I pay my taxes... If I get a doll house, can I get a realtor to sell it for me? But I might be assessed property taxes if I do that... A Lexus sure would be nice to own and drive. I'm sure I could find a toy version if I looked a bit. Or a picture in a magazine. ' Course, I'll need to get a license for it. And a parking sticker. Hmm. Wonder how much the car dealer will give me for it as a trade-in? Can I heat my house if someone gives me a toy tree? If someone gets a Britney Spears doll, can he have sex with her? Marry her? Have her bear his children? Divorce her and ask for alimony? I've seen toy food in various gift shops. Surely, I can eat it. Oh-oh! The Prez is prepping for a war in Iraq. Maybe we could just manufacture a whole bunch of those toy soldiers and plastic weapons that cause airport screeners conniption fits and send the li'l green guys into Iraq to fight and die and take over the country! Boy. Think of the savings. Sigh But, of course, there is no such thing as a "gun composed of chocolate." What does exist is chocolate — a kind of "candy" — that is shaped like a gun. Nor is there such a thing as a "gun that is a toy." What does exist is a toy that looks like and perhaps mimics a gun. Sadly, as well (and with apologies to "Babes in Toyland"), there are no "soldiers that are toys." What does exist are toys shaped like — that look like — soldiers. Simply because X looks like Y does not mean that X is a type of Y. The people in airports or government buildings or schools who act as though mere similarity of appearance creates an essential equivalence of identity — who forget which is really the noun and which the adjective in "chocolate gun" — are in danger of slipping into a self-destructive fantasy. Conceptual illiterates confuse a word — an arbitrary label — with the concept that word represents. They forget that a word can label multiple different concepts — e.g., "lie": to tell a falsehood or to place oneself on the floor — and that one concept may have multiple labels, i.e., words, i.e., synonyms, e.g., police, pig, cop, fuzz. These intellectually challenged idiots are unaware that the meaning of a concept is not whatever they happen to "believe" it is. The meaning of a concept is what — in reality — is grouped/organized/classified/categorized by that concept. Those (material or nonmaterial) things are what are important; are what we (should) try to understand and discuss. Our (valid) concepts have to fit reality. Reality does not have to fit our (invalid) concepts. A toy or chocolate or drawn gun is not a gun. One is not indistinguishable from the other. Play money is not money. One is not a substitute for the other. Toy people are not people. One is not the counterpart of the other. Such ignorant foolishness would be laughably amusing if committed by a private citizen or even by a private business. You could always avoid the person or take your business elsewhere. But when such asinine ideas and the tyrannical policies they engender are imposed and administered at the point of a gun, any potential humor the situation might otherwise contain evaporates. Coercively enforced irrationality is a threat not only to your freedom but to your life, as well. And if the agents of the State come after you for protesting their immorality, you can bet that life that they won't be armed with chocolate guns. See Russ Madden's articles, short stories, novel excerpts, and items of interest to Objectivists, libertarians, and sci-fi fans at http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/. |
Coercively enforced irrationality is a threat not only to your freedom but to your life, as well. And if the agents of the State come after you for protesting their immorality, you can bet that life that they won't be armed with chocolate guns.
Good point.
What novel was that? Does anyone here remember?
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/101801/news.godfrey.shtml
Neil Godfrey arrived at Philadelphia International Airport around 9:30 a.m. on Wed., Oct. 10. His brotherÕs girlfriend dropped him off with plenty of time to spare before his 11:40 a.m. United Airlines flight. Godfrey was on his way to Phoenix, where his parents live. From there, the family was planning to head out for a vacation at Disneyland.It is fair to say that Godfrey Ñ brother of City Paper webmaster Ryan Godfrey Ñ doesnÕt look unusual for a 22-year-old kid living in Center City.
His outfit that day was typical: black Dockers, a T-shirt with a logo for the now-defunct Phoenix Gazette newspaper and New Balance running shoes. He has a medium build, recently dyed jet-black hair and a quiet demeanor.
When Godfrey stepped up to the ticket counter, the United clerk informed him he had been selected for a random baggage search.
"No problem," he replied, going through the usual motions of checking his bag and getting a boarding pass. Now toting nothing but a novel and the most recent copy of The Nation magazine, Godfrey hiked through the concourse toward his boarding gate.
As he passed through the metal detector, an airport security guard furrowed his brow at GodfreyÕs reading selections as they disappeared through the conveyor belt.
On the cover of the book, Hayduke Lives! by Edward Abbey, is an illustration of a manÕs hand holding several sticks of dynamite. The 1991 novel is about a radical environmentalist, George Washington Hayduke III, who blows up bridges, burns tractors and sabotages other projects he believes are destroying the beautiful Southwest landscape.
"For the first time, it occurred to me the book may be a problem," Godfrey recalls.
He proceeded through the security checkpoint and sat down to read near his boarding gate. About 10 minutes had passed when a National Guardsman approached Godfrey.
"He told me to step aside," Godfrey says. "Then he took my book and asked me why I was reading it."
Within minutes, Godfrey says, Philadelphia Police officers, Pennsylvania State Troopers and airport security officials joined the National Guardsman. About 10 to 12 people examined the novel for 45 minutes, scratching out notes the entire time. They also questioned Godfrey about the purpose of his trip to Phoenix.
The fact that Godfrey recently dropped out of Temple University and has yet to find a job may have piqued suspicion of law enforcement officials even more.
"The fact that I donÕt work or go to school may have contributed to them thinking I have nothing to live for," Godfrey speculates.
Eventually, one of the law enforcement officials told Godfrey his book was "innocuous" and he would be allowed to board the plane.
"I was pretty shaken up," he says. "But I also felt guilty that I hadnÕt realized bringing this book to the airport may cause a problem."
Another 10 minutes or so passed while he sat in the waiting area. A female United employee Ñ Godfrey failed to jot down her name Ñ came over and informed him that he wouldnÕt be allowed to fly, "for three reasons."
The first reason, she said, was that Godfrey was reading a book with an illustration of a bomb on the cover. Secondly, she said, he purchased his ticket on Sept. 11. (Godfrey bought the ticket on Priceline.com shortly after midnight, at least eight hours before the World Trade Center was attacked).
And the final reason cited by the United employee was that GodfreyÕs Arizona driverÕs license had expired. The employee pointed to a date to substantiate this allegation.
"No," Godfrey told her. "ThatÕs the day the license was issued."
The woman then pointed to another date on the card, Feb. 17, 2000, contending it was the expiration date. Godfrey countered that the date identified him as "under 21" until then.
"Too bad, itÕs too late," the flight attendant informed him.
A defeated and disappointed Godfrey reclaimed his luggage and was escorted out of the airport.
When he got home, Godfrey did what a lot of guys do when they need consoling Ñ he phoned his mom.
GodfreyÕs mother offered to call United and attempt to straighten things out. A central reservation clerk assured her that her son was not banned from ever flying United again. She booked him on a different flight to Phoenix, this one departing Philadelphia at 3:04 p.m. that same afternoon.
Godfrey scurried back to the airport, leaving the Abbey novel at home. He exchanged it for a seemingly benign novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
When Godfrey arrived at the airport around 1:15 p.m., his luggage was again searched. But as Godfrey passed through the metal detector, a police officer recognized him from the commotion just a few hours earlier. The cop pulled Godfrey aside and made a few phone calls. Ultimately, he declared that everything checked out fine. But a National Guardsman standing nearby vetoed that decision.
"This time, they took my Harry Potter book and about four people studied it for 20 minutes," Godfrey says.
Finally, at about 1:45 p.m., officials apparently felt reassured that Godfrey was not a security threat. They told Godfrey he would be permitted on the plane, but that he couldnÕt pass through security until 2:30 p.m.
At the appointed time, an escort took Godfrey through security, while at least 15 law enforcement officials looked on. Rather than taking Godfrey directly to his gate, however, he was ushered into a private interrogation room.
"They patted me down and found nothing," Godfrey says. But when he emerged from this room, Burt Zastera, supervisor of airport operations for United, told him he would not be allowed to fly.
By carrying the novel Hayduke Lives!, Neil Godfrey set off a bizarre turn of events that prevented him from flying.
[excerpt...]
I recall Penn Jilette's sarcastic comment in How To Play In Traffic, wondering if they were expecting somebody to say, "Why, no -- a swarthy hawk-nosed gentleman packed my bags for me while I ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant."
As young, swarthy, 20-something Middle Easterners go through airport security completely unmolested, and only 5% of all check-in baggage is screened, harmless guys like the one in this story get everything but physical torture. We seem to be doing a lot to fight domestic terrorism, and none of it rational or effective.
An antique (pre-1899) firearm may not require the same paperwork and FBI background checks as modern weapons, but I guarantee you that the FedGov still considers it a gun ....especially at airports.
I vaguely remember a case a year or so ago about a college professor getting in a heap trouble for having an antique rifle on the wall of his office at school, even though the rig's barrel was filled in to keep it from firing. This of course meant nothing to the school administrators, who were outraged just by the idea of the gun.
Pre-1899, eh? I sure would like to buy an original Winchester 1894, but I'm sure one in decent shape would set me back at least $10K.
Also write a letter to the local papers and a hot line call to the local TV stations complaint lines. Add to that a call to the Chicken Little Commando's Organizational CEO/Secretary or Big Bawhana as to what happened , time , date and place. Overload their complaint system with the idiots name and someone will get tired of seeing it and they'll either correct him, monitor for possible disclipanary action or fire the dumb ass.
Sadly they may also just ignore the new Federal Wannabe and s/he'll just keep harassing passengers till no one flies and the airlines go the way of AMTRAK..........aka ride or else comrade.
Stay Safe SG !!
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