“It was Benjamin Franklin who wrote, ‘They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,’” and in that spirit, Amy Scott raises legitimate concerns about what is happening in airport security:
We can not have a temporary perspective on this. It is too short-sighted, too weak, too unAmerican to cede our Constitution because of some Uzi toting cave man with no running water in the Middle East.
Read Part I
Read Part II
This will probably come across as hugely annoying, but oh well….
Who’s to say that anything the TSA does is an infringement on our liberty? That is, isn’t liberty infringement forcing someone to do something they do not want to do? While those who oppose the TSA’s security procedures say that those procedures are an infringement on liberty, what they don’t seem to realize is that they’ve used their liberty to choose to be subjected to the body scans and pat downs in the first place. In other words, flying in a airplane is not an “essential liberty,” at all. No one is forcing us to fly, and thus be subjected to intrusive security procedures. Franklin’s quote applies, then, to people and situations where the government enters our lives forcibly, when we have no other choice in the matter. That really is not at all what is going on with the TSA in airports. As Joe Carter recently said, you can still go Greyhound.
Ryan, It seriously doesn’t come across as hugely annoying. This is the kind of input that helps me think about both sides of the issue.
Amy’s position is that her husband must fly for his job.
I’m not totally persuaded of your position. But, I think it is very helpful to the discussion.
Yo Chris. Glad to hear I am not as annoying as I think I am.
I think Amy’s point is a good one and points out the incredible inconvenience that flying has become. Still, I don’t see how she, or even her husband, has had liberty denied. Yes, her husband works as a pilot and now must go through body scanners or pat downs. But is the government forcing him to remain a pilot? Isn’t he completely free to quit his job and take another one? She would have to prove that flying is a “right” to actually make her case convincing.
I think it should also be mentioned that many jobs require that we give up privacy in order to get said job. For example, to get a job at a grocery store when I was 20, I had to agree to be subjected to an all-too-personal drug test. While I didn’t have to take the job, I wanted it and decided that it was worth it to give up some of my privacy.
Just so we’re clear, the day the government comes to my house and forces me to take a drug test or pats me down, I’ll start yelling along with everyone else.
Joe Carter argues it much better than I do in a piece over at First Things (read the comments too):
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/11/in-defense-of-the-tsa