This is one of many reasons why I won't fly until the TSA is disbanded. My parents are moving to Florida soon, and they're taking the auto train. I told them to be sure they don't let anyone search their belongings for ANY reason. My brother is going with them because I can't get off from work that week. But if I were able to go, you can bet your last dollar that I'd be sure to see to it that NO ONE searches them for ANY reason. This country is going to hell in a hand basket.

"If I had a child, I would not fly or I would go to jail to protect my child from being groped."

so what would you do if you were one of the 99.99% of parents who fly through screening just fine? I was treated like royalty traveling with child on my last few trips. Seriously, they treated us well. They directed him around the backscatter machine. I asked if I could go through the metal detector too. "Of course, we would never separate a child from his parent." We have a separate straight-to-the-front line at OAK. Children his age no longer have to take off their shoes. I can't tell you how special that made my son feel, being one of the only ones with his shoes on. Also I did not know pilots still give cabin tours to kids. I'm sure it falls short of what Delta did for kids in the 70's but they let him sit in the pilot's chair and operate the throttles, pretty cool.

My point is an inverse of Radley's observation that libertarianism Happens To People. If the majority of people are treated well, or at least OK, then it won't happen.

So what's the good little TSA activist to do in the face of friendly and reasonable customer service agents? Agitate anyway, use the kid as a pawn?

It's the same feeling I get when I show up at elementary school after reading a bunch of Free Range Kids. I called to make sure ninja swords were banned (part of the Halloween costume.) To my surprise they were allowed. Plastic swords at a public school, how reasonable.

So you got them to irradiate your kid instead of groping him with nothing but their oh-so-reliable word that they're done storing naked pictures and can totally assure you that they've caught all of the pedophiles they've employed in the past. All so they can show a record of having caught zero terrorists in over a decade of operation. But at least the idiots in blue made your kid feel special by allowing him to keep his shoes on. Hoo-fuckin-ray. The experience by 99.9% of the families who go through security is not acceptable just because it is easy.

so what would you do if you were one of the 99.99% of parents who fly through screening just fine?

I wonder how often house slaves asked field slaves a similar question.

So because Uncle Creepy didnt finger fuck your baby, it perfectly fine that he did it to some one else's child?

"...so what would you do if you were one of the 99.99% of parents who fly through screening just fine? I was treated like royalty traveling with child on my last few trips. Seriously, they treated us well."

Okay. Here you are: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it." --Abraham Lincoln, letter to H.L. Pierce, April 6, 1859

Congratulations on your success, training your son that he is better than those other people.

When, not if, you find you cannot live without official permission of some kind, you need only look in a mirror to find out how it happened.

The irony here is that most people only see themselves when they do that...

Go ahead and beat on an ally but I'm going to re-state the point anyway because, well because that's what people do when they miss/ get misunderstood on the internet.

The reason this issue isn't gaining more traction in the general population (bring this up around a water cooler full of coworkers who don't read the agitator) is because most people get treated well most of the time. Until they realize they aren't special and get their rights trammeled in some way they will not ever have much sympathy for your cause.

Next point: puppycide is wrong. So I get pulled over for speeding, cop is respectful, should I use this as an opportunity to rail against the system? That's a little bit Che shirt.

And no, not right on Raddy, you've completely missed the target.

You really think going through the family line is "deny[ing] freedom to others?" Well good luck convincing parents to be to forego circumcision by calling it genital mutilation.

People like me are not your problem, nobody who's been here for years needs convincing. It's your coworker in the next cube. How are you going to get through to him, by driving to Disneyland? Throwing a fit for no reason in the screening line?

"But the courts made a "special needs" exception for airline security."
Yup and I don't like it anymore than I like the DUI exception to the constitution. It doesn't take much in the way of balls to stand up and be anti-anti-terrorism at this point. It's bullshit to anyone who's paying attention and crying little girls in wheelchairs are sympathetic victims. Do you have what it takes to stick up for unsympathetic victims like drunk drivers? Once we declared that particular ends worthy of stopping at any means, TSA is what you get.

"So you got them to irradiate your kid instead of groping him with nothing but their oh-so-reliable word that they're done storing naked pictures "

No no, we went through the metal detector, like in the good old days, rather than the nudie scanners. No groping involved. Frankly I showed up looking for a fight and was a little disappointed when I was treated so damn reasonably.

No, smurfy. Look at more than your face in the mirror.

When someone knows of injustice and allows it to pass unremarked - and of course, the injustice is happening to someone else - it's called, "collusion".

Doesn't the name, "Niemoller" ring a bell?