I have no issue with the scan but do have an issue with the pat downs. Do not want to give someone a quick personal thrill. At least with the scan they get to look at all the bodies, with the pat down its very personal. But if they have to so be it since I certainly do not mind any search that will give me a safe trip.
Personal dignity It seems to me, gabesz, that there is a loss of dignity, either way. I agree that the times justify extraordinary measures but, speaking just of my own reaction to it, the whole thing conjures up images of another time in history when people were lined up, stripped, marched off and not seen again. I'm a big proponent of the philosophy that, as a human being, sometimes the only thing left to you is to face death with courage, preserving your personal dignity as far as you can. Thus, for example, when in the movie, Inglorious Bastards, the late middle aged, German sergeant- faced with his imminent death by being struck on the head with a baseball bat- spoke words of defiance to his captors, I cheered him for it. Because I travel with others, I cannot defy the would-be terrorists to this degree, but I would be comfortable with a country that said, "Kill us, if you can, but you cannot subdue us to the point of sacrificing our dignity for the sake of safety."
Let's go back to the days when you could smoke on the plane. The stewardesses were all hot. They gave you a nice meal and free drinks and a blanket and pillow while you watched a free movie. When a plane crashed it was because of a design mistake or pilot error.... Let go back there....
Once in 2005 i had a trip to the states, at the Airport here in Cancun they installed a checkpoint, a security guard with a metal detector & another two waiting at a plastic table they set up minutes before to manually search your carry on for who knows what & confiscate your lighters right before you boarded the plane... It was december & i wore baggy jeans & a Hoodie, dressing for comfort was a bad choice that day since i got red flagged by security for some unknown reason & got patted down 3 times & got asked to strip in front of maybe 300 or more passengers... I had to put a stop after they asked me to remove my shirt... I told them that i would refuse to cooperate until they could provide me with a satisfactory explanation why i was the only one being searched so exhaustively. Bloody idiots told me it was their job & let me board after 10 of me explaining why i had packed everything i packed in my carry on... idiots wanted to confiscate my extra batteries that i brought for my cd player...
OMG... I can believe you just compared airport security to the death camps of WWII. You really can't be serious.
I was quite serious in saying exactly what I said, which does not compare the process to death camps, anywhere, but speaks of my emotional response to it- not what I thought about it. What I thought about it was-
There has already been an incident in Florida,where the TSA agents were being trained on how to watch and monitor the scanners. One of the guards that went through, apparently his "Mr.Happy"was a bit on the small side and one of the other guards started making fun of him. This went on for a while and the guard that went through the scanner finally snapped and beat the other guy with his baton until he apologized, and the one that snapped was arrested and charged with assault.I myself think the guy deserved it and got what was coming to him. now maybe he will be a little more professional on the job.
V - even for you, that has to be the most convoluted piece of quasi-reasoning I've read in a long time. Within the same response you conjure up images of people being marched off to their deaths (after being stripped), cite a scene from Inglorious Bastards, a film with a plot, as described by IMDB as "In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis..." and then attempt to side step being called out by 4biddenpleasrs for summoning up WWI death camp imagery. It was a poor choice, V, on multiple levels, not the least of which is to those, like me, who lost almost my entire family in the Holocaust, comparisons between airport frisks and death marches is an unacceptable trivialization. Waffling between "what I felt" and "what I meant" won't ameliorate the insult. It was a poor choice of words and a poor choice of thoughts.
Just by saying that "it conjures up images..." you relate the two items. If one image triggers the other then in your mind you see them related. That's scary *L* I guess it's just a different opinion because I see nothing "extraordinary" about the measures they're taking. Security in airports should continue to be tight and should strive to be better all the time. Not just after a disaster or attempted bombing.
