I enjoy wildlife, nature, music, movies, books, history, science, technology, & gardening. My main web site http://www.ddmcd.com is mostly about using technology to improve management, collaboration, innovation, & communication.
By Dennis D. McDonald
These days if you appear to be defending the need to screen passengers before airline travel it's not unusual to get the response "Osama has won!"
The idea appears to be that by authorizing TSA to locate explosives on the person of airline travelers we are giving up the very freedoms we cherish.
I admit it's an attractive argument. I hate being searched. I hate having to give up items from my carry-on luggage that I know made it through one airport checkpoint only to be deemed illegal at another on the same trip. Complaining about poorly trained or rude TSA staff is a cottage industry; we've all done it.
I'm also reminded of one of George Orwell's "As I Please" newspaper columns from June 9, 1944 where he discussed the "playing into the hands of" argument. Here's an excerpt:
For example, if you say anything damaging about British imperialism, you are playing into the hands of Dr Goebbels. If you criticize Stalin you are playing into the hands of the Tablet and the Daily Telegraph. If you criticize Chiang Kai-Shek you are playing into the hands of Wang Ching-Wei — and so on, indefinitely. Objectively this charge is often true. It is always difficult to attack one party to a dispute without temporarily helping the other.
What's the point? The point is that in a dangerous world we have to make difficult choices. Treating poorly paid TSA agents as the enemy in a world where bad guys are trying to kill us is an easy response. But it misses the point.
I admit that my response to this "debate" is at least partly emotional. I remember seeing the second plane slam into the tower on September 11 and I remember what the smoke cloud smelled like afterwards that settled over Brooklyn. I think about that whenever I listen to shrill debaters on either side of the issue.
Have humiliating mistakes been made? Yes. Can the screening process be improved? Yes.
But let's stop with the "playing into the hands of" argument. It's not helping matters any and only serves to divert our attention from the fact that there are bad guys out there trying to kill us and that at least some of our tax dollars are being spent trying to keep this from happening again.
Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald
I enjoy wildlife, nature, music, movies, books, history, science, technology, & gardening. My main web site http://www.ddmcd.com is mostly about using technology to improve management, collaboration, innovation, & communication.
I enjoy wildlife, nature, music, movies, books, history, science, technology, & gardening. My main web site http://www.ddmcd.com is mostly about using technology to improve management, collaboration, innovation, & communication.
Theme created for Posterous by Obox
