The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

A Shot To The Dome Of Security Theater?

Posted on | December 5, 2011 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

Roger Kimball

Right now, we spend billions of dollars on a new government institution (the TSA) which invades people’s privacy, clogs our airports, and doesn’t really do anything to make flying safer. Why not dismantle the whole thing and hire a couple thousand sharp shooters? We place one or two on every flight up by the cockpit behind some bullet-proof plexiglass. Ahmed gets restless, bang! He gets his 72 virgins. When I asked about reading him his Miranda rights, Andy suggested the perfect abridgment: “You have the right to remain silent,” which, in the circs., he was certain to do anyway.

Among the stronger criticisms of W is the whole Department of Homeland Security. Sure, using security theater as a front for a jobs program was brilliant. W bought all of the value of ‘taking action’ and helping ‘create jobspositions’ with precious little flack for Democrat-style money wasting, because it was all done under the ‘security’ fig leaf.

And yet the GOP has to be dragged kicking and screaming to the notion of scaling back the federal government. GOP: the TSA is precisely the sort of overpriced, ham-fisted, ineffectual noise that got the Revolution going back in the late 1700s. Right now the list of Executive agencies that the GOP candidates is too, too short. As the primaries roll on, the GOP axe list should grow, just so BHO can look sillier defending the Executive bloat.

via Instapundit

Category: Republicans

Comments

7 Responses to “A Shot To The Dome Of Security Theater?”

  1. Anonymous
    December 5th, 2011 @ 10:20 am

    Among the stronger criticisms of W is the whole Department of Homeland Security.

    And among the most durable of liberal lies is that W asked for DHS. He didn’t. Not until he was basically informed by a Copperhead Senate that tens of thousands of new government workers and SEIU members was their price for allowing ANY action to defend the country.

  2. Joe
    December 5th, 2011 @ 10:23 am

    We can thank Joe Lieberman for this.  And W for coming along, going along.  Thanks guys, you both suck. 

  3. smitty
    December 5th, 2011 @ 10:45 am

    Sorry, SDN: Bush signed the law, and he owns DHS as much as BHO owns ObamaCare. It’s that whole Executive thing, you see.

  4. Andrew Patrick
    December 5th, 2011 @ 10:58 am

    Tossing the blame potato about is a waste of time. The real question is: can we get rid of the fucking thing?

    You can’t tell me that replacing pat-downs and 3-0z. containers with a gunner in the cockpit wouldn’t be a popular action, despite the inevitable pushback from Leviathan.

  5. Anonymous
    December 5th, 2011 @ 11:50 am

    Is the DHS itself that much of a problem?  Wasn’t its creation mainly a shuffling of existing agencies?

    I’m not arguing that it was necessary, but it’s not completely obvious to me that, say, moving the Coast Guard to be organizationally closer to agencies like Border Patrol  was a bad idea.
    Either way, I think it’s a mistake to confuse the reshuffling with a bad idea like the TSA.

  6. dad29
    December 5th, 2011 @ 12:07 pm

    Smitty, you’re living on the wrong planet.  You know:  the one with responsible politicians who make decisions in the “National Interest”.

    Most of those SOB’s can’t even SPELL that phrase any more.

  7. Adjoran
    December 5th, 2011 @ 2:21 pm

    There wasn’t anything wrong with the DHS concept – the problems we discovered after 9/11 were the lack of communication between agencies and no one accountable person in charge.  Reorganizing should have actually saved money on administrative costs IF it had been done right.

    TSA was a complete boondoggle, which should have been apparent when the Democrats held out for union rights.  Medicare D was a huge new entitlement at a time the existing programs needed reform.  These are Bush’s two greatest domestic policy blunders.

    His worst foreign policy blunder – by far – came in late 2002, with the Iraq War looming.  The generals in Venezuela arrested Chavez and took over the government in a coup.  Bush sent word via back channels that the USA discouraged them from putting a bullet in Chavez’ head.  They didn’t, and the coup was doomed and Venezuela doomed to at least another decade of devastation.