Fighting Sycophantic, TSA-loving Liberals In Line @ LAX
Scribbled hastily at the gate, 2014
The scene: LAX security. The time: 30 minutes ago.
This is fresh in my memory so I’m going to type this out as fast as I can…
The only reason there is anything of story-value that comes out of my TSA encounters is that it’s different every time.
And it’s different every time because the TSA has no idea what they’re doing. Literally, they just make it up as they go. You know who else does that? Piranhas and slugs. They just make everything up as they go too.
That was the scene today when I was told to turn on my laptop, as per the new rules for jetsetting terrorists that went into effect this summer (In short: They won’t let you through security unless you can turn on your laptop and show it’s real. No kidding.)
I turned on my computer. This, naturally, brought up the password prompt. The TSA woman told me to enter my password. I told her no. She told me to enter my password again. I told her no.
“That’s not the rule, and you know it. Get your boss.”
She left to confer, came back, closed my laptop, and pushed my bins toward the X-ray. Her silence was glorious.
“Don’t make up rules. The public hates you enough as it is.”
She walked away, indignant. This is the second time I’ve insulted them into taking flight. Bad pun, but anyway… They’re not supposed to leave me unattended.
That wasn’t even the fun part
As I waited, unattended, to go through the body scanner, a sweatered 30-something in front of me starts talking.
“Just… just let them do their jobs. They’re here for all of us.”
I held up my boarding pass, and showed him the “SSSS”.
“I get these every time I fly. I’m flagged because of my politics, and a misdemanor crime from years ago.”
He didn’t get it.
“I get the same thing,” he said. “I don’t agree with a lot of the terrorist, Patriot Act stuff and all that but just let them do their job.”
“Not putting up any resistance to this will pave the way to make it worse. If you knew why I was their List, you would know this isn’t about airline safety.”
I really wanted him to ask why I was on The List. Mostly because it’s hilarious.
“I get on their list sometimes too…”
(This guy really wasn’t getting it.)
“… and I don’t attack them or say what I’m thinking, I just let them do their job and go on my way.”
“No, you don’t get it.” I said. “They put me through this because I have a property crime conviction from years ago. If we let this kind of political profiling go un-confronted, that’s how it gets worse. It may be feeble, but it’s something.”
“I have the same politics as you. I don’t like unchecked government and all this stuff going on, but insulting someone isn’t the right way to make change.”
God this guy was dense. He still hadn’t asked what my “politics” were, or why I received rockstar TSA treatment.
He went on and on about how liberal he was and how we were on the same team.
As I stood there, I looked at him, then at the TSA agents, and thought: side-by-side, I have more contempt for a fake liberal in a sweater than the guy with the badge.
The end.
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“Covered more here.”
You forgot the link. Unless you meant “somewhere around this site”. 🙂
“Side-by-side, I have more contempt for a fake liberal in a sweater than the guy with the badge.”
Bingo!
Indeed he was dense. Calling them out on their BS making up the rules isn’t being insulting.
Yes. I fear my fellow Americans more than the guys in badges, because my fellow Americans say “just let them do their jobs.”
“The first responsibility of every American is to question authority” ~ Benjamin Franklin
I think you’re confusing “Liberal” with “Libertarian”.
YOU, sound like a Libertarian
HE, sounds exactly like a Liberal
Wait… so as a photograph of a smug liberal you picked Rick Santorum?
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/rick-santorum
That does not compute.
Busted.
It occurs to me that the fake liberal in a sweater may actually been a planted Air Marshal or other Fed trying to get you to say something. Unlikely, unless he was eventually on your flight, but you never know.
I fly a lot. Air Marshals usually show up dressed like street bums, sit in first class seats, and act extremely arrogant. They’re so easy to spot, it’s ludicrous.
And the back row is often used by state police to transport prisoners. Very interesting.
Getting on a list because of a property crime isn’t political persecution. It’s BS, sure, but it’s not political unless there was something particularly political about the property you damaged?
It was an activism-related property crime, it was the politics of the crime that got him on the list, not just the crime itself.
I’m sorry, were you supposed to come off as the good guy in this story? Because you kind of sound like a dick. I have personally never heard of “the list” before reading this blog. I also had no idea what “SSSS” on the boarding pass means.
So instead of waiting for him to ask about you being put on the list, you could have just told him. And you could have explained what the SSSS means.
The “liberal” had a go at him. He was under no obligation to play nice in response.
The paid clown in question was making up rules and throwing her weight around, he called her out on it and he won because he was right. Clueless dude in line with him made assumptions that weren’t true, didn’t fully listen to the explanations, and just didn’t understand that our unnamed blogger gets hassled way more (and way more unreasonable) than clueless dude could ever imagine. Blogger never called the paid clown a “paid clown” to her face. The first half of his “insult” was “don’t make up rules”. Valid. She tried to claim he was required to enter his password, she was wrong. There was no name-calling, no value judgement, just a concise 4-word request/suggestion that called her out for what she did wrong. The second part was “the public hates you enough as it is”. Valid. He didn’t say “I hate you and here’s all the reasons why”, he pointed out that a lot of people have a lot of legitimate problems with the way these paid clowns half-ass their way through their job and generally harrass people when they think they can get away with it, so making up rules and wasting everyone’s time by being even more of a tight-ass than they already are is doing EVERYONE a disservice. But he was in line at an airport and probably didn’t want to launch a lengthy dissertation, his shorter version was probably the best option.
What he said.
It is more about age. Some people loose the will to resist and value security too much. What did he do to get flagged?
I don’t think he ever did get flagged. He was just trying to build rapport and convince me he was on my team.