After reading my post of November 13, a friend of mine commented that perhaps I am being a bit extreme in suggesting that TSA airport security might be the dream job for a pedophile. Surely children would be exempt from new procedures that involve naked photography and the full-body fondling of airline passengers.
What a coincidence, then, that less than 24 hours later, I would stumble upon the story of a 3-year-old who had a meltdown when she was subjected to a full-body patdown by a TSA agent in San Diego. The toddler’s dad happens to be a local San Diego news broadcaster, who made sure his daughter’s experience would not be forgotten or denied.
So, dear friend of mine, no, children are not exempt. But you have to assume they are confused. Parents, schools and pediatricians expend much time and effort teaching children how to guard against strangers and improper touches. Consider then those children who are properly schooled in the fine art of self-protection, only to find themselves fondled by strangers in TSA uniforms at the airport.
Of course common sense has no place in the America of Barack Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano – at least in those areas of government where they still have some authority. As if to thumb their noses (yet again) at an America that refuses to cooperate with a wholesale leftwing transformation of the United States, they tweak their policies daily, almost as though they are trying to see just how severely they can punish and humiliate the American people.
For example, today we learned that if you intend to wear sweatpants, pajamas or similarly loose-fitting leggings on your flight, you will literally find TSA hands down your pants. And in the wake of the Muslim community’s demands that their women be exempted from full-body patdowns, Napolitano has stated that “adjustments” will be made, and “with respect to that particular issue, I think there will be more to come.” I don’t think Janet herself even knows what she means (or what she’s doing), but I certainly hope it doesn’t mean what I think it means. If it does, the response will not be pretty.
The irony at the root of this madness is that most would-be terrorists on planes since 9/11 have been foiled, not by TSA prevention policies, but by passengers on those planes who did not hesitate to jump in. Even on the day of 9/11 itself, the heroic passengers of Flight 93, knowing the fate of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and knowing what awaited them, refused to go down without a fight.
Since that terrible day, the majority of us have become more vigilant, more observant, and more willing to take necessary action. Despite what one might glean from the behavior of far too many of our elected and administrative officials, the vast majority of us have become far less politically correct, as well. In other words, we know that traumatizing 3-year-olds and naked pictures of Grandma are not the answer.
Seeing Clearly Bin Laden’s End and Continued Threats to America
May 3, 2011 | Comments (0)Yesterday morning, in the wake of Osama Bin Laden’s announced death, a gentleman called a local talk-radio host to express how grateful he is to know that his son, who has served several tours in Iraq, did not serve in vain. What I urge this man to remember, what I urge us all to remember, is that even if Bin Laden was never found, never killed by our Navy Seals, none of our service men and women protecting our nation over the past 10 years has served in vain. We have remained safe for the past 10 years because of their sacrifice, and because of the controversial foresight of our former President, who stayed the course in this mission, despite efforts led by the mainstream media, leftwing politicos and Hollywood types, and our current president to appease our enemies.
While we celebrated yesterday, so did we also witness those leftwing minions genuflecting at the alter of their messiah. Don’t even bother holding a 2012 presidential election, they shouted from the rooftops, virtually ignoring the fact that it was U.S. Navy Seals who actually carried out the mission (ignoring, as well, that many on the left have for almost a decade chalked 9/11 up to an evil plan perpetrated by George W.).
Yet certain tidbits of information nevertheless trickled out into the light of day, as tidbits always do. The intel, for one, that led to Bin Laden’s ultimate demise, apparently came from extreme interrogation methods carried out under the former administration’s watch — the same methods the left, including the current president, have fought valiantly to render obsolete. And apparently the Navy Seals who took out the world’s most wanted terrorist were members of an elite force referred to derisively by the left when they operated under a different administration, as Dick Cheney’s “Assassination Ring.”
The information I find most troubling, however, relates to the fact that Bin Laden was buried at sea almost instantly after he was killed. We can’t let his burial place become a shrine, we were told. That’s all well and good, but why was he dispatched so quickly? And, even more importantly, why was he given full Islamic funeral rites before the burial? No legitimate justification has been offered to answer this latter question, and, frankly, there is none.
What I have not heard floated is the idea that perhaps this administration mandated the sacred/speedy burial in an attempt to play both sides: “Sorry guys,” they may have been telling the Islamic world, “you know we had to take him out, but, hey, look, we are honoring him according to your rituals so you’ll like us!” Already we are hearing noisy grumbles over this from so-called “average” Americans (or “slugs,” as our president allegedly called us several days ago at one of his pricey campaign fundraisers). Expect those grumbles to become louder in the days, weeks, even months ahead.
While yesterday was a day of celebration, we must today remember that the war on terror continues, and it is just that: a war on terror, not a series of “manmade disasters” or “cultural misunderstandings” or whatever foolish euphemism this administration has mandated it be called. While we may thank this president for defying his own documented opposition to the war on terror and giving the order this last weekend, given what we have experienced over the last two-and-a-half years, I have come to regard with suspicion and skepticism anything that emanates from this White House. So much theater. So many photo-ops. So much trite and artificial symbolism. And always such “coincidental” timing. Indeed how provident that this president would announce that he took out Bin Laden on the anniversary of the day the American people learned Adolf Hitler was dead — and, lo and behold, eight years from the day that George W. made his much-vilified “mission accomplished” speech.
Providence? Coincidence? You be the judge. But amid the careful timing and the theatrics (lab-coated doctors in the Rose Garden, a fake Parthenon in Denver), let us not forget this Thursday, when Obama accepts his accolades at Ground Zero for “getting” Bin Laden, that if he had had his way, there would have been no critical intel gathered by methods this president and his ilk have vehemently opposed. There would have been no Navy Seals in Pakistan to pull the trigger on the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda. And if he has way, the end of Bin Laden and his own golden words will blind the fawning masses, the slugs, to the crushing debt facing our country; to gas, and, thus, ultimately food, prices that threaten to grind our nation to a halt; and to unemployment rates skyrocketing as fast as our taxes into the stratosphere.
I, for one, do not intend to ignore the current state of our nation. Today, and every day, I will pray that we the people will continue to maintain our vigilance, as our founders urged, toward all, both foreign and domestic, who seek to harm our nation and blind us to the threat.