Sorry! I really hadn't intended it as flamebait, just a mild quip over the absolute futility of the situation. I honestly thought it would fit in with the HN consensus regarding the TSA.
I believe you! But comments like that are the first term of an infinite sequence leading to hell.
The main insight is we're all responsible for what follows what we post. It's a bit weird, but it's a model that actually works. I think of it as similar to how one handles fire in other places, like campsites or gas stations.
Seriously, most of these people are not "fascist child molesters" and probably already hate their job. Congrats on making them view the general population as people they detest a little more.
These are people who chose to opt into a career where they perpetuate security theater on to millions of fellow citizens, waste our time, offer no tangible benefit, and collect a paycheck and pension for the privilege of doing so.
>These are people who chose to opt into a career where they perpetuate security theater on to millions of fellow citizens, waste our time, offer no tangible benefit, and collect a paycheck and pension for the privilege of doing so.
These people took an open job because they needed one. Do you believe the people serving you burgers at McDonalds did it because they believe in the corporate mission of the restaurant? Also, all of the things you listed are not things that can be equated with child molestation. At worst they are inefficiencies in our system. Calling someone names does not get rid of those inefficiencies. It just creates more animosity.
That's the point, there are _other_ jobs they should have taken because these jobs were knee-jerk reactionary responses that shouldn't exist to begin with.
I don't support McD's however I'm sure you could be describing a generic fast food place. You really can't compare working fast food to working for the government. People work for the government for a whole lot more different reasons then working fast food type jobs. For one, it's 100x easier to get a job at McDriveThrough then it is to get hired on as a federal employee. I'm talking from personal experience here.
I didn't say anything about molesting children. You are confusing my comment there with someone else's. I'm also not calling anyone names.
At the very _best_ what I'm describing are inefficiencies in our system, and anyone who's working for that system is part of the problem.
I'm pretty sure "normal people" don't have such a strong opinion about the TSA. I'm also pretty sure these "normal people" don't have the skills or capital to just change jobs on a whim.
You're using "fighting words" which is not speech that is protected under the first amendment.
The common response to fighting words like this is a fistfight. In this case you're making a coward's bet that they value their source of income enough not to kick your ass.
A police officer might have (legally) arrested you for trying to start a fight.
Given that it's political speech, and given that I am unable to state this opinion in the direct venue - while I'm being assaulted and detained by them - I think it's justified. Or at least worth playing the grey areas if we're doing any individual action to stand up for our rights. Also, I was a decade younger.
I don't see how anything you've said supports the characterization of "cowardly", unless you mean I was wrong to say something that could be classified as "fighting words" and then not back it up with fighting.
It's about as brave as a redneck driving by some black kids screaming ###### at them. Seriously, you are characterizing people that may just check some ID's as child molesters. You sound unhinged.
I think it would have been perfectly reasonable for German citizens to make uniformed members of the SS feel uncomfortable and unwanted by means short of violence.
Is this situation different? Is the difference one of quality or quantity?
Sure, I'll take the characterization of being an asshole. But I don't see how that's much of an indictment, as the situation is well beyond the point of social decorum.
Which is the whole problem - the "breach of the peace" occurred when the uniformed gang setup shop to assault, detain, and molest people. What I did was to just not entirely peacefully assent to their rule, which necessarily involves shooting from behind trees. We certainly could use more of it, lest we want to end up having to literally shoot from behind trees.
There are much more effective ways you could protest the TSA. Mouthing off to random employees in a grocery store was clearly not chosen based on effectiveness but laziness, so don't lie to yourself about the lack of venues.
It's cowardly because you wouldn't use fighting words like this in a context where you believed they might respond like many reasonable people would: with a punch in the mouth.
You're hiding behind their own civility and restraint. The same way many women think they can freely attack a man under the assumption that many men don't want to hit a women. It's cowardly to use someone else's self-control as a weapon against them.
And you should realize that your personal opinion that they're fascists and child molesters is not even close to a proven fact. It's a slanderous and exaggerated characterization that very few reasonable people would agree with, even those that do not like the TSA at all. Try reporting their "child molestation" to any law enforcement anywhere in the world. No judge and no jury would convict them of your charge. It's not so much different from calling a doctor that checks a child's testicles for problems a molester. Context makes all the difference legally and ethically. You disagree with the ethics but that doesn't make you right. Legally there's no question that you're wrong.
> There are much more effective ways you could protest the TSA
I didn't ask myself the best way to protest the TSA, and then choose to go find some agents in a grocery store. I was there to buy groceries, which I still accomplished.
> you wouldn't use fighting words like this in a context where you believed they might respond like many reasonable people would: a punch in the mouth
I think our disagreement is fundamentally based on your considering it reasonable for someone to respond violently to a verbal insult? This is going to depend entirely on personal and local culture, and I do not have such expectation. I'm used to the response being a quicker retort, and going your separate ways. If someone resorts to starting a fight it's an automatic loss in the court of public opinion.
> your personal opinion that they're fascists and child molesters
They're patently fascist, having power due to the synergy of government and corporations. Ping-ponging between the two legal regimes is the basis of being able to force you into a warrantless search, yet still dole out federal penalties.
And they're plainly molesters - both with the rummaging through our personal effects, and every time one of their hands brushes my nuts. I personally don't have direct evidence to warranty "child" (although I would imagine they would have to be fondling them too?), but it is a concept our society understands.
>It's cowardly because you wouldn't use fighting words like this in a context where you believed they might respond like many reasonable people would: a punch in the mouth.
Fighting words - with regard to insults - is a purely childish concept. No reasonable person would punch someone in the mouth over an insult. The word you're looking for is immature - not reasonable.
>* The best interaction I ever had with the TSA was when I came upon a pair openly wearing their uniforms around a grocery store, so I was able to call them fascist child molesters right to their faces.*
I'm no fan of the TSA, but do you think that was productive?
Maybe direct your ire at the people at the top who make these policies instead.
There's been progress on that front with several Trump administration officials confronted while dining for example.
First, and more clearcut, I don't think ire should be limited. Those who voluntarily participate in enforcing the current system are not exempt from the fallout of their choices any more than much of HN would suggest engineers be exempt from the ethical decisions of our employment. Look recently, people are saying Microsoft employees should quit because MS sells office products to ICE. If that's the line in the sand we're drawing, "working directly for the TSA" seems pretty well and truly over it. (Full disclosure, I'm actually not sold on this "hard" stance, but TSA seems more of a slam dunk than office products in terms of complicity, and if I regardless put myself in the eyes of someone who DOES believe this stance...)
There's a fair discussion about "was the way you confronted them that of a professional adult" but at the end of the day, I'm finding it hard to honestly be too upset at the language used outside of a very token "tsk tsk". TSA has not had a history of treating my wife and I respectfully so it's difficult to reciprocate, and can even see the argument that by adding social friction to working there you erode their ability to push policies like this if workers go "wait this may be a bad idea that may make people really angry at us." ESPECIALLY now that there's no real legal recourse outside of petitioning congress.
(An anecdote: I was very sick going through security recently, extremely sleep deprived and falling over without support, they pulled us over to secondary screening and refused to let me sit down while they were checking my bags, ended up vomiting into a trashcan while the agent gave me lip. Turns out all this was over a pair of nail clippers the wife forgot she had packed... and on the RETURN trip.)
> Turns out all this was over a pair of nail clippers the wife forgot she had packed...
Nail clippers are not allowed now!? I fly with nail clippers all the time (including to/from the US) and have never had an issue. Looking at the TSA site, nail clippers are explicitly permitted as well [1]. Was the agent actively looking to hassle you?
To be precise: These were the type that look like "tiny curved scissors" with a ~half inch long tip that curves along the end of the finger, not the "squeeze to close" types. [0] (From my googling, maybe "eyebrow trimmers"? I have no idea. In either case, a hilariously impractical weapon, I can see how someone might construe it as "real scissors" if I'm being very generous, but the way we were handled was unacceptable.)
I think you may be underestimating the number of agents who have been thrown up on. (And the number who have had to call for cleanups for vomit that did not land on them, and medical personnel for the ill traveler, is even larger.) The thing is though, that's what they signed up for. If they can't handle vomit, they should look for another job.
From a certain point of view, it's better for the TSA agent to be soiled with vomit than it is to allow a potentially contagious passenger on what may be a very long flight.
Actually, I made no estimations at all. In this person's scenario, I would have simply enjoyed throwing up on them.
It's the little things. As he stated, the agent wouldn't let him sit down and it was over a pair of nail clippers. Perhaps the vomit wouldn't have made them blink at all, doesn't mean I wouldn't get some form of enjoyment out of it. Sounds like the agent was being a prick. Are we surprised?
I'm no slave to civility by any means, but I am mindful that screaming at a couple off duty agents trying to shop, who I've had no prior interaction with, probably does not help my cause ;-)
I didn't "scream", but stated. They ended up making the scene, I did not. We've all got pent up frustration, but when dealing with thugs they're inevitably going to try to escalate - so you need to remain calm.
I do think it is useful to influence what is perceived as being the general consensus. Both generally for public opinion, and specifically to undermine the organization's morale. In fact, that's also what my comment was doing here - given that courts have no problem continuing to bless this fascism, it's about the only hope we've got.
How much of the support for say the Iraq war was due to simple herd consensus - that feeling that you expect any arbitrary person to be in general support of it, and thus talking about it will likely just lead to an irreconcilable argument? "Support the troops" is a motte-and-bailey setup.
So you simply stated, in a polite way "Excuse me, but I'd just like to note that, in my estimate, you two are fascist child molesters. This concludes my political statement of opinion. Good day."? I'm just having trouble imagining how you politely call someone a fascist child molester.
There is a difference between exercising your freedom of speech and the social justice warrior crusading that the parent commenter is advocating.
Nobody is above criticism, that much is certain, but we shouldn't cross the River Styx into a world where random acts of violence is the preferred method of political expression.
"There is a difference between exercising your freedom of speech and the social justice warrior crusading that the parent commenter is advocating."
Tell us, what exactly is that difference? What's the difference between going up to Scott Pruitt (when he was the EPA director) and telling him what an awful job he's doing, and when Trump tweets out a gif showing him performing wrestling moves on a personified CNN? Or when he calls journalists the "enemies of the people"?
"Nobody is above criticism, that much is certain, but we shouldn't cross the River Styx into a world where random acts of violence is the preferred method of political expression."
And where the hell is violence being done? Last I saw, the calls for violence have been from the Trump camp.
It's a slippery slope to "politically-motivated acts of violence" in this country. Boom. A direct, slippery, direct path. We better watch out. Yelling at a bad person eating in a Mexican restaurant could be the new Fort Sumter.
Anyway, gotta jet and get home. Probably gonna walk past the only abortion clinic within 500 miles that has bulletproof glass windows and got firebomed for like the 30th time last week and over the past 20 years by right-wing terrorists. This is normal and not strange at all. I do it every day I'm not working from home.
The powerful political actors realized they could just physically intimidate and impede their opponents with gangs. No one that believes in a functioning society should support politically motivated violence of any kind.
Politics in this context clearly means internal politics but there are many different causes of war. Many wars have been fought in self-defense, for example to challenge a foreign invasion.
> There's been progress on that front with several Trump administration officials confronted while dining for example.
No there hasn't. It just makes everyone think these are petulant children. They ask for respect and equality of others but don't wish to give it to anyone who doesn't agree with their ideology.
