Privatizing Perversion

Privatizing Perversion
by Becky Akers

We may despise Our sociopathic Rulers, but our contempt for them doesn't come close to theirs for us. Witness how they play us for fools as they prattle about "privatizing" the groping and ogling they inflict on passengers at airports.

At the height of voters' fury against the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) last November, Rep. John "the Toupee" Mica (R-FL) sent a letter to some 200 airports. He advised them to "opt out" – not from their porno-scanners, but from the TSA. And not from its atrocities or control, but only from its employees. Mica exhorted his correspondents to hire "private" screeners instead. As if that would change anything whatever, including taxpayers' footing the bill for their own abuse: whether private or public hands paw us, we're on the hook for the $7 billion annual bill.

Yet the Toupee and many airports' managers pretend that "privatization" will improve "passenger service." Right: when "the method used to search [your] body [is] on par with a sexual massage by a stranger of the same sex," it helps if the deviant who "grope[s your] buttocks" and "rubs" your "anus and groin," who "fondle[s you] inappropriately" and "put[s] her hand forcefully in between [your] legs" draws a paycheck from a "private" company rather than from dirty old Uncle Sam.

The Toupee is one of the TSA's godfathers. He claims he "helped author" the legislation spawning it – though Congress passed his bill so soon after 9/11 that cynics suspect it originated long before and was simply waiting in the wings for an appropriate crisis.

You might think that after foisting such colossal wickedness as the TSA on us, the Toupee would scurry back to his sewer in shame. Failing that, you might suppose it would strip him of all credibility so that when he opens his mealy mouth, the media wouldn't drop to its knees and kiss his butt.

Sadly, you'd be wrong on both counts. While passengers suffer horrifically from the Toupee's evil, he hasn't at all: the media's morons and statists continue to genuflect before this "expert" rather than blame him for our national nightmare. Indeed, they cheer his hypocritical scolding of his brainchild.

Which proves the sorry mess of American journalism, as if we needed further evidence: the only thing the Toupee understands about aviation is how to tax it. He's never worked a single day in the industry. "Prior to his election to Congress [in 1992], Mica established several successful business ventures including realestate [sic], communications, international trade consulting and governmental affairs firms." The Toupee knows nothing more of aviation than Your Average Passenger does. And YAP has better hair.

But the nincompoops in Congress never hold a little ignorance against a tyrant: "Mica is the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Once the new Congress convenes in January, the lawmaker is expected [to] lead the committee." Where he'll no doubt continue pushing the scam of privatization: " In the past 13 years, Mica has received almost $81,000 in campaign donations from political action committees and executives connected to some of the private contractors already at 16 U.S. airports."

How convenient, then, that " airport managers who are fed up with" the TSA itch to replace its goons with "private" ones – though they'll sexually assault us as outrageously as their federal counterparts do. "…passengers at opt-out airports [won't] be able to sidestep security procedures. 'TSA sets the security standards that must be followed and that includes the use of enhanced pat-downs and imaging technology, if installed at the airport,' said TSA spokesperson Greg Soule."

This was precisely the arrangement in place on the morning of 9/11 – though it was the FAA rather than the TSA "setting the security standards" by which "private" screeners searched passengers. The items they swiped from us, the magnetometers, their X-raying of our carry-on bags – the FAA dictated all these indignities, down to the tiniest detail. So by urging airports to return to this system, the Toupee tacitly admits his legislation wigged out.

Not even that dims his luster with the press. "Rep. John Mica … call[s] TSA a 'bloated, poorly focused and top-heavy bureaucracy,'" MSNBC breathlessly reports. Yeah, so does everybody breathing, but morons don't thrust microphones and cameras in their faces.

Meanwhile, commercial airports are onboard with the Toupee – and no wonder. Government, whether municipal or state, owns and manages them.

" 'The TSA has grown too big and we're unhappy with the way it's doing things,' said Larry Dale, president of Orlando Sanford International Airport. 'My board is sold on the fact that the free enterprise system works well and that we should go with a private company we can hold directly accountable for security and customer satisfaction.'"

Larry, either you're an imbecile, or you assume we are. This isn't "free enterprise" or anything close to it; in fact, it's as antithetical to both freedom and enterprise as Obama is. But this does set up "the free enterprise system" as a handy fall guy, doesn't it? Should another 9/11 occur, you and the Toupee can shake your heads and "hold" "the free enterprise system" and those "private" screeners "directly accountable" – just as the Feds did after the first one.

Nor does it matter whether Leviathan pays the rapists manning the checkpoints or whether the beast funnels the money through a "private" company: there won't be a dime's worth of difference because the TSA will still mandate the molestation and all its minutiae. Indeed, we don't even need to flip to another article for confirmation: after quoting Larry's lunacy, MSNBC notes that the "'TSA issues the RFP [request for proposal] and selects and manages the contractor' that steps in…" That's according to "Michael McCarron, director of community affairs at San Francisco International, one of the first airports to adopt private screeners."

Yep: the Toupee's "private" screeners have infested San Francisco's airport for years. And yet the place hasn't earned a reputation as an oasis of common sense that treats passengers as customers, not criminals, has it? Indeed, "airport officials say most travelers don't know if the screeners performing pat-down checks work for the TSA or a private company." It seems we can safely conclude that the problem isn't "private" or public perverts but the vile TSA.

Which brings us to the only guy showing any intelligence in MSNBC's entire story. Privatization " may be a step in the right direction, but ultimately, it doesn't change the fact that people at the top are idiots …," said aviation consultant Michael Boyd, of Colorado-based Boyd Group International." Indeed, Mike would have been in the running for our Genius Award had he stopped there. Unfortunately, he added, "The real problem is that TSA needs to be totally rebuilt."

Nope. It needs to be totally abolished.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers141.html