Accepting the Insanity

After promising last week to get properly worked up over things that are worth getting worked up over, I found a handful of things that just really got under my skin.

However, as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t get upset. Instead, I just kept shaking my head and sighing. And that reaction is what really has me upset.

It doesn’t matter just how outrageous something is, it’s gotten to be business as usual. It’s that insanity that makes me angry.

The power-players really have so drastically altered things across all levels of our lives that it’s hard to even get upset about it anymore. It’s a new normal.

The insanity will continue as long as we accept that this “normal” is, in fact, normal. It’s not.

Take this weekend, for example. Friday we flew from Salt Lake to Long Beach, CA. Saturday we flew back. On both occasions, I had run-ins with the TSA.

Friday, the Salt Lake Airport only had two lines open both of which appeared to be only using the “full body scanners”. When I declined to walk though, I was informed I would have to have a pat-down (one of those new “enhanced” pat-downs). I said that was fine.

It wasn’t fine, but I’d rather that than the scanners, which are still full of unknown risks beyond exposing my naked body to a single stranger.

As I sat and waited for them to get a female TSA worker to come do the pat-down (which took a lot longer than it should have, given the few people in line at security), the man in charge of the scanner tried repeatedly to convince me to just go through the scanner.

Not only was I subjected to a very invasive screening, I also was essentially ridiculed for my choice by a very judgmental public “servant”.

Long Beach blessedly does not have the full body scanners, but going through security there on Saturday one of our carry-on bags was randomly searched. When I asked if there was something that triggered the search I was told no, it was just random and routine. Basically there was no real reason for it.

The longer I’ve thought about these experiences, the more upset I’ve gotten.

There will be some who say I have chosen to expose myself to these risks because I chose to fly. That’s true I suppose. There will also be some who suggest that these things really are to keep us safe.

This is the way it goes though: As things change, we may initially be bothered, even outraged, at them. Then they become normal and we just sigh and shake our heads, even when they happen to us.

When we dare pick the other option, we are told, very condescendingly, that we are wrong and why the other choice is better. Neither, in the end, is really a choice. It’s just an illusion.

Then when we question, we are given a thousand reasons that are no reason at all and with very little proof to back up their claims.

Do the full body scanners really help keep us safe? The TSA won’t comment on what their tests have shown except that they are effective. Of course they’ll say that!

During the pat-down, I couldn’t help but thinking all the things I could be sneaking something onto a plane that the measure would not have caught. I didn’t feel safer.

Even if they do their job, what is the cost? Is it worth it?

In the end, this isn’t about airport security measures. It’s about the way our country is being changed and our freedoms are being destroyed. All a little at a time, but in ways that are only just outrageous enough that we get desensitized to the madness.

Then, when we quit screaming about it, someone or something else comes along that’s just a little bit crazier than before and we just accept it. The enemies of freedom know we will.

Where does it end and how do we stop it? More than that, can we possibly reverse it?

I don’t know.

It’s tragic, really, but I think it’s very possible we might just be accepting the insanity. That is the road to utter destruction of all freedoms, I think, and I’m afraid I’m watching it happen.