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by Becky Akers
Who?s more obsessed with the fluids we ingest, Mayor Mike "Nanny" Bloomberg or the TSA? New York City?s Board of Health, whose members Nanny appoints, will vote this week to restrict the quantity of soda consenting adults may sell and other consenting adults may buy to 16 ounces. Though only in certain venues: we are still supposedly free to purchase two-liter jugs of such poison (nope, I don?t drink soda. Hate it, in fact) from supermarkets. But if you wish to slurp from a 20-ounce cup at the movies, you?ll have to head for China, Russia, or some other place freer than Bloom-burg-on-the-Hudson.
Because Nanny hasn?t banned the stuff outright, he insists he?s just your average busybody instead of a megalomaniacal dictator on a power-spree. "All we?re doing here is educating," he lied. "[Compelling you to buy soda in the size I decree] forces you to see the difference."
Nanny?s got plenty of accomplices among the mainstream media?s morons. They obligingly continue to discuss the issue on Nanny?s terms ? the red herring of health ? rather than frame it truly as yet another casualty among our few remaining freedoms. One of them blithered in the New York Slimes, "With 58 percent of adults in New York City overweight or obese and 5,800 deaths a year in the city because of obesity, it is evident that some people just aren?t responsible enough to feed themselves." Yep, I?ll pause while you catch your breath. The arrogance stunned me senseless, too.
But wait, it gets better. Though avoirdupois is an issue so specific to each individual that even the socialists haven?t found a way to redistribute it, this dimwit tries hard nonetheless: "If New Yorkers reduced portion size to 16 ounces from 20 ounces for one sugary drink every two weeks, it would collectively save approximately 2.3 million pounds over one year." From this, Dimwit deduces, "A nanny is just what New York City, and the rest of America, needs." Bloomberg for president, oh, yay.
But while Nanny and lackeys like Dimwit presume we?re foolish children who can?t decide for ourselves how much to drink, the TSA runs to the opposite extreme. It pretends we?re diabolically clever terrorists hoping to blow up our flights with our beverages.
A passenger waiting at his gate in the Port Columbus [Ohio] International Airport recently filmed two of the TSA?s minions doing what they do best: harassing innocent, peaceful passengers. Blue shirts and gloves glowing (too much time near the X-rated X-ray scanners?), the duo ordered victims to present their potables for "testing." Then they waved a magic strip of paper over the liquid and dripped a potion the TSA won?t identify on the paper. (As Bill Fisher, one of the agency?s worthiest critics, put it, "Now the[y] expose people?s drinks to some unknown chemical when OSHA regulations require a Manufacturers Safety Data Sheet for any substance that humans contact"). This song-and-dance supposedly proved that passengers were swilling water, not gasoline.
I suppose it?s a weird sort of compliment: we?re not only terrorists but superhuman ones who chug toxic chemicals. Anyone for a side of ground glass with your liquid explosive?
Meanwhile, our anonymous cinematographer points out that he recorded the TSA?s hocus-pocus "inside the terminal, well beyond the security check and [with drinks] purchased inside" that area. In other words, screeners had already ogled, irradiated and groped these folks while rifling their bags. So even the TSA tacitly admits its security theater is bogus by repeatedly pestering passengers.
If you?re thinking this story is d?j? vu all over again, you?re right. In July, KJCT-TV in Colorado reported that the TSA was snooping into travelers? drinks at the gate. That unleashed a national firestorm, with taxpayers vehemently condemning the gate-rapists? overreach.
The agency?s response ? or non-response ? then was the same as now: "We?ve been doing this for years." Kinda like the shoplifter with bulging pockets telling the store?s detective, "Hey, it?s OK. I been takin? whatever I want for years."
The TSA blames this outrage ? and its ridiculous restrictions of liquids and gels in general ? on Britain?s infamous "Liquid Bomb Plot" from 2006. Supposedly, 25 terrorists planned to smuggle fluids aboard several flights, mix them together in the planes? lavatories, and blow the jets sky-high.
That may be fine for a Hollywood thriller, but it?s pretty much impossible otherwise. You don?t just mix up liquid bombs as easily as you do a martini. Rather, the components require precise laboratory conditions and freezing temperatures, or they fizzle, singing the would-be bomber but not much else.
Terrorists know this even if politicians and bureaucrats don?t. That may be why the British government?s case against the "bombers" fell apart in court: no one seriously hoping to sabotage a flight would waste his time with a liquid bomb in an airliner?s lavatory. Jurors convicted only three defendants ? and on lesser charges, not terrorism.
But the TSA never allows facts to thwart its mission of training slaves to obey, however silly their masters? dictates. Nor am I merely speculating: another passenger who clashed with the TSA over her beverage caught the agency?s admitting this on tape.
Seems that when the goons approached her at her gate and ordered her to surrender her water for testing, she outwitted them by drinking it instead. (I do hope she handed them the empty bottle with a shrug and an insouciant, "Throw it away when you?re done, guys, OK?")
Ah, but having no ingenuity of its own, the TSA doesn?t tolerate it in others. Its brutes promptly denounced her "attitude" and booted her off her flight.
ABC News transcribed the exchange she recorded:
Woman [sic for heroine]: Do you think I?m honestly a threat? Do you think that?As you no doubt expected, the excrement at the agency?s HQ supports this rank abuse, just as it did its thugs? pedophilia and persecution of the elderly: "ABC News contacted the TSA which said, ?In our initial review, we concluded that this individual was screened in accordance with standard procedures.?"TSA agent: No, no, no but with your attitude . . .
Woman [sic for heroine]: Wait, let me get this straight, this is retaliatory for my attitude? This is not making the airways safer, this is retaliatory.
TSA agent: Pretty much, yes. [Inaudible]
Woman [sic for heroine]: Is that legal?
TSA agent: Yes it is.
And in our initial review ? and all others since ? we concluded that the TSA flushes freedom down the drain. Time we returned the favor.
_
Becky Akers [send her mail] is a free-lance writer and historian. Her novel, Halestorm, is available in paperback or for Kindle, Nook, iPad, Sony, or for your computer.
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Oh Master! How generous you are to still allow me to drink! As long as I bow to you in joyous servitude, of course!
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