Don't touch my junk man!!!!

I want to elaborate on something…nothing political, though after a week in Washington state I gotta tell you that there is some SERIOUS political fodder in that place………I never realized that California nut-sackery stretched up the ENTIRE west coast.  Washington is a LOVELY state…..but it has far too many Washingtonians in it.  I suppose that housing them all there avoids diluting the intellectual capacity of the other states.

Anyhow.  Flying out of Seattle-Tacoma International is always a blast….not the least because you have about a 95% chance of being rained on, regardless of the season, and that the rental car companies can only be reached by shuttle, in the rain (about 95% of the time), but because the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, has SOMEHOW managed to accumulate THE most laughable operation at SEA-TAC, in comparison to all of the other laughable TSA operations in the US.  In the past year, I have been through Miami, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Detroit, Laguardia, Syracuse, Dallas, Atlanta, LA, SEA-TAC and Nashville.  All of them have their own special brand of TSA dysfunction, and ALL of them are either designed by people that should be fired for GROSS incompetence, or awarded for providing the minimal amount of return for the maximum amount of pain in the ass to the traveler.

I admit that, after 9/11 I was willing to cut the government some leeway; do whatever it takes to make sure THAT shit never happens again, while ensuring that we grind the perpetrators, and the faux allied nations in which they hid, into dust.  Now, 17 years later, I realize that political correctness prevented the latter, while political correctness and government incompetence prevented the former.

When we ruled out profiling, despite the fact that all of the 9/11 hijackers shared the exact same profile, we doomed the TSA mission from the start.  To avoid admitting that we are indeed at war with Islam, we built or bought into the myth that Islam was a religion, that it was a religion of peace and that most muslims wished us no harm.  Then, as Islam moved forward to prove us wrong, we moved forward in denying the proof, and instead of subjecting every muslim to extra scrutiny, we body frisked every fifth person in line, be they blond hair, blue eyed whities, babies or Catholic nuns….none of which have hi-jacked a plane lately.  Then, in addition to box cutters, used as weapons in 9/11, we confiscated the key chain leatherman we used to clean our nails.  Then the razors we shave with before landing after a 13 hour flight.  Then, after the wack job shoe bomber, we forced everyone to take off their shoes.  Then we had to leave behind our half eaten Subway, half consumed diet coke, which gradually morphed into tossing the unopened gift box of Cajun hot sauce, answering questions about metal implants, having our hands wiped down for explosive residue, etc. etc. etc.

And there is absolutely ZERO consistency.  I was once the subject of “enhanced security measures” while I was IN the Army, traveling on orders and a ticket issued THROUGH the Army, using my green ID card as photo ID, all because the government, in their urge to save a buck, had sent me on a one way ticket, saving the return ticket purchase for later when they could get it cheap.  But just this last trip, I used my blue, retired ID card as photo ID and was given the coveted “red X” on my boarding pass that would allow me to keep my shoes own as I went through a full body “X ray”.  You would have thought I was being granted extra cigarettes in prison.  Naturally I was held up when I answered the question that I had a metal rod through my forearm and the elbow, and a metal plate in the wrist.  The shit for brains “security officer” inspected my arm like he was going to remove the piece and wipe it down.  DUDE!!  I TOLD YOU IT WAS THERE!!!  OF COURSE THE MACHINE WAS GOING TO FIND IT.  Moron.

We went from having to remove a silver crucifix to being able to leave on a rodeo sized belt buckle.  You STILL have to leave behind that $.99 coke that you are drinking in line and buy a $3.00 coke on the other side of the check point for security.  I guess it is POSSIBLE that I have a death wish and am drinking an explosive coke in the security line, but GENERALLY if I am consuming it in line, it is just as safe on the other side of the check point.

WHAT are we protecting ourselves for?  All of this non-sensical bullshit we subject the newborn to barely breathing too in order to get on a plane, WHAT have we stopped?  And the answer might smugly be like the person with the banana in his ear.  When asked why the banana was in his ear, the person said “to keep away wild lions”.  The questioner then says that “there are no wild lions here” to which banana boy says “See, it is working.”  The truth is that you cannot prove a negative; there is no PROOF that the TSA has protected us from jack shit…..and I suspect they know it.

And that finally brings me to my point.

I suspect that the TSA knows that they don’t actually perform a useful service, which allows them to hire some of the most inept, over bearing, dolts in the job market.

When confronted by a TSA agent you immediately see the imprimatur of federal government mandated low standards and quota hiring.  For starters there are absolutely NO personal grooming standards.  Were it not for the TSA garb, half or more of the TSA gate personnel would be confused with homeless people in the park.  With that goes no height / weight requirement, no hair length requirement, no professional comportment requirement.  I will say that the TSA seems to be the safe spot of choice for fat, bitchy, tattooed feminists who would have to resort to marching in vagina hats if not for their “job”.  There apparently is no personal or professional skills requirement and I am PRETTY certain that there is no physical fitness standards.  We have replaced any sort of personal competence requirement with technology, and gained nothing in return.  I often joke that, in the Leavenworth, KS local area, when you encounter one of the many prison or jail correction officers in uniform but off duty, most of them look like they are one felony shy of being on the wrong side of the bars.  The same can be said for the TSA personnel I encountered in SEA-TAC…..outside of the uniform the people look like they should be the ones being screened if we HAD an effective screening system.  They certainly look like they could never make it in a competitive environment.

AND THEY DON’T SEEM TO CARE!  Not a one of them appear the least bit self aware that most of them would take about 12 ass beatings a day from grannys with walkers just for their crappy attitude and condescending tone.  None of them seem to be aware of the low opinion held by others (ME) towards them, the number of others that would ignore them COMPLETELY if we were no forced to que up.  Frankly some of them have played entirely too much “X” box and believe that they are invincible……when in reality they are intolerable.

I have no idea how much these yahoo’s make, it should not be much because the return on our investment appears non-existent.  But one thing I do wonder about…..if we hired really good people for the job, not just the kids that couldn’t get on at KFC, but quality people, paid them well, required some appearance standards…..would that change anything?

Would they be protecting us from anything?