The Sacred Now

There's something really obvious and profoundly American being missed in all this coverage of the TSA's pointless molestation of the traveling public. Everyone agrees that it's grossly excessive and an unacceptable invasion of privacy........but the real story here is that it apparently IS acceptable. It's being accepted every single day. There was no "opt out" day, there is no nationwide refusal to fly. I'm not judging anyone for laziness or hypocrisy. People gotta fly. I'm just pointing it out the reality of things. We're like Smokey and the government is Deebo. We got mind control. When we get on the plane, we be talkin' again.

To me this proves that, for Americans at least if not modern humans in general, there is literally nothing that can trump convenience. It's easy for us to raise our voices on call-in radio talk shows about our civil liberties...........but it's a little harder to stand yards away from a huge pressurized space shuttle that's fueling up to fire us through the air from San Diego to Sicily in 14 seconds flat and say "No, go ahead without me, I'd rather spend the next five hours standing in this musty ass airport terminal arguing some existential point with fat high school dropouts in blue uniforms who probably agree with me anyway." Very few people are willing to sacrifice convenience to make a point, even if the point is that they don't deserve to get finger-banged before they're allowed to enjoy Christmas vacation. And really.......who can enjoy anything when their stool smells like latex gloves? 2010 will go down in history as the year that a whole nation opened up presents and sang "jingle bells" while sobbing and shaking like teen hookers after their first sado-masochist client, but hey...........at least we got to our destinations fast.

The obvious other point that's being missed is that you're more likely to be named King of Saipan than end up on a goddamn hijacked plane, and that really not even the tiniest shred of your dignity or liberty is worth giving up to protect for such a statistical anomaly. But then we'd have to admit that the global war on terrorism might be based on some pretty shaky premises and questionable budget choices, which nobody is ready to do.

Anyway, don't listen to me. I'm only able to sit here and spout my nonsense because I'm a poor piece of shit who can't afford to fly. Give me a real corporate job with a frequent flyer card and I'll go through the scanners smiling ear to radiated ear.