The Scanner Rebellion

The video of the young guy refusing to be “patted down” after declining to go through the scanning machine at Lindbergh Field rather makes me embarrassed to be from San Diego. I would like to point out that we are not all quite that arrogant or reactionary, and that his kind are actually rather unusual here. Some people seem to think he is some sort of hero, but I think he is an asshole and a punk.

Sure the search procedure is stupid, useless, inconvenient and annoying. There are, however, better ways to deal with your sense of displeasure than by cursing out people who are simply doing their job and disrupting the process, making it more disruptive, inconvenient and annoying for everyone else who is having to submit to it.

I used to take two or three trips per year, and as the search procedures have become more intrusive and burdensome I have cut that down to the point that my wife has to pretty much browbeat me into one annual trip. After making that trip this year I may look into travelling by train.

But to voice my objection in the form of threats of arrest and by disrupting the process further for people who do not have the option of cancelling their trip would be self-centered and arrogant. Social procedures are not in place to serve the selfish pleasure of one young punk who thinks he is the center of the universe.

If you think these procedures are too intrusive, or that they impose further on your freedoms than you are willing to tolerate, then write your Congressional representatives and either stay home or travel by train until they are repealed. You do not have the right to throw your minority opinion around in a manner that interferes with the majority.