The Illusion Of Homeland Security

The US Government has spent a great deal of money to give the impression that we are a secure nation. We have X-Ray machines at airports, TSA screeners who feel us up and thousands of other intrusive things that make people feel safe but provide no measurable level of actual security. In the eleven years since 9/11 no one at the airport has actually stopped a terrorist and many airports fail security tests. Not to worry though because plenty of people have been inconvenienced and embarrassed.

As a side note, the US is testing a new aircraft that will travel at hypersonic speeds. The idea is that eventually travel will be so fast that one can get from New York to London in an hour or so. How ironic is it that one would spend longer going through security than it would take to fly across the ocean?

In any event, a person has been charged with criminal trespassing because he breeched security at JFK airport. The man, Daniel Castillo, was stranded in Jamaica Bay while jet-skiing so he swam to shore, climbed over a wall and then walked across two runways and into a terminal.

Castillo went to a Delta Airlines agent who called the authorities. Castillo probably had no criminal intent and just needed help but he managed to embarrass JFK and all of Homeland Security by getting past $100 MILLION dollars in security devices including closed circuit cameras and motion sensors.

Yes, Castillo walked in undetected by an elaborate and expensive Intrusion Detection System and made it across two runways and into a terminal and was not detected until he presented himself to someone inside the building. He could probably have left the airport and they would never have known he was there.

Castillo was a person in distress and not a terrorist or he could have caused all kinds of chaos at the airport long before he was detected but being in distress is not a reason to avoid criminal charges if one embarrasses the government.

The government does not like the curtain pulled back so that everyone sees how inept it really is. It was caught with its 100 million dollar pants down so Castillo will have to suffer.

Unless of course he gets a lawyer who can effectively defend him.

Either way he will suffer the expense and time involved in the case.

And no matter what happens to him we are no safer even with the expensive gee whiz stuff government employs.

Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Big Dog

Gunline

We’re Not Done Yet

King Hussein is waffling, HHC jester Sebelius is making comments she has to walk back, and the appearance of disarray and smell of failure is distinct. Do not let your guard down– the fight is not over, indeed, like the Hydra, when you cut off one head, two more take its place. Now, like a possum playing dead, they have floated the trial balloon of “Co- ops”- instead of the government single payer plan that has had people up in arms.

The thing is, there is just sooooooo much to dislike in this FUBAR of a bill, that even if single payer option was out (it isn’t), the “death panel” question is still a valid one, as Andrew McCarthy points out in a National Review Online posting:

In suggesting it’s hyperbole to say death panels are — or were — in the bill, the editors engage in a little hysteria of their own, describing the function of such panels as “deciding whose life has sufficient value to be saved.” But few people worried about death panels think the process will be anything so crude. It will be what Mark Steyn described in his column this weekend: the bureaucrats won’t pull the plug on you; they will gradually restrict your access to various forms of treatment while you wither away prematurely. Maybe if Palin had called them “Dying on the Vine Panels” our opinion elites would have been more understanding — though I doubt it, Palin derangement syndrome having proved itself more infectious than Bush derangement syndrome.

corner.nationalreview.com

Yea, you see, that is the problem here, it is not the message, but the messenger that gets mocked. You can’t mock the message, because it is true in an omissive sense- so if you don’t like the message, but cannot effectively refute it, you minimize and mock the person who said it.

In British Columbia, a part of Canada, and a part of the Vaunted Canadian Healthcare system, they have cut “elective” surgeries by at least 15% for the rest of this year, because they haven’t the money to pay for them. That would mean that Barry’s granny wouldn’t get her hip replacement, because she wouldn’t qualify for anything but the pain pills if she lived there.

This is called rationing, people- when you can’t get the surgery you want, when you want it, then a form of rationing exists, no matter how you wish to parse the words, the facts are plain. The whole system becomes, in effect, a “death panel”, simply by denying the care that is needed. 

Many people have touted the number 46 million people who do not have health insurance, but these same people are adding in the illegal aliens (12- 20 million), and young people who are healthy and opt out of health insurance because they want to spend their money doing other things, like paying bills, or having fun. That is a part of living in the U.S.- you have the choice to do this.

At least for now-if Hussein has his way, call it single payer, or Co-op, or whatever you wish, that choice will be smaller, and our participation will be compulsory. I do not know about you, but I hate compulsory things- oh, some things I know are “for the public good”, such as no racing in the school zones, or driving on the sidewalks- you know, things like that. But I bridle at the thought that my government has the gall to think that it knows better than I what is good and proper for me.

This government thinking has extended to Cap and Trade, and every other bill they have been trying to pass before we the people can read it, and that is not right. Just by trying to fool us, these alleged representatives have become traitors, plain and simple.

Heck, one, Rep. Massa, of New York, has stated plainly that he will go against the wishes of his constituents and vote the way that he sees fit. Rather arrogant of him, and if I was one of his constituents, I would want a one- on- one conference with him and persuade him to see things my way.

Other Dems, like Peter Schiff, say that if single payer option isn’t in the bill, there might be a hundred reps who would not vote for it- good. Don’t vote for it.

A bad bill should die an ugly death- that’s right and proper.

After that is dead and buried, then perhaps we can actually get something substantial and positive done.

Sarah Palin, in her own way, took the talking points away from Hussein, and did this country a service- for that, we (all of us, Republicans AND Democrats) should thank her. Her words might have been incendiary, but in essence they were spot on.

Hussein got FaceBook’d.
Blake
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