Airports and the Police State

The Beer:  for those of you who do not know, I have relocated to Houston, TX.  My brewing gear is packed away.  I am jonesin' to brew up a batch.

The Bicycle:  there are better places to ride than Metro-Houston, but they are working on consolidating the system of park trails to allow a person to cover virtually the entire area.

The VRWC:  Are not airports a microcosm of the Big Government Police State we now live in?  I arrived at Houston Hobby for a return trip to Wisconsin today at 0200 for an 0515 flight.  I realize we are told to be at the airport at least 2 hours early and I was more than 3, but that is not the issue.  I was prepared to wait at the airport as being awake and waiting in my hotel room wasn't something that interested me.  But I was not prepared to be one of about 4 people in the entire airport.  No security that I could see (maybe they were that good), no TSA, no ticket agents.  Just me, a nice young lady and a couple of janitorial staff.  It would have been quite easy to walk past the checkpoint and into the concourse if I were a nefarious-type.

At about 0300, TSA started to show up, but they were not going to open the checkpoint until 0415.  I guess I am probably OK with that because I made it to my flight with no problem.  But some ended up very close because behind me, the line got quite long and there was only one lane moving through the checkpoint.

But here is what just flat pissed me off.  I went through the x-ray (intrusive enough), then was told to "assume the position while some self-important TSA agent right around my age decided he needed to cop a feel.  What was he going to find on my shoulders?  But he was very officious and important about it and was "kind enough" to let me pass through.  As I am standing there gathering up my crap and putting on my sandals, I realized how much I resent living in a police state after spending 6 years of my life in service of that same state (pre-police).

Short of being taken away in the middle of the night, I don't know how many more Liberties we can give up.  We have been given "false Liberties" like a "right" to abortion, "whistleblower protections", "clean air and water" by government, but we have given up our God-ordained Constitutional Liberties.  We can "marry" whomever or whatever we choose, but can't use the dreaded "n-word".  We are assumed to be guilty of terrorism as we pass through an airport checkpoint, we must support abortion whether our conscience agrees or not.

Many have claimed over the last few decades that we were living in a police state.  It is now true.