Neanderpundit

I fly a good deal. Not what I used to, but still pretty often. I’m not bothered in the very least by the security kabuki, I understand how it works, and i avoid any trouble by being prepared.

I often find myself in lines full of people who have no idea how the system works, grousing and whining about the inconvenience and the loss of freedom etc.

I smile.

The tone is the same tone a child takes bitching about it’s bedtime. I know, I have a child, I hear it firsthand all the time. This cannot be avoided, people. Nobody will swing their magic wand and make it go away. You can choose not to fly. You can also choose to deal with it appropriately. It’s really not that big of a deal.

Do i think this is great? No. Do I think it’s helpful? No. Do I think there are way better ways to deal with airport security? Hell yes. But I cannot change it, so i deal with it.

I feel similarly about dealing with the license bureau. The medical profession in general. The banking industry. Hells bells, there are thousands of ways government and private industry intrude into our lives, both public and private. Visit an emergency room, if you want to talk about invasion of privacy, or loss of dignity. Hospitals count on you not caring because you’re sick or injured. Having seen this up close and personal from both sides of the desk, I can tell you it’s never pretty.

Sometimes the intrusiveness into our lives is a necesary evil, sometimes it’s an unnecesary evil. But it’s there, and it’s not going away. You can bitch about it, or you can realize that bitching about it is beneath you, and go on with your life.

Securty people are doing a job. Some are good at it, many suck rancid goat ass. Buit they can make your day go smoothly or make your life a living hell; to be rude to these people is the height of self destructive behavior. I’m unfailinly polite to all of those people, whether they deserve it or not- desk clerks, airline reservation clerks, waitesses, security guards. It costs me nothing to do so, and most of the time it makes my life immensely easier.

I always have a boatload of things on me that TSA doesn’t like. I also always have a boatload of things they wouldn’t like if they knew i had them on the plane. If I travel for business I always have tools, so I have to check baggage; slipping my knife and other things into the checked baggage is a non issue.

Many people refuse to deal with the bullshit, and I don’t blame them, why go out of your way to be annoyed.

I don’t annoy easily. That is to say, I’m always annoyed, but it takes a good deal more than the bullying bullshit of a TSA goon to raise my annoyance level very much.

Plus, I can invariably find the silver lining.

I know you will all be disapointed on wednesday morning when your US government has been turned from one pile of steaming dogshit whose foul stench we have grown to know, and loathe, to a new pile of steaming dogshit, many of whom we voted for.

I myself will go to the polling place on tuesday and hold my nose and vote for the guys I hate least. I have no illusion that this will fix anything.

And it won’t fix a damned thing.

Until we begin to cut the food supply to this gigantic parasite we will not be free of it, ever.

No, I’m not channeling Wallace Shawn.

Once upon a time, Wechsler and Stanford Binet developed tests- originally to see if students needed specific help, but now used for all kinds of other reasons.

Also, originally, they used three words to indicate specific positions on the scale. Idiot referred to anyone under 20 IQ, imbecile was for individuals who tested between 20 and 49, and moron was betwen 50 and 69.

IQ is not a measure of how smart someone is, it’s a measure of the clock speed of their brain. Some people are working with a quad core CPU, some are muddling along with an 8088.

The bottomline in all this is that you can have the highest IQ and the benefit of the very best education money can buy, but if you don’t use that big brain and that education to make decisions based on verifiable facts, you damage yourself and those around you.

This is where the evil of Belief rears it’s ugly head again. Belief will dissolve all logic. Belief that Obama will “Fix” the country. Belief that people “Deserve” free health care. Belief that socialism will work this time if they are in charge.

Belief is fucking this country. if you can’t know, don’t believe. Never vote on belief.

I think we ought to co-opt those now disused terms and apply them in the following manner:

People who “believe” in UFO’s, socialism, vampires, the peacefullness of Islam, or ghosts, would be morons. Capable of near normal human function but not generally dangerous.

People who “believe” in UFO’s, socialism, vampires, the peacefullness of Islam, or ghosts, and want to proselytize those “beliefs” until everyone else is converted, would be imbeciles. They need to be monitored, perhaps with ankle bracelets, and kept away from the impressionable, like children or democrats.

People who “believe” in UFO’s, socialism, vampires, or ghosts and who want to use the law to enforce their beliefs on us all, are idiots, and should be segregated from the rest of the population lest they intermarry and breed other idiots.