To Keep Us Safe

[Blue State Blues]

I'll be honest with you, I'm scared. Being safe is important to me.

And when it comes to my family, there is next to nothing I would not be willing to do to keep them safe. There are few sacrifices I would not be willing to make to keep them safe from harm.

The harm, for example, of being sexually assaulted.

What notion of safety demands submitting to sexual assault as a trade-off on the remote chance that the next attempted terrorist attack will use the exact same methods of the previous attempted terrorist attack?

What perversion of the very idea of safety demands a parent allow his or her child to be sexually assaulted?

And we are to submit to this, we are to force our children to submit to this, or face a fine. An $11,000 fine for refusing to submit to sexual assault. Ask any sexual assault survivor if there is a price she or he would not pay to not have to endure that pain. Or if emotional pain and humiliation aren't important enough to consider (as the authors of this policy apparently believe), if money is the only concern, ask what the cost of a lifetime of therapy would be for a child who was sexually assaulted ... while his parents looked on and did nothing. $11,000 seems a bargain in comparison.

Yes, I'm scared when I get on an airplane, scared that some deranged idiot will attempt to take my life and might even succeed, but the remote threat of death those few times a year that I board an airplane pales in comparison to the other threats I face every single day.

It turns out there is almost no limit to what I would do to keep my family safe, but there is a limit to what I would do to board an airplane. And I have reached that limit.

[seabeyond]

1. what person would willingly submit to walk into environment where reason is ignored

willingly lack of any right, or control. that alone flips me out to imagine i would place my well being, safety, health in the hands of a bunch of people with all power. a look, a word, a whim, and who knows what repercussion i will experience.

i cannot imagine people that are willing to do that.

[lunatica]

2. My flying days are over as long as being frisked crudely is practiced

I don't go as far as calling it sexual assault because I think the person doing the assault must have that intent, but it comes close. The majority of the people doing this are just trying to keep their jobs.

[piratefish08]

3. we're done too. unfortunately, I think they will simply take the hit,

pass costs on to those who have no choice but to fly, and then scream bailout when that well runs dry.

I hope I'm wrong.

[Blue State Blues]

4. about intent

The child whose genitals are being groped cannot understand the fine distinction of intent. The harm is the same.

In the larger sense, the hand doing the groping may not have a sexual intent ... but sexual assault is ultimately a crime of power.

Whether the hand doing the groping is receiving sexual gratification (or any gratification at all -- reports are that the TSA agents hate the procedure), it is an act of dominance and power. The harm is the same.

The official response is that this is just another traveling frustration, a nuisance like taking off your shoes or emptying your water bottle. But this is not a question of trading convenience for safety. This is not a nuisance, this is harm. This is not safety.