edit: The server's gotta do something about this Chrome-only posting thing. It just ate my post I wrote on Internet Explorer.
Anyway, I'm sure you've heard of the latest flap surrounding Rand Paul refusing to be pat-down at the TSA. ABC's coverage went like this.
1. *describes event*
2. Quotes Ron that he believes this is "police state abuse"
3. Has 'expert' on that claims if everybody had to be scanned twice like Rand requested then a terrorist could sneak through somehow and kill the world etc.
4. Conveniently neglects to cover Ron or Rand's position on this.
A friend of mine argued that Rand was foolish to make this kind of scene and is interested in the libertarian position on airport security. My gist is that Ron and Rand believe airports should provide their own security and be subject to public scrutiny. My friend thinks that's foolish as there's no room for error and that "all companies will skimp to save costs/neglect to regulate themselves" and thus be unable to prevent a terrorist sneaking through.
When I suggested pilots be armed, he responded it wouldn't matter if the terrorist had snuck a bomb through. He seems to believe that private airlines would be too incompetent to prevent such a thing from happening.
The line of thought is kind of like this: We can't even for a moment let private airlines (or most agencies that are not federal, for that matter) provide their own security and self regulate because they cannot be trusted. Also, they do not have the insight on foreign policy that our intelligence agencies have. 9/11 happened on an unregulated airline industry's watch (obviously false), and I cannot trust my life with an incompetent airline that only cares about profits etc.
Cortes:edit: The server's gotta do something about this Chrome-only posting thing. It just ate my post I wrote on Internet Explorer.
I know this is off-topic, but did you happen to see two text editors when you first wrote your post? (I'm assuming you're using IE - correct me if I'm wrong.)
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
I don't see two text editors on IE or Opera. Just the CKEditor which works on neither of those browsers.
Okay. The reason I ask is because, when I first start up IE, navigate to this forum, and first try to post in a thread, I'll see two text editors that look only slightly different from each other. I thought maybe that was related to the disappearing-post issue using IE.
Libertarians don't have to do anything about airport security. Airports and airlines do though.
Leave it up to the States.
There is no "correct" amount of security. Value is subjective, and opportunity costs exist. Any claim that, at any point in time, an airline is "underestimating" the importance of security or what-not is most often without basis and fails to ask, "underestimating for whom?" For customers? Well, profit and loss mechanisms tend to illuminate and reward those who serve consumers best. If you think you can do a better job, you're free to start an airline and fund security however adequately you wish. Or, at the very least take some kind of (voluntary) action! Boycott! Protest! Use facts! Pursuade us or the airline!
But please, don't go waving guns around. It won't prove you're right - rather, it'll only demonstrate you actually have no care for who or what is right or wrong.
I suggest that you use Safari or Firefox (or Chromw).
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
I saw an infographic a while ago that was promptly removed from the internet. It was on the apparent threats that we face going on to an airplane. It had such comparisons as, you are more likley to get eaten by a shark than you are dieing in a plane crash. You are more likely to slip and die in the bath than you are to die in a terrorist attack on a plane. If we forget about 9/11 where many people don't even believe the hijack story. You are not left with many examples of airplane terrorism.
Airports have always been very secure places and not much has changed in that regard pre and post terrorism hysteria that has gripped the US.
The problem with the TSA is that as they are not a part of the airport or airlines they treat every person as a potential terrorist and not as customer of the airport. Of course when you approach everyone as a potential terrorist you are going to see abuse.
I still do not see any problem with the tradional airport security procudure, which included a metal detector and if there was no peep you can just walk right through without a pat down, if there is a peep you have a mild pat down to check for weapons or large items. This does not include checking for a massive list of contraband materials, which includes touching private parts, checking every single little area of the body.
But when the TSA do find something that is on their contraband list, they might as well have found a nuclear weapon because they react in the same way. I remember seeing a video of a woman in her 30s who by mistake had a nail clipper/scissors with her hand luggage and they smashed her head against the wall and handcuffed her. If they saw this woman as a customer and not a potential terrorist this would never happen.
private businesses would face scrutiny not only from the consumers, but from competing businesses as well.
the only scrutiny the government has to suffer is ... self scrutiny.
Here's something interesting from Senator Paul himself:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/206105-sen-paul-x-ray-machines-programmed-to-go-off-at-random
To be honest with you I have been suspecting about it all along after fifteen years ago I spent quite a bit of time at the Brussels airport being prodded and groped by security. I have passed under metal detectors carrying everything from pocket knives to tons of coins and it went off the only time I had removed my belt, money clip and coins. In Israel I was even waved off without a search after all the junk I was carrying around set off a metal detector, and back then the Intifada was in full swing.