Wednesday, January 25, 2012

The TSA Exists Because The Free Market Failed At Airport Security

Been hearing a lot of loud and wrong carping from right wingers attacking the Transportation Security Administration
  
I believe their hatred of the organization is partially based on the fact the TSA operates under the premise that  EVERYBODY is a potential airline travel security threat. 

It gets on their vanillacentric nerves about them getting searched by people in a position of authority making a decent hourly wage despite their white privilege fueled sense of entitlement.  They hate the fact that everybody has to go through security and it irritates peeps with the vanillacentric presumption that they are 'the good peepul' who should be left alone to quickly board their flights without much hindrance.  It's those 'dark people' who are the 'security threats' who need to be profiled, jacked up and if necessary strip and body cavity searched to keep the 'real American' flying public safe.  
 

The conservafools are also piling on the TSA in their zeal to reflexively hate on any job the federal government takes on and has any success at versus the documented spectacular failure of the private sector. 

The conservafools spout their usual bull feces that the almighty private sector can do the job of airport security better and cheaper than a large government agency.   

Um, no they can't and didn't when I worked in the airline industry for over a decade before the TSA was cranked up   Sometimes as part of my supervisory duties I ran the security tests on the private company we used at Terminal C to screen our passengers. I was alarmed and appalled about some of the things I was able to get through the screenings at times.  

And oh yeah, I guess you peeps forgot why we have the Department of Homeland Security and the reason the TSA exists in the first place?  

If you conservafools did, let me refresh your selective memories since it happened under a GOP president.

Does September 11, 2001 ring a bell? 

The TSA was created two months after that horrific event because of the well documented failures of the vaunted private security companies to do the important job of safeguarding the nation's aviation system and passengers well before that fateful day.

The 9-11 attacks were the impetus for federalizing the airport security screening process, and the GOP has hated the Transportation Security Agency ever since.  

The TSA growing pains and the well publicized PR stumbles of the agency along with the bitterly sarcastic joke that has people coming up with sometimes profane meanings for the agency's acronym ('Take Stuff Away') combined with the constant drumbeat of right wing talk radio, Fox Noise and Republican politicians hating on the TSA only exacerbated the problem.

The fact that Transportation Security Agency employees are fighting for collective bargaining rights only adds to the political hatred of the TSA in conservafool eyes as well.  

The Repugs are also pissed off that current TSA head John S. Pistole granted them extremely limited collective bargaining rights that only cover transfers and shifts and not salaries.   To show their displeasure they cut $270 million from the 2012 TSA budget which would force them if approved by the Senate to lay off 10% of their screeners.

Translation:  that means it takes longer for you and me to get through the TSA security lines at the nation's airports with less TSA employees there to process you through it.   

The Republifools are also upset that Pistole limited a program that allows 16 airports to opt out of federal protection and contract with private security companies under TSA rules.  The sixteen airports already in the SPP program could continue, but no others could join without demonstrating "clear and substantial advantages"  

But there is no doubt that the existence of the TSA has made air travel in the United States safer and the organization isn't going anywhere, much less being disbanded any time in the near future. 

It's past time that the Congressional conservafools stop playing games with airline security for politically partisan and union busting reasons.  







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