--- "Adam C. Lipscomb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Yelling "Fire" in a theatre doesn't directly harm
> anyone, either, but the
> resulting panic can.
>
> I'd hardly say that anyone is being "oppressed"
> when, for the few hours
> they're at the airport or riding in a plane, they
> can't talk about blowing
> things up. It's the responsibility of security
> guards and police to take
> stuff like that seriously, so if someone in a line
> at the airport says
> something like, "I'm gonna blow this place up" or
> even something that could
> reasonably be interpreted to mean that, it should be
> checked out. It's one
> of those situations where everyone accepts a small,
> temporary restriction of
> their rights in order to allow more effective
> protection of the lives and
> safety of themselves and everyone around them. To
> touch back to another
> thread, it's a cost/benefit analysis that everyone
> performs. If you don't
> like not being able to say "Bomb" in a crowded
> airport, don't travel by
> plane. There are still trains, buses, bicycles and
> cars.
>
>
I would say that it is oppression, on the generous
American scale. Certainly nothing on par with what
Chinese citizens endure, of course. And I do know
that it makes the jobs of security people easier, of
course I considered that. But as i've said before,
the job of the police force in a free society is
*supposed* to be difficult. Do you deny that the
above encroaches on our 1st and 4th amendment rights?
I'm not going to accept "well, just don't fly" as an
answer- though i do detest flying commercially. What
we're discussing here is the top edge of the slippery
slope, something that non-Americans seem to pooh-pooh
too easily. And some Americans too, it appears.
dean
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