As game day 2012 approaches, the conservative and liberal elites are drawing their proverbial lines in the sand on an issue that is not important to most of the common folk in our society. Seven in ten Americans polled say that the current airport security requirements of full body scans and pat downs that might require the use of rape kits if performed outside of the airport by improperly trained member of the Transportation Security Administration, are okay with them. In a political climate that calls 55% opposition to health care reform a mandate for repeal, this is a story that should be listed somewhere between the coupons and the statistics for last nights Los Angeles Clippers game.
The Administration has chosen to use a clearly conservative idea, in order to appear tough on security. Do whatever is necessary to keep the American people safe, a GOP triune call offered to the masses many times (like every time they are running against a liberal.) Preemptive war, torture, rendition, secret prisons, a deck of playing cards depicting the pictures of enemies of the state we seek to assassinate, warrant-less wire taps and randomly selective more intrusive private searches at airports, are among a broad list of tough security measures the Right was willing to promote to provide for your safety. And until two weeks ago so where full body scanners. Michael Chertoff (Bush era Homeland Security Chief) has supported these machines in airports since 2003 and there is a GOP sponsored bill in Congress to install these machines in every airport in the United States by 2014. Historically, there seems little room for debate among conservatives. Before “the don’t touch my junk” dude burst on the scene, if you questioned these ideas, then you questioned the ideals of the party and where labeled a moderate or even a progressive-RINO. But, scanners are for some reason the place where the Republican Party has chosen not only to draw the line, but completely switch sides. Stop the pony and slap the dog, why could this be?
The left has deemed these current measures as a necessary intrusion upon our privacy to ensure our safety, Gloria Allred has stated that she doesn’t mind the scanners or the pat downs because she feels safer, The Americans Civil Liberties Union, has said a lot by simply remaining silent. The left has often defended privacy so adamantly, I would not be surprised if it is illegal to eavesdrop on your teenage daughter in your own home in San Francisco. The Democratic party is now supporting these measures wholeheartedly, despite the opposition that raged every time the TSA or the Bush Administration even hinted at installing these scanners from 2002 through 2008. The Democrats are wrestling with a ideological catch-22. When they down play extreme measures and underline the terrorists inability to fundamentally change who we are, they are attacked by the GOP for not having a realistic respect for the dangers that Islamic extremism posses in the world today. Now that they have caved on this issue, the Republicans can say that the Administrations weakness has placed us in a reactive state of mind, that has left us cowering to terrorists at the expense of our very American soul.
What we have witnessed is both sides switching jerseys and switching sides on this one issue. This give us hope in one regard, the independent belief that one party does not always have, all the answers, all the time. Unfortunately the despair it creates when we consider how unlikely it is for left and right to come together on a issue, is overwhelming. Obama-care contains many ideas the GOP touted through the years in regard to healthcare reform, but they where rejected as leftist when included in the bill. Full body scanners have been embraced by the left, because being seen as week on security could be another nail in their 2010 coffin. I think the evidence is overwhelming that in our current state of affairs the extremes of the political spectrum have no regard for the life, liberty, and happiness of their fellow Americans. They only care that they frame the other side as detrimental to Americanism, corrupt and deceitful, and void of empathy and consideration for you on every level. God bless you and God bless the United States of America, unless you’re blue and I’m red or I’m red and you’re blue, in that case go f*ck yourself.
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