It is as if the powers that be are playing an ever-escalating game of what can we make them do next.
When I was a kid it was just speech codes: don’t say “bomb” or “gun” or you might be detained and searched. Maybe not allowed to fly that day.
After 9/11 it was: “let’s take away their liquids, move the entry barrier back and search them good and hard before entering, not allow anything sharp, and of course let’s profile them until they call foul and then let’s pick on the most obviously innocent to prove we don’t profile.”
“Now what?” I can hear them eagerly ask. Then the shoes came off. “And let’s make them basically get strip-searched (remotely) while holding up their hands in the ‘don’t shoot’ position.”
And of course with COVID it is: “let’s make them wear masks . . . forever?”
It will stop when we stop letting the most fearful and the most fanciful fears drive all policy decisions.
Related: The Great Antidote - Gary Leff on Airline Bailouts and Travel. Pay attention to where he describes American air firms as being basically extensions of the federal government. The technical term is fascism.
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