Darn the government for making me feel sympathetic to this girl. Only socialist gropers would humiliate paying passengers in this fashion. If we had the right sort and the right amount of security, which only the airlines could determine if they were in charge, nothing like this would happen. No business treats its customers like this. (I leave aside that this is faux security, as shown by the college student who took box cutters, a brick of plastique-like putty, and many other forbidden items on a flight and left them in a bathroom with a note about how easy it was. He was immediately arrested, chained, and sent to the gulag, with no more public attention paid to him or the issue. I also leave aside the dangers artificially stimulated by US foreign policy.)
PS: the airlines were not in charge on 9/11. That system, complete with disarmed pilots and orders to comply with all hijacker denands, was also federal.
12:12 pm on July 23, 2004
