View Single Post
Old 07-21-2013, 02:32 AM   #27 (permalink)
SentraSE-R
Pishtaco
 
SentraSE-R's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Bay Area, California
Posts: 1,485

Mean Green Toaster Machine - '06 Scion xB
Team Toyota
90 day: 48.92 mpg (US)
Thanks: 56
Thanked 286 Times in 181 Posts
No disagreement? In my mind, my logic is flawless, but I know better than to think you all agree with me. I've referenced the legal justification/rationalization for immigration checkpoints and the Watertown searches. That doesn't mean I agree with them. I do that on a case-by-case basis.

Big Brother doesn't have to force you to give up your rights. Joe Six-Pack willingly gives them up. He consents to (or used to consent to, since the genitalia-exposing scanners are going away) full body scans and pat-downs to fly commercial air transportation. He consents to carry-in container inspections and metal wand scans at sporting events. That's why I've only flown twice, and haven't attended a live sporting event, in the past decade. Air travel ceased to be enjoyable after I saw security people with fully automatic weapons on a catwalk inside Heathrow Airport. Prior to that, I was a UA 100k Premier flier, with a couple of dozen countries checked off my bucket list.

I've lost three pocket knives to ICE, TSA, and cruise ship security, respectively, since 9-11. I've buried pocket knives outside airports and federal buildings for later retrieval, and even thrown them away in trash cans, to avoid the hassle of dealing with Big Brother.

And yes, I've been questioned at immigration checkpoints in all of the Mexican border states. But I've also been stopped by Israeli border patrols, Gatwick Airport police, Ecuadorian drug enforcement police, Australian DUI checkpoint police, and been stopped at Peruvian and Mexican checkpoints for frontera inspections. Once I flew from Israel into Switzerland, and traveled from there in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz into Germany. When I was ready to leave Switzerland, you should have heard the questions I was asked, by people who knew way too much about where I'd been and what I'd done. Free and unlimited travel? I hate to tell you, but it doesn't exist.
__________________
Darrell

Boycotting Exxon since 1989, BP since 2010
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac? George Carlin
Mean Green Toaster Machine
49.5 mpg avg over 53,000 miles. 176% of '08 EPA
Best flat drive 94.5 mpg for 10.1 mi
Longest tank 1033 km (642 mi) on 10.56 gal = 60.8 mpg

Last edited by SentraSE-R; 07-21-2013 at 02:42 AM..
  Reply With Quote