hatam_soferet (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hatam_soferet) wrote2008-12-08 09:02 pm
hatam_soferet) wrote2008-12-08 09:02 pm
Entry tags:
(no subject)
I observe that these days, you are allowed to take pointed scissors onto planes provided they have blades less than four inches in length, yet you are still not allowed sealed cans of Coke. I don't know about you, but I think pointed scissors with blades three and seven-eighths inches long are inherently somewhat more threatening than cans of Coke. "Take this plane to Cuba, or I will drink this Coke and belch mightily at you" isn't especially compelling, when you think about it.
Security goons have an irritating habit of barking at one "Show boarding cards! Not ID! Boarding cards!" (or vice versa) in the kind of voice which can scarcely believe that anyone could be such an utter dullard as to think that security might want to see your ID (or verce visa).
The problem, little goon, is that every airport is different. I know this, because I actually travel, and do not have a dead-end job as a security goon. If you could get your head out of your self-important yet vanishingly insignificant polyester-clad arse for a moment, you might realise that your procedures are not exactly the same as those at all other airports, and getting irritated at people because they are showing you a boarding card (as required by some airports) and ID (as required by other airports) both betrays your inability to think outside the sphere of your immediate experience and, since it doesn't hurt you, shows you to be concerned primarily with automatic confirmation to arbitrary regulations, and hence somewhat lacking in general intelligence. Which, of course, is why you are a security goon, and I am not.
As ever, I would rather the Israeli approach, which credits terrorists with sharp thinking, and reasons that if your adversary is cunning, original, and determined, it is better to counter him with personnel of similar calibre and outwit him, rather than attempt to thwart him with goons who would only be able to spot a terrorist if he put a twenty-pound bomb in his luggage tray, labelled ACME BOMB and with the string fizzing. And even then, you'd have to hope the goon wasn't distracted by any cans of Coke someone might be trying to sneak through.
Security goons have an irritating habit of barking at one "Show boarding cards! Not ID! Boarding cards!" (or vice versa) in the kind of voice which can scarcely believe that anyone could be such an utter dullard as to think that security might want to see your ID (or verce visa).
The problem, little goon, is that every airport is different. I know this, because I actually travel, and do not have a dead-end job as a security goon. If you could get your head out of your self-important yet vanishingly insignificant polyester-clad arse for a moment, you might realise that your procedures are not exactly the same as those at all other airports, and getting irritated at people because they are showing you a boarding card (as required by some airports) and ID (as required by other airports) both betrays your inability to think outside the sphere of your immediate experience and, since it doesn't hurt you, shows you to be concerned primarily with automatic confirmation to arbitrary regulations, and hence somewhat lacking in general intelligence. Which, of course, is why you are a security goon, and I am not.
As ever, I would rather the Israeli approach, which credits terrorists with sharp thinking, and reasons that if your adversary is cunning, original, and determined, it is better to counter him with personnel of similar calibre and outwit him, rather than attempt to thwart him with goons who would only be able to spot a terrorist if he put a twenty-pound bomb in his luggage tray, labelled ACME BOMB and with the string fizzing. And even then, you'd have to hope the goon wasn't distracted by any cans of Coke someone might be trying to sneak through.