Flying with Terror

I know I should (after all its Christmas) be all happy and goodwill towards men, and for the most part I am. Currently in MN visiting the God-kiddos which has been awesome- though I need a nap more than they do now. But its a lot of fun.

Anyway as we had to fly in a few days after the now-infamous Christmas attempt to blow up a plane I had a lot of time (on a plane) to think about the whole incident- and needless to say its pretty darn scary. The guy was pretty close (certainly too close for comfort) to making a miserable Christmas for an awful lot of people. Anyway on Sunday I was watching Meet the Press and they had on Joe Lieberman from the GREAT state of CT, who despite his flip flopping personality I like him (and have voted for him) twice now because I think he does a good job of being liberal enough for my liking and not being a super conservative either, hes a shade of purple which works for me. So he is on there fairly upset- and rightly so because as he angrilly points out we have and have had the technology available to completely prevent this attempt. These so-called full body scans are simple (many airports have the equipment bought too) and yet- they are not used, because certain lawyers have made it a huge violation of privacy issue. Congratulations lawyers- how would you feel if you were on that flight? Probably be thinking that they were fighting the wrong battle.... at least I hope thats what they would think.

Fast forward to today and I read THIS article where the Dutch have begun using the scanners on flights to the US, after the Obama administration had been against using them previously, gave the ok- I find this a bit frustrating that it takes such an extreme act to get something like this to happen. We get told how to cough (so not to share germs) but make airlines as safe as we can make them.... not yet. Until now. Again I feel as though they are putting citizens safety secondary to their 'rights' and that can not be the priority. Personally I like having rights and protection of my rights is important to me, but never at the cost of my safety. In this case: flying, the art of getting in a plane in order to go somewhere faster/ further than any other form of transportation. FLYING is NOT a RIGHT. It is a choice, and as such anything that can be done to make it safer should be done, and if someone wants to Xray scan me and all my fellow passengers to ensure my safety; sign me up, if its so important to your privacy make your own airline, call it Right2Fly and advertise we do shoddy security but your privacy and rights are protected. I mean it just doesn't equate. I am actually pretty happy with security and the airlines for adapting to this crazy world, but sometimes we need a bit more common sense to help them out too; instead of blaming them for slow waits and sometimes long lines. They are keeping you safe, maybe think about that the next time you think "I hate this security."