Thoughts on Body Scanners

For my first political post, I am going to address the TSA and it's new actions, and my opposition to them.

The new program that has been implemented uses backscatter imaging to produce a portrait of the individual beneath their clothing. The view is fairly obscured, but it does embarrass many people to be viewed like this. If one does not wish to be scanned, they may opt to have an enhanced pat down, which seems to involve, among other things, using the screener's hands to examine the groin area. Additionally, some people are randomly chosen for patdowns, but this was in place before, though the content of the patdown may have changed after the terrorism attempt of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

There are several reasons why this supposed improvement in procedure should not be implemented. The first is opportunity cost. Clearly this development is intended to save lives, but the money used to do so could be used to save more lives elsewhere through other means, such as vaccination, and so considering all lives equally it fails. Opportunity cost, however, is not always a good analytical tool, as it may not be possible to implement the other, preferable policies due to political considerations. Therefore the policy must stand based on strict cost-benefit analysis. It fails again.

The benefit is a decreased likelihood of terrorist attack, however, the likelihood of such an attack is already exceedingly low. If one wished to destroy a plane, it is obvious from images generated by the scanners that it would be easy to adapt to them by placing the explosive in an orifice or within the body in some other fashion. Therefore the benefits are, at most, dubious. The costs, however, are not. First, there is the immediate humiliation and distress caused by the process. Second, there is the manner in which this distress undermines liberty by conditioning individuals to accept invasive government control of their persons. Third, there is the precedent created by allowing such action, which may be in contravention of the Fourth Amendment, both in the public and the judicial mind. Last, there is the cost of the purchase and implementation of the scanners, which is prodigious. Therefore, given the lack of apparent benefit and the serious implications of the policy, it is reprehensible and ought to be opposed.

Let me note in closing that I do believe that the patdown option is designed to give the illusion of choice while at the same time giving a massive and humiliating incentive to simply comply. In short, it is punitive.

Another blog arguing many of the same things and providing various citations and linked articles:
http://laliberty.tumblr.com/post/1651803621/the-case-against-the-tsa

Book: Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

I intend to give a short examination of books I have read as I read them. Brave New World is Huxley's best known work, and a dystopian masterpiece. It has been described as complementing 1984, in the sense that the latter shows a society ruled by top down force, while the former shows one ruled by pure hedonism. This is a very apt description.

One thing that an individual who has read 1984 will likely experience as Brave New World progresses is a feeling of dread or anticipation waiting for the other shoe to drop and the repressive violence of the authoritarian regime to become clear. It never does. The secret police never arrive. A riot is broken up, but it is caused by disruptive acts on the part of an individual from the "savage reservation" where people still live in primitive fashion. There is no torture, no incarceration, nor is there a need for any. The conditioning of the population is so complete that the benevolence of the regime is assured.

Two things that the book holds in interesting juxtaposition are the nature of the pleasure received by the individual brought up on the savage reservation and the pleasure received by the members of the general society. The latter live in a state of complete sexual freedom complemented by the constant fulfillment of desires that they have been conditioned into since birth or before. There is no happiness for them apart from the fulfillment of their desires in these forms and through a perfect drug. And their contentment is assured completely through these methods, such as it it. The savage, to the contrary, seeks to make himself suffer for his sins, to imitate Christ, to go on a vision quest, to fast, to beat himself. The group and the individual find it mutually incomprehensible why the other would act in such a way. Yet it is clear that the savage's path is as much a path to, if not uninterrupted contentment, then a serious form of happiness that the other path does not provide for. This distinction is terribly important to understanding human feeling.

The book is short, and I feel I have given little away in its overall substance. I recommend that it be read by all.

My Intentions

Many people are unconvinced by direct argumentation. This is especially true in conversation, but is also true in reading and listening impersonally. Things also tend to seem true if they are repeated enough times, even without real argumentation. Thus, media outlets do not need to provide argumentation, but merely repetition, in order to reinforce the beliefs of those who are already converted, and, in the absence of contrary opinions, enough repetition will gain the ring of truth for many people who are not yet converted.

I hope to not repeat anything on this blog that has already been said well elsewhere except to clarify and streamline understanding of a subject, and only to revisit issues or ideas that I have already examined if I have something genuinely new to contribute. No repetition, only sound examination, analysis, and argumentation. No straw men, no ad hominem, no genetic fallacies, and always with a respect for all opinions, left and right, liberal, progressive, and conservative, religious or not. Most of the content will be commentary on political and philosophical subjects, as well as examinations of books that I have read.

The vast majority of readers will undoubtedly be people I know, so if you believe I have committed some logical fallacy or am being unfair on something or not appealing to reason, let me know, either in the comments or through any other means, because part of my intent in writing is to improve my own understanding. If you feel like I am erring, and not living up to the standards above, then please tell me.

Because a lot of this is going to be about politics, and when you mess up on politics, people die.