Apr 28 2008
High Noonan
Agree or disagree with Miss Noonan, her articles are almost always worth reading. She has her finger on the pulse of the nation and her observations are usual timely and insightful, even though I sometimes think she’s reading the gauge incorrectly (see her articles on Barack Obama).
But when she’s at the height of her observational powers, she has me nodding my head, not in a EUREKA! moment, but in the way she ties together her observational strands toward a conclusion. She points out what Christopher Hitchens pointed out, about the indignity of going through our airports.
It almost makes you wonder if freedom is slipping away from us; if it is being leeched from us piecemeal by some authoritarian figure in the guise of a screaming TSA fellow.
Bowed heads, shoeless shuffling feet, stripped down to the essentials (though thankfully not down to your skivvies… at any rate, not anymore) and identification cards and papers held in order– It makes you feel de-humanized, and as time goes by, this peculiar institution is having incipient shadows of Orwell.
You’re processed, prodded and hopefully not sterilized by the time you reach your flight, and no one whimpers a protest, not even a raised voice for fear of the state’s swift retribution. Which is perhaps being arrested, handcuffed and carted away? Placed on a no-fly list? Perhaps your luggage would be confiscated for an indefinite amount of time. Who knows?
Thus, we bow our heads, go through this indignity and go along to get get along.
I’ve gone through this ordeal many times, at least once or twice a year, and I’ve never liked the taste of it. I too go along to get along.
Have any of us asked the question: What rights do we have once we cross into the airport terminal?
Not only are we prodded and poked and magnetically scanned, when we finally board the plane we effectively become prisoners for the duration of the flight. Should the airlines and the friendly TSA fellows decide, you can be deprived of water, toiletries, food– all the basic human necessities– for hours and hours on end without any recourse.
I suppose you could protest and demand to be let off and cause a scene. You probably would be let off the plane, but it might be in handcuffs.
To add insult to injury, we, the American people, know that our congressmen and senators, our diplomats and ex-Presidents don’t have to suffer what the rest of America suffers. They have private jets, loaned jets, a friend of a friend of a friend’s jet they could borrow for a weekend in Tahiti. Neither the Dean’s, the Bush’s, the Pelosi’s, the Graham’s nor the Reid’s of the world has to suffer these indignities. Coincidentally, however, they are also the people refusing to do anything about it on our behalf.
Frankly, I’m surprised we endured this hand-handedness for so long. With the General Election approaching in November, perhaps, it’s high time we fire our so-called “Representatives”. With our congressmen and women having a lower turnover rate that the former Soviet Politburo, maybe it’s time they got a real job. Clearly, many of them aren’t doing the job Americans have hired them for…
Perhaps this is just cynical talk. I think it happens to be the truth of the matter, and if that’s just cynical talk, I know I’m not alone in it.
America is in line at the airport. America has its shoes off, is carrying a rubberized bin, is going through a magnetometer. America is worried there is fungus on the floor after a million stockinged feet have walked on it. But America knows not to ask. America is guilty until proved innocent, and no one wants to draw undue attention. America left its ticket and passport in the jacket in the bin in the X-ray machine, and is admonished. America is embarrassed to have put one one-ounce moisturizer too many in the see-through bag. America is irritated that the TSA agent removed its mascara, opened it, put it to her nose, and smelled it. Why don’t you put it up your nose and see if it explodes? America thinks.
And, as always: Why do we do this when you know I am not a terrorist, and you know I know you know I am not a terrorist? Why this costly and harassing kabuki when we both know the facts, and would agree that all this harassment is the government’s way of showing “fairness,” of showing that it will equally humiliate anyone in order to show its high-mindedness and sense of justice? Our politicians congratulate themselves on this as we stand in line.
All the frisking, beeping and patting down is demoralizing to our society. It breeds resentment, encourages a sense that the normal are not in control, that common sense is yesterday. Another thing: It reduces the status of that ancestral arbiter and leader of society, the middle-aged woman. In the new fairness, she is treated like everyone, without respect, like the loud ruffian and the vulgar girl on the phone. The middle-aged woman is the one spread-eagled over there in the delicate shell beneath the removed jacket, praying nothing on her body goes beep and makes people look.
America makes it through security, gets to the gate, waits. The TV monitor is on. It is Wolf Blitzer. He is telling us with a voice of urgency of the Pennsylvania returns. But no one looks up. We are a nation of Willie Lomans, dragging our rollies through acres of airport, going through life with a suitcase and a slack jaw, trying to get home after a long day of meetings, of moving product.
No one in crowded gate 14 looks up to see what happened in Pennsylvania. No one. Wolf talks to the air. Gate 14 is small-town America, a mix, a group of people of all classes and races brought together and living in close proximity until the plane is called, and America knows what Samuel Johnson knew. “How small of all that human hearts endure / That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.”
Gate 14 doesn’t think any one of the candidates is going to make their lives better. Gate 14 will vote anyway, because they know they are the grownups of America and must play the role and do the job.
You can read the rest here.