The horses have escaped? Quick! Shut the barn door!

Is anyone else concerned about the idiocy with which the FAA and the US Government are dealing with the latest airline security issue? I mean, I’m all for safety precautions, but it seems to me that the security measures that have been implemented in the past decade are purely reactionary. Someone uses a liquid to do damage, so liquids are restricted to 3 ounces. Someone uses a shoe, so we all have to walk through security barefoot. While I understand the basic logic behind these choices, they have proven time and time again to be completely useless. Imagine if you will, being in an elementary classroom:

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Vandalism has become a problem in Room 7. The first time profanity was written on the whiteboard while the teacher was talking with some students in the hall, so the students were no longer allowed to work outside the classroom. That sounds reasonable enough, right? The next time pictures are drawn on some of the desks while the class is out at recess, so recess is limited to indoor activities for the rest of the week. The kids don’t like it, but there’s not much they can do about it. Despite the teacher’s watchful eye, doodles are found on the wall by the library sometime after writing. This time, the teacher collects all the pencils and requires students to sign them out each time they need one. Some of the students see this restriction of their activities as a challenge. It becomes a status builder to be able to commit vandalism without getting caught. Eventually, the teacher has implemented a rule prohibiting any students from getting out of their seats outside of their assigned 15 minute window each day. All writing utensils are considered contraband materials, and students are patted down prior to entering the classroom each morning. Not only has the vandalism not stopped, now the students of Room 7 are rebelling in a variety of other ways.
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In the wake of the most recent terrorist activity, the FAA has come up with yet another asinine security measure. “Among other things, during the final hour of flight customers must remain seated, will not be allowed to access carry-on baggage, or have personal belongings or other items on their laps.” Because that’s going to fix everything, right? At least until some pissed off terrorist realizes that they can get up to mischief BEFORE the one hour cut-off time. At which point the rest of us - honest passengers just trying to get from point A to point B - will be told to sit without moving in our seats for the last TWO hours of the flight. And so on.

Why is it that authority figures inevitably choose to demonstrate their power and might over those who challenge or disagree with them? These attempts to micromanage the behavior of others so rarely fixes anything. Instead the situation is escalated back and forth, with each side trying harder to one-up the other. How can it be that after thousands of years, the driving forces behind human actions can still be so misunderstood? Good people can do amazing things when they are treated with respect and understanding, but will fight back and make stupid choices when they feel their freedoms are being threatened. Bad people find a way to do bad things no matter what restrictions they are facing. “The attempted attack on a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit has raised concerns among U.S. security officials that the device the suspect allegedly tried to detonate appeared to be made of materials that met U.S. airline-security regulations, Rep. Peter King, R.-N.Y., the top Republican on the House Homeland Security committee, said in an interview Saturday.”

I, for one, am done traveling the friendly skies. The insane expense, the endless lines, the indisputable carbon footprint, the inevitable airline incompetence, and the increasingly restricting (yet consistently useless) rules and regulations have convinced me. If I need to go somewhere in the foreseeable future, it will be on the ground.