Flabbergasted

….But not surprised:

The TSA’s bizarre new policy where it orders travelers who have already passed security to “freeze” on command has been caught on camera, with the clip illustrating once more how the federal agency has implemented a series of ludicrous policies that seemingly have no other purpose than to act as an obedience test for the traveling public.

I’m not surprised because this is what we’ve been taught in public schools. Don’t be an individual, follow the group! Also the person in authority is always right, and shouldn’t be questioned.

I think I told the story before, but as a child I was sent to woman who ran a small babysitting business outside my school for about an hour every morning when my parents had to go to work. She wasn’t a good person. She didn’t commit any serious abuse, but she was constantly yelling and swearing at us. Her grandson was in the group, and he was a bully, and she looked the other way when he decided to hurt the others for fun. Overall it was a miserable time for me from about age 6-8.

When my folks decided I was old enough to look after myself and to lock up the house and walk to school when it was time, I thanked them profusely, not for the trust and responsibility, but salvation from that bitch and her ugly kids.

My Mom was SHOCKED! She asked why I felt that way, I told her. She asked why I had never told her about any of this before. My answer was “She was a grown-up, and you sent me to stay with her. I didn’t want to be bad.”

That event was one of the shaping moments of my life. I learned that adults can be bad, and adults in authority don’t always deserve it.

It seems so many others haven’t learned that lesson, like I did. But hey, it was practically in the drinking water. Just read this article the other day:

Dungeons & Dragons was a series about six kids who were transported to a dimension filled with wizards and fire-snorting reptiles and cryptic clues and an extremely-evil despot named Venger….The kids were all heroic — all but a semi-heroic member of their troupe named Eric. Eric was a whiner, a complainer, a guy who didn’t like to go along with whatever the others wanted to do. Usually, he would grudgingly agree to participate, and it would always turn out well, and Eric would be glad he joined in. He was the one thing I really didn’t like about the show.

So why, you may wonder, did I leave him in there? Answer: I had to.

As you may know, there are those out there who attempt to influence the content of childrens’ television. We call them “parents groups,” although many are not comprised of parents, or at least not of folks whose primary interest is as parents. Study them and you’ll find a wide array of agendum at work…and I suspect that, in some cases, their stated goals are far from their real goals.

Nevertheless, they all seek to make kidvid more enriching and redeeming, at least by their definitions, and at the time, they had enough clout to cause the networks to yield. Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain “pro-social” morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant “pro-social” moral was as follows: The group is always right…the complainer is always wrong.

This was the message of way too many eighties’ cartoon shows. If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them. There was even a show for one season on CBS called The Get-Along Gang, which was dedicated unabashedly to this principle. Each week, whichever member of the gang didn’t get along with the gang learned the error of his or her ways.

We were forced to insert this “lesson” in D & D, which is why Eric was always saying, “I don’t want to do that” and paying for his social recalcitrance. I thought it was forced and repetitive, but I especially objected to the lesson. I don’t believe you should always go along with the group. What about thinking for yourself? What about developing your own personality and viewpoint? What about doing things because you decide they’re the right thing to do, not because the majority ruled and you got outvoted?

We weren’t allowed to teach any of that. We had to teach kids to join gangs. And then to do whatever the rest of the gang wanted to do.

What a stupid thing to teach children.

Not so stupid when you want them to obey without question, an idiot with a badge, who offers no security at the expense of our liberty, and often out personal property. Do you think the TSA would have survived its first year if Americans had been taught to respectfully question authority?

These people should be arrested, not obeyed!

H/t Linoge and Michael Silence

This entry was posted in Bad Justice, Freedom, Politics, Safety. Bookmark the permalink.

6 Responses to Flabbergasted

  1. George says:

    I travel just about every other week on airplanes, and treat TSA with benign contempt most days.
    Understand that just about every interaction you have with TSA is voluntary. In terms of actual authority, they can do three things:

    1) Permit you to travel through a checkpoint.
    2) Refuse to permit you to travel through a checkpoint.
    3) Call a police officer.

    That’s the only three choices they have. They cannot detain you, they cannot do ANYTHING to you once you are through the checkpoint, except ask you to go through again. They have no authority to tell you to stop moving. And you have no obligation to obey. Scary blue uniforms and jack boots not withstanding, they are not sworn law enforcement in any shape, manner or fashion.

    I’ve never encountered these “drills” but I would politely ignore them as the theater that they are.

  2. Pyrotek85 says:

    Alright this is a bit creepy, makes you wonder what other messages they’ve been trying to brainwash us with.

  3. alan says:

    Mental children playing Respect My Authority!

  4. Rob Crawford says:

    I thought Eric was in the show to give Donny Most a job.

  5. Murphy's Law says:

    I long for the day when I’m in the airport and some goober with no law-enforcement authority tries to tell me to freeze.

  6. Pingback: Tonight on Squirrel! | Weer'd World

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