Dude, Where’s My Freedom?

Dude, Where’s My Freedom?
The government tightens the noose on guns, health, travel, and more.

Benjamin Franklin once warned Americans that “they who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” Yet in the seemingly unrelated areas of health care and physical security, our political leaders are embracing this folly with predictably bad results.



Even worse, as Mark McCarty of Medical Device Daily recently described, FDA advisors have sought to deny terminally patients access to potentially life-extending treatments on the grounds that “the risk-benefit ratio was not up to par.” Similarly, medical device makers are now finding Europe a more hospitable environment for innovation than the U.S. due to FDA regulations. Rather than protecting Americans, the FDA is endangering them.

(sounds vaguely like a bureaucrat making life and death decisions about health care ... Death panels anyone )


In the realm of transportation security, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) is already a national joke for groping grandmothers and babies. Yet when tested with fake bombs and real guns, they’ve failed miserably. Indeed, it was the passengers who stopped the would-be bomber in Detroit of Northwest Airlines flight 253, not the TSA — a classic example of what blogger Glenn Reynolds calls “An Army of Davids.”

Americans have surrendered their freedoms (and their dignity) to the TSA for a sham “security theater” rather than genuine security. Yet politicians like Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) want to extend such controls from air travel to train travel.

(I wonder how much money Chucky is getting from companies manufacturing TSA's Porno Scanners)

Finally, Obama administration officials recently let slip that they are working on new gun control measures “under the radar.” Gun control is the classic example of foolishly exchanging an essential liberty for an illusion of security. The U.S. states that respect the honest citizen’s right to carry firearms in self-defense have consistently lower rates of violent crimes than states with strict gun control laws.

With respect to terrorism, the government should adopt a proactive foreign policy that actually tackles the threat of Islamic totalitarianism, rather than harassing law-abiding travelers.


All forms of “gun control,” “travel control,” or “health control” are just examples of a broader “freedom control.” And they are all doomed to fail because at root they are just different ways of government violating our individual rights rather than protecting them.

lots of meat in the article .......



I am sure some progressive will be along how it is better that the Gobberment control everything ......

[BOP]

Obama: We’re working on gun control “under the radar”
posted at 1:15 pm on May 25, 2011 by Ed Morrissey
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"I missed this last week, and so may many who didn’t notice Instapundit’s link to the Greeley Gazette’s post on the White House’s efforts to impose gun control through executive-branch regulatory adventurism. Jack Minor caught this anecdote buried below the jump on a Washington Post Lifestyle profile of Steve Croley, first published six weeks ago. Described as “the White House’s point man on gun regulation policy,” the Post includes this rather telling quote from President Obama on the issue of gun control from March:

On March 30, the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, Jim Brady, who sustained a debilitating head wound in the attack, and his wife, Sarah, came to Capitol Hill to push for a ban on the controversial “large magazines.” Brady, for whom the law requiring background checks on handgun purchasers is named, then met with White House press secretary Jay Carney. During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, “to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,” she said.

“I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

[BOP]

In Case Anyone Has Forgotten, The TSA Sucks.

"Dr. David Mandy: Special Needs Son Harassed by TSA at Detroit Metropolitan Airport

Updated: Thursday, 09 Jun 2011, 3:32 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 08 Jun 2011, 11:10 PM EDT

By TARYN ASHER
WJBK | myFOXDetroit.com

ROMULUS, Mich. (WJBK) - The Mandy family says they were on their way to the happiest place on earth (Disney), but had to go through hell to get there.

"I realize they're trying to keep people safe, but come on, does he look like a terrorist?" said Dr. David Mandy.

The family was going through security when two TSA agents singled Drew Mandy out for a special pat down. Drew is severely mentally disabled. He's 29, but his parents said he has the mental capacity of a two-year-old, which made the experience that followed at metro Detroit's McNamera Terminal that much harder to deal with.

"You have got to be kidding me. I honestly felt that those two agents did not know what they were doing," Mandy told us.

Dr. Mandy claimed they asked Drew to place his feet on the yellow shoe line, something he didn't understand. They proceeded to pat his pants down, questioning the padding which was his adult diapers. When the agents asked Drew to take his hand and rub the front and back of his pants so they could swab it for explosives, his dad stepped in and tried to explain that Drew was mentally challenged.

"They said, 'Please, sir, we know what we're doing,'" Mandy said.

The TSA agents saw Drew holding a six-inch plastic hammer.

"My son carries his ball and his hammer for security. He goes everywhere with (them)," said Mandy.

The TSA it seems saw the toy as a weapon.

"He took the hammer and he tapped the wall. 'See, it's hard. It could be used as a weapon,'" Mandy explained. "So, Drew's also holding the ball, and I said, 'Well, how about the ball?' He (said), 'Oh, he can keep that."

It gets better. Turns out Mom had a spare plastic hammer in her backpack, which went through security just fine, and they were able to give it to their son once they passed through security.

The head of TSA at that airport said he was embarrassed about the incident.

He told the local news affilate that the 800 people who worked for TSA would undergo retraining, and that he was very sorry that this happened. He has also personally apologized to the family.


Mockarena says:
You know what kills me? The fact that tons of money will be spent on “training” thousands of TSA employees on how not to be total JACKWAGONS to special needs people now.

GAWD."




What she said.