TSA between rock and hard place

As much as I dislike the intrusive security measures foisted on us by the Transportation Security Administration, I have to say that I'm feeling sorry for those folks. They're between a rock and a hard place, neither of which is of their own making.

On one side are the people who want their flights to be as safe as possible. If some loon could be packing plastic explosives in his butt crack, these people would want every passenger to undergo a body-cavity inspection before boarding. (That's pretty much what we've got.)

On the other side are the people who have decided that the intrusiveness of searches has crossed a line. They're the people who take to heart Franklin's aphorism about those willing to trade liberty for safety deserving neither.

It is not possible to please both camps, yet that's the position in which the TSA finds itself.

(This conundrum is reminiscent of the financial one facing our government: we desire more from it than we are willing to fund through taxes. At some point, we will have to pass between that rock and hard place, too.)

Who knows how many people will opt out of full-body scans and pat downs tomorrow, the 24th of November, supposedly the day of resistance? If enough do so to delay departure of flights by a significant amount of time, will this tactic have backfired by antagonizing a large number of people who would otherwise have remained neutral?

Though inclined to decry heavyhanded security, I don't know that I'd be willing to take my chances if I had to board a plane. Yes, I'm more likely to be killed in an auto accident, but at least I'd most likely be at the wheel. I can't control what other drivers do, but being at the wheel gives me a fighting chance to decide my fate.

Nothing makes us crave extra security like surrendering control, and commercial air travel is a giant transfer of one's fate not only to a flight crew (whom we trust for the most part), but to the vagaries of one's fellow passengers. All it would take would be that one aforementioned loon, and that flight could end badly.

Here's a different perspective, though, and it just occurred to me so I might not have thought through all its ramifications. Terrorists seek to change behavior through, well, terror. Shouldn't we be denying "the terrorists" their victory, by refusing to give in to our fears? Reasonable safety precautions are well and good, but if those precautions threaten to take away our Constitutional liberties, shouldn't we, as patriotic citizens, be willing to sacrifice that extra measure of safety so that the fabric of our nation, of our way of life, is preserved?

Some people were distressed by what they saw as a too-limited participation by the public in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Well, maybe this is how civilians can do their part: they can accept a little more risk. Just food for thought.