What Is A Right: Part Two

I guess I couldn't ask for more perfect timing on this one.  I was listening to Inga Barks sitting in for Mark Levin. The show was from Monday or Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and the hot topic is the TSA screening.

At least a couple of callers made the statement that flying was not a right, but a privilege, similar to driving.  Inga is a smart lady with her own radio show in Fresno, but even she can't come up with correct responses on the spot like Levin can most of the time.  And I'll admit, unless you've already thought about this one, it would be easy to hear someone make that statement and think, "Yeah, that sounds right."  But it's not.  Why isn't it?  Let's start with driving.

For you to operate a motor vehicle out on the commonly held public roads, everybody else, including yourself would like to be reasonably sure that you know what you are doing.  We don't let young children or people with disabilities that are too severe operate motor vehicles as a right because doing so would unreasonably endanger other people.  Therefore society, and in America that means the State level, our elected legislatures come up with minimum standards for which you can obtain a license in order to operate this potentially fatal piece of machinery.  If you want to buy a large enough parcel of land and have a vehicle delivered there and then want to drive it all over your property without ever getting it registered or insured or getting yourself a license, go ahead.  It's your right.

It's pretty much understood that you have a right to travel in and among the several States. Freedom of movement is and ought to be a right.  If you can't or don't want to obtain a license to drive, you can get someone else to carry you, or you can walk or ride a bicycle or whatever.  If you take a cab or a bus, you've simply entered into a contract (also considered a right) with another private entity to take you where you want to go.  That entity's license to transportation in whatever medium has nothing to do with your right to travel.
However, (and it pains me that I have to state this because somebody reading this doesn't know any better) that private entity that has jumped through all the hoops for the license, is a private entity that has the right to refuse service to anyone for whatever reason.  If you call a cab and then want it to take you into a drug infested, dangerous part of town, the driver can say, "I'll take you this far and no farther."  If Greyhound won't sell you a ticket because you don't know how or won't bathe, I think the other passengers will be grateful.

This is why the American public screwed up royally when they didn't bombard their congress critters to put the kabosh on creating the TSA in the first place.  As well, what would have had a great effect would have been to tell the airlines that they had better lobby against turning over security to the Feds.  Travelers should have threatened a boycott of any airline that supported creating the TSA.  But I understand why they supported it. By transferring the responsibility to the Feds, they absolve themselves of any liability for security.

This whole TSA thing is simply more methods by the political ruling class to condition the populace to accept any and all intrusive and abusive destruction of our rights in the name of security.  My prediction is that before too long, the terrorists will carry out an assault on a large public venue.  Shopping mall, sports arena, concert, mega-church gathering, you name it.  Then expect to see metal detectors and other devices springing up in all those places where they aren't already in place, but then there will be more invasive search procedures.  Just a little bit more, and a little bit more.  All in the name of safety.  Then before too long, you won't be able to travel a single road for more than five miles without being asked, "Your papers, please."

For some other very enlightening commentary on the TSA scandal, I highly recommend reading what Daphne has to say on the matter.