Perhaps You'll Believe Him Now

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H L Mencken

"It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all times and everywhere, to assume...that every citizen is a criminal. Their one apparent purpose, pursued with a relentless and furious diligence, is to convert the assumption into a fact. They hunt endlessly for proofs, and, when proofs are lacking, for mere suspicions. The moment they become aware of a definite citizen, John Doe, seeking what is his right under the law, they begin searching feverishly for an excuse for withholding it from him." - H.L. Mencken

"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods." - H. L. Mencken

For future reference (as news articles aren't online forever) the link above pointed to a story about Pennsylvania maing a little extra cash by selling items stolen confiscated at airports on E-bay. The article says there are "...auto parts, kitchen implements, gardening tools, jewelry, sporting goods and batteries..." in addition to "...two sombreros, a plaque from a fishing contest in Cayuga Lake, N.Y., a jungle machete and about 100 sets of handcuffs, some fur-lined. At one point, the state had a sausage grinder, a man-sized artificial palm tree and a Christmas ornament decorated with the logo of hot dog purveyor Nathan's Famous." But the items most stolen confiscated at airports are knives.

That's why I drive. From my cold dead pocket clip & all that.

From the security screeners implenting it to the politicans approving of this kind of program to the judges condoning it - bastards every one.

Posted by Publicola at August 15, 2006 07:45 AM | TrackBack