Failure of Conservative Socialism

Failure of Conservative Socialism
by Mark Luedtke

Trying to understand how a two-bit terrorist wannabe made it onto a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with a bomb in his underwear after governments around the world spent untold billions on airport security since 9/11, Christopher Hitchens asked, "Why are we so bad at detecting the guilty and so good at collective punishment of the innocent?" Because our security services are a socialist monopoly.

It never ceases to amaze me how conservatives can make intelligent arguments against socialism on most policies then dogmatically demand that our security institutions be socialist. There's no such thing as a good socialist program. Socialist programs are always crippled by political motives regardless of which party is in charge. Because they're funded by taking money from people by force instead of through voluntary exchange, they're always corrupt. Bureaucrats claim they never have enough resources, but that's a smokescreen. The problem is socialist institutions are funded through force instead of sales, so managers have no prices to guide the allocation of resources. They have no competition against which to measure their strengths and weaknesses.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) illustrated its priority when it announced new regulations including restricting airline passengers from going to the bathroom within one hour of landing. These bureaucrats know these restrictions will only hinder passengers, not terrorists. Their sole purpose is to provide a false sense of security to voters for the benefit of their political masters.

The most obvious government failure in this fiasco was allowing the would-be terrorist through airport security with a bomb in his underwear. Considered in isolation, this seems hard to stop. Except for the perverts undoubtedly attracted to airport security jobs, security personnel don't want to grab the crotches of every airline passenger any more than the passengers want their crotches grabbed. It's unclear whether the scanners that make subjects appear nude would have uncovered this device if they had been employed, but the knee-jerk reaction of government is to deploy these scanners on every American, ASAP. Smile, you're on nude Candid Camera. Don't worry. Our TSA agents will delete the photos as soon as they finish enjoying them. Trust us. We're from the government.

But we can't consider this in isolation. Missing from the government driven mainstream media stories are reports that a second bomb was found in an Indian man's carry-on after the flight landed. Two passengers identify a third failure, claiming a different Indian man pressured the check-in attendant to allow the would-be bomber to by-pass the standard passport check. The attendant called a security manager who acquiesced. Not only did government agents miss the bomb, they were complicit in getting the bomber on the plane despite the rules. The Dutch government denies this report, but I'll take the word of passengers over bureaucrats any day.

Fourth, after the would-be bomber's own father, a highly respected businessman and politician in Nigeria, reported him as a terrorist threat, the CIA added the man to the terrorist watch list then promptly failed to alert the FBI. Additionally, the bomber paid cash, bought a one-way ticket and checked no bags, but he still didn't set off any warning bells. Only government could be so inept to allow this man on a plane with a bomb.

Between the failure of airport security and the lack of communication between Cold War era dinosaurs, this government malfeasance is reminiscent of 9/11. If a private sector security firm had remained this inept, it would have gone bankrupt and been replaced with a quality security firm years ago. Government is the only institution that profits from failure. Nobody will lose their job. The failed agencies will get more money because of their failure. Passengers will be punished for government's failure with tighter regulations and despite all the touted security features advertised by government, nude photos of passengers will end up on the internet.

Right after 9/11, George Bush nationalized airport security virtually without criticism, aborting the improvement process that naturally occurs in the private sector. Despite - or because of - all the money and freedom our government has seized from us, airport security is little better today than it was on 9/11. Instead of inexpensive, effective private sector security companies maintaining watch lists, performing behavioral analysis, checking for weapons and implementing a thousand other innovative ideas the public has never heard of, planning several steps ahead of the terrorists, expensive socialist security services deliver oppression and a false sense of security, paralyzed by a need for political consensus and stumbling several steps behind the terrorists. No technology, policy or idea can overcome the fatal conceit of central planning. The government monopoly on security can no more secure our airplanes than the government monopoly on schools can educate our children.

If you were getting on an airplane that was being targeted by terrorists, who would you want making sure that airplane arrived safely: Captain Sully and his crew who have their lives on the line with you or Janet Napolitano and her army of bureaucrats genuflecting to Congress from their taxpayer funded ivory tower?

The only aspect of security that succeeded in this fiasco is the passengers and crew. I was surprised to discover the TSA considers the very people they treat like criminals, confiscating pocket knives and scissors from them, a valuable layer of security. They got that part right. To paraphrase the wisdom the Founding Fathers distilled into the second amendment, a well-trained militia comprised of all the people is necessary to the security of a free state. Prepared citizens are the last, best defense against terrorists.

But the biggest threat to our security is our war on terror policies. If you only read the accomplice press, you might think the underwear bomber became a terrorist in Yemen. Or Nigeria. But this guy was radicalized in the UK. Using bombs and tanks to install western-style governments in middle eastern countries - a clash of civilizations if there ever was one - is creating enemies faster than we can overcome them. Now the hawks are calling to attack Yemen as if that worked so well in Afghanistan and Iraq. If we want real security, we have to stop using violence to impose our will on others, let them determine their own fates and focus on hunting down terrorists.

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References:

Imagine what would have happened if a private security firm had failed to stop this guy from getting on the plane. Another Indian man was found to have a bomb in his carry-on after the plane landed.

Apparently similar bombs in the past failed to take down the airplane though one killed a passenger. How weird is this?

"Janet
isn’t the first of Our Rulers to divulge this damaging info. In 2007,
the Government Accountability Office reported that the TSA "considers…able-bodied passengers
to be an important layer of aviation security" because they will
"engage in self-defense actions should an incident occur onboard
commercial aircraft." That’s right: taxpayers deprived of all weapons
and defenses but fingernails, whom the TSA suspects for terrorists and
abuses accordingly, not only comprise one of its often-hyped "layers of
security" but an "important" one! Is this complete, jaw-dropping
insanity or what? And why are we paying $7 billion a year for these
thugs to molest and insult us when, in the end, they count on us to defeat terrorists?"

Well
said. If TSA wants passengers to be an effective layer of security,
quit taking their knives (and clippers and whatever else) away.

Dutch government denies reports that the underwear bomber had no passport. Passenger claims Dutch government admits it allows the wannabe terrorist to skirt normal passport procedures.