Sic Semper Tyrannis

What would a modern American holiday season be without the large-scale and Draconian abuse of average, mild-mannered citizens in transit?

Sadly, it would probably be unAmerican. In that vein, here's a blood-boiling tale of a baggage-handler who found that his "inside" status apparently did little mollify the sting of becoming one of the TSA's countless false positives:

Follow up:

He pulled out his pocket-sized flashlight and said, "take off your sunglasses, I think you're on drugs." I said, "what?!" He replied, "I am ordering you to take off your sunglasses." So I did. He shined the light in my eyes, and said, "Yep, you're on something. Anything you need to tell me?" I was incredulous. I said, "Look! I showed you my SIDA badge, I'm in the random drug test pool, I get tested regularly, I don't use drugs. Now or ever." He said, "I don't believe you. Turn around and put your right hand behind your back." He snapped on handcuffs and said I was under arrest for suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance.

I love that part. Who gets on drugs and then waltzes through airport security for a good time? And who hasn't had a run-in with cops (or sundry other sorts of government goons) and been spuriously accused of being under the influence of some sort of drug? I'm raising my hand. In a pinch, I can think of three other friends who have as well (all totally harmless geeks).

Do they do it because it makes them feel better to believe they're giving a truly "bad person" a hard time? Or is it all just ass-covering? It certainly seems to end up justifying all kinds of official affronts with a shocking level of frequency.

Unfortunately, I've also got a personal story for this holiday travel season (albeit much milder than the above).

Driving through North Carolina, I got a speeding ticket. Apparently I was in a "work zone", so the speed limit was 55mph (the last I had noticed was 70mph). There was no construction going on in this "work zone", of course (not even orange cones), so I didn't notice the road's "legal status" had changed.

In fact, I don't even know if the cop really radar'd me: there was a car diagonally between me and the cop at the time. Everyone was, technically, "speeding."

But what gets my goat the most is how the cop gave me the paternalistic talk about how he could "arrest me" and throw me in jail. Absolutely disgusting. If I didn't know better I'd be scared or guilt-tripped. And apparently most Americans are.

Anyway, let this be a lesson to anyone else who finds themselves having to drive through North Carolina: tickets are big business in that state -- worse than I've ever seen. And apparently half the state is technically a construction zone, and apparently they take advantage of this during high-volume travel periods to really rake in the dough.

I consider it a sad state of affairs when the state's most public face of "security" is out there at the most sensitive of times creating an actual hazard instead of being at the ready to help people.

Par for the course, these days.