The Republic Of Rub-A-Dub-Dub Genitalia

I imagine readers would prefer that I discuss the TSA’s breach of Jonah Falcon’s “formidable” breeches. But there are better ways to keep the terrorists of the TSA in the news, than to spotlight a well-endowed individual who—to go by his boasting—suffers from “small man syndrome.”

The truth is that the tea-party Congress has failed to tackle the Transportation Security Administration attack dogs. Once Rep. Ron Paul retires, there will be nobody to call for the tagging, collaring and impounding of these Cujos of government. (For the unflattering comparison, I apologize to Stephen King’s famous, rabid St. Bernard.)

While they bear a philosophical family resemblance, Rand Paul is nothing like his libertarian father. When the son of Ron was manhandled at the airport, he put in a good word for the folks at the TSA: These were good people bogged down by inflexible rules.

This is the “I was just following orders” defense. It was invalidated at the Nuremberg Trials. It certainly does not pass biblical muster. A true Christian would sooner go hungry than hurt or humiliate innocent human beings for a living.

By glumly suggesting wavers for frequent fliers (like himself), who’d be willing to part with more personal data for the TSA—Rand was adopting the conventional Republican special pleading. (The senator has since had a change of heart, and has joined his dad in calling for the abolition of this rogue government agency.)

Perhaps Rand was hip to the growing indifference among members of the public. For a while, the natives were restless over being handled like meat at a packing plant. Travelers, however, have begun to relax, and have eased into the role of stunned cattle.

A jury of “submissives” has even gone so far as to enjoin any resistance to TSA tyranny.You know the drill. During a routine TSA screening, Carol Jean Price, aged 59, had her buttocks, breasts and genitals touched by an agent. Except that Price didn’t think the prodding should be routine. She became upset, as victims of sexual assault often do. “When TSA supervisor Kristin Arnberg approached the outraged Price after the initial screening,” Price had the temerity to demonstrate the anatomy of  “gate-rape” on the super.

A jury not of her peers convicted the victim (Price) of battery.

In a constitutional republic, The Law should apply to civilian and civil servant alike, with no exceptions. If a country’s legal code outlaws sexual assault—then the act of fondling an innocent and unwilling stranger, without probable cause, between her thighs and around her breasts, must be proscribed to all people, in all places.

Correspondingly, Ms. Price was correct to instinctively infer that if certain forms of touching are legal in her “great” country, governed as it allegedly is by laws and not men—then everyone should be able to practice the treatment these laws prescribe on everyone else.

If the law allows a TSA agent to touch me intimately (and one has!), the same law should give me license to return her “affections.” That is the logic of just law in a constitutional republic. It is the logic behind a citizen’s arrest, for example. Because we are agreed that the behavior to be stopped violates rights—it matters not who stops the crime.

Conversely, if, as we are told, the TSA’s touching is in furtherance of the same natural rights—then, it should be perfectly proper for civilians, in turn, to pat these agents on their privates (repulsive though that may be).

Since so few of us comprehend that what the TSA does flouts the inviolable Fourth-Amendment rights “of the people to be secure in their persons”—still fewer are able to deduce that we now live under the law of rule, and not the rule of law.

The enemy of the pliant American people is celebrating its victory in the Florida county court of Judge Frank Mann Jr. “We are thankful that the state attorney’s office recognized the severity of [Carol Jean Price’s] violation, and took the appropriate action in pursuing this conviction,” TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz told the media. “This decision should send a strong message that violence against our officers will not be tolerated.”

Members of certain cultures, once considered backward, greet each other with a harmless and voluntary rubbing of the noses. In our “culture,” we rub your genitalia, whether you like it or not. Now who’s the real “primitive”?