Remember when after 9/11, we were all filled with the pride of patriotism and the American Way? Remember how we weren’t going to “let the terrorists win” by changing us, by living in fear, because that’s exactly what they wanted because they wanted to destroy our American Way, our freedoms, our pride?
Well, they’re winning. We live in a ridiculous paranoid state that is the new American Way.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
The Portland International Jetport in Maine was shut down for six hours on Wednesday after an unknown someone spilled a mixture of flour and sugar on the luggage carousel in the baggage claim. A Haz Mat team was called out at noon and initial tests were negative for a biological substance; further testing revealed powder substance was the common ingredients used in a sugar cookie. It’s believed that a passenger was carrying the sugar cookie concoction in a plastic bag and spilled it. No one knows what flight the passenger was on or where he or she might have gone.
Our paranoia has begun to paralyze us. We are jumping at the most ridiculous things. The last time I flew, the airport security thought I might have a bomb in the saltwater taffy I purchased in the gift shop and held everyone up while they ran it through some sort of bomb-sniffing machine.
Meanwhile, we all now have to stand in lines in our sock feet and our possessions separated into containers on conveyor belts waiting anxiously to see if this is our turn to not just walk through the arched metal detector but to be asked to “step over there.” There’s a list now of everyday items that is too dangerous for us to carry with us on an airplane lest it be used for nefarious things — lipstick, chapstick, soda (don’t worry, they’ll give you another one on the plane because theirs isn’t as explosive as yours), hand lotion, baby formula, bottled water, nail clippers, sewing scissors, stitching needles.
There’s also stories of airplanes making emergency landings or not taking off at all because of this ridiculous out-of-control paranoia. You hear things about a whole plane being interrogated because a man accidentally dropped his iPod in the toilet — I’m surprised those haven’t been banned yet. You hear about passengers forcing planes to land or not take off in order to eject other passengers because of the color of their skin — apparently, this new and improved racism is perfectly acceptable; maybe if they sat at the back of the plane and used separate water fountains and bathrooms?
Oh, and those “no-fly” lists that keep toddlers from flying and are used to harass American citizens whose names are similar to actual terrorists? A real terrorist is probably not going to use his real name when making a reservation on American Airlines. Probably he’s been hiding in the U.S. under an alias and when he’s ready to make his move, he won’t be announcing he’s ready by using his real name. And probably, if he’s determined to really do something horrible, he knows how to get around the “for show” airport security procedures because he’s been studying it for months or years. And probably, he won’t look or act like a terrorist; in fact, he’ll probably look just like another exasperated passenger trying to get to his flight as he waits in line in his sock feet like everyone else.
What have we become in the last six years? What have we given up? Clearly we have not grown stronger through our experience. Instead we’re cracking at the seams. We’ve given in to the paranoia and we feed on each other’s paranoia. If you believed after 9/11 that the terrorists truly hated our freedoms, that they were trying to destroy us by taking away those freedoms, then you have to look around and wake up and realize that the terrorists are winning and they haven’t needed to make a second attack on American land. We’re doing all the work for them, destroying the American Way from within.
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