In defense of the conservative mind

A reader recently sent me some of his own musings on a past column and asked for my thoughts. Here is Part 2 of that column:

As to profiling airline passengers: You want a free pass because you are white.

You are correct, I want a free pass because I am white. And also because Israel, a nation surrounded by people who want nothing more than to blow it off the face of the planet, has its stuff together enough to know that terrorists fit a particular profile. (And said profile is decidedly not miserable Mormons or pissed off Presbyterians.)

And as an aside, when we’re actually tagging Neo-Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan, I’d be more than happy to do my part and live with that inconvenience at checkpoints and the like, since I’d fit that particular profile. (Oh yes, that would be because only white males belong to Neo-Nazi groups and the Ku Klux Klan.)

As to terrorists, that is only a problem to people who have sensitivity issues. (Not unlike the same people who, for whatever reason, got their pantyhose in a bunch over shock-jock Don Imus when the same language he used is regularly listened to and perpetuated by hip-hop artists, R & B artists and others. Forget the USA PATRIOT Act; the First Amendment definitely got hosed there.)

Knowing that I can’t get past [Homeland] Insecurity with a teddy bear I would give it to a 4-year-old girl and walk away. The parents might be too hassled with the lines and checks to notice a new toy. How about the 80-year-old granny? “I have too much luggage and want to get this bear to my child when I get home. Can you help?” Don’t look at granny, look at the man with the accent. (If grannies are so smart, why do many of them get relieved of their life savings by smooth talkers? Many non-grannies get taken also.) Meanwhile, tick, tick, tick.

Granted security issues always exist. But then again Israel has had it ironed out for 30-plus years, and it involves the “who” not the “what.”

Back to the airlines. You realize that the pension funds are going downhill into the toilet because of Reagan?

I am at heart a capitalist. Blaming former President Ronald Reagan is a nice excuse for the conservatively challenged, but it’s better to blame former President Franklin D. Roosevelt—the man whom who dreamed up those Ponzi-schemes in the first place.

If [Reagan] hadn’t deregulated everything he could, the airlines would be charging a fair price for tickets instead of discount airlines coming in and going out of business in a few years. Once you could fly to smaller cities because regulations demanded you supply service. Now, if it is not profitable the airlines drop the routes.

And your point is?

Actually when you say “a fair price” that would be significantly higher than one can purchase any flight today. Regulation does, by definition, increase the price of goods and services. That by definition, also hurts those who least can afford it.

And no one tried to use gel as a boom-boom. The British stopped that and stopped it before there was enough evidence. It was all in the planning stage. Most of the suspects didn’t have or hadn’t even applied for passports. [Homeland] Insecurity needed [to] boost Bush’s dropping poll numbers, so they went in early.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Madeline Albright, et al, said Saddam Hussein was a threat, and all on their watch.

As always, I appreciate the critique and the dialogue.