Comments on: The TSA and the Economics of Institutions

By: pussum207

pussum207 — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:38:10 +0000

“Tyler Cowen offers a cool-headed and dispassionate analysis, noting (correctly) that there are probably more important challenges to our liberty and our safety than the TSA.”Given the sheer scale and breadth of the assault on individual liberty, I would not doubt that there are many very important challenges to our liberty. Some of these may be as important as the TSA procedures and some may well restrict the scope of our freedom of action to a greater degree.However, the singular importance of the TSA procedures lies in two very profound things: a) we are required to either submit ourselves for approval of the gatekeepers unclothed (in effect, via the scanners) or to submit to a physical invasive search, and b) it is widely agreed that the search is “theatre” and adds nothing to our safety. In fact, by diverting resources away from activities that may actually be effective in ensuring safety, the TSA is reducing our safety.The symbolic importance of a) simply cannot be overstated. It is a horrific invasion of our personal inviolability. It is a dehumanizing and shocking display. The facts that i) we must submit ourselves in this way to low level functionaries and stand idly by while our spouses and children are subjected to the same treatment, and ii) the TSA proceduers serve no valid security purpose, make the humiliation complete.How any lover of liberty can view this matter coolly and dispassionately is beyond me.Adding to the threat to our liberty is the fact that we are by and large, acquiesing to this appalling intrusion of the state. The message we are sending is that no matter how humiliating, intrusive and pointless the rule, we will comply.Is there anything more dangerous than a government that recognizes that it has a docile populace, inured to arbitrary rules?I wonder what would happen if everyone in the US just stopped flying for two or three weeks?

By: Matthew Alexander

Matthew Alexander — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:34:56 +0000

Even mroe telling than the fact that they have caught no terrorists, is that they have diverted none either. There simply aren’t any terrorists out there with the desire and ability to attack us.
http://thngstff.blogspot.com/2010/11/tsa.html

By: Beefcake the Mighty

Beefcake the Mighty — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 15:11:11 +0000

Anyone who doubts that Tyler is a tool should consider his comments here:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/11/what-is-the-case-for-the-fed.html

Here’s a gem that pretty much sums him up:

“I view 1929-1932 as a better illustration of the workings of “a world without a Fed” than “a world with a Fed,” even though of course we had a Fed then. ”

Good comments from Tabarrok:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/11/faith-in-the-fed.html

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 07:08:23 +0000

Wow I just finished reading all of your articles at forbes.com on the TSA topic. Holy cow you have done a fantastic job! Just wanted to mention that and not simply focus on my mini-rant for praising Cowen’s take on the matter.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 07:01:28 +0000

I don’t understand your view of Tyler Cowen at all. I clicked the link you provided to read what he had to say. He seems like one of the most negative influences there is for liberty. He is both anti-liberty and intelligent enough to convince people on the margin that it is better to adopt a European attitude towards nudity than get upset about losing the right to privacy or being the victim of unreasonable search and seizure.

By: Ohhh Henry

Ohhh Henry — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 05:09:10 +0000

“cool headed and dispassionate” ???

Maybe you think so, but I call it equivocating, say-nothing, know-nothing drivel. Tyler Cowen has nothing intelligent to say about this or (apparently) anything else. For example:

… There’s even an available status attitude where you don’t mind or notice the scans, much as the King allowed himself to be dressed and handled by commoners. That’s the intelligent argument for the current shift in policy. Maybe the enhanced scans simply aren’t useful or maybe Americans can’t or won’t shift their norms. Those would be reasons not to do it (and I am not pronouncing a definitive opinion here) but it’s simply not, in principle, that objectionable of a policy …

I’m not pronouncing a definitive opinion here, but Cowen is a tool. The king allowed himself to be dressed by commoners because they were his employees. He could fire them or have them imprisoned or even executed if they got too familiar. They didn’t feel up one hundred different people before dressing the king with the same filthy, disease-spreading pair of gloves. They couldn’t arrest and fine the king if he decided he didn’t want to be groped. They didn’t leer at naked pictures of the king’s wife and children from the privacy of locked rooms, and even if they could do so, they wouldn’t get away with telling the king outrageous lies about not being able to save, print, publish or share the pictures.

By: guard

guard — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 04:56:14 +0000

One of the next logical steps toward totalitarian government is the control of travel. Considering the historical record, conspiracy should not be called a theory anymore. It should be called a law.: government will inevitably increase control of the populace until it destroys itself.

By: Bogart

Bogart — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:59:59 +0000

Tyler Cowen speaks as if the purpose of the scanners and pat downs is to provide security or keep people with bombs in their underwear off of an airplane. I maintain that the purpose of these machines is to force people to obediently subject themselves to humiliation and danger from radiation. The fact that the TSA has intercepted exactly ZERO terrorists in is existence should be proof that there are more nefarious intentions behind what the TSA is doing.And look at what the head of the DHS has said that she wants to keep ahead of the terrorists and bring these devices and procedures into ports, bus stations and train stations.

So my opinion is that what could be more important in the advancement of freedom other than to rid the country of this sick procedure. Think of how people feel who have medical devices and the like hidden under their clothes and get subjected to searches of these things.

By: Beefcake the Mighty

Beefcake the Mighty — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:16:09 +0000

“Tyler Cowen offers a cool-headed and dispassionate analysis, noting (correctly) that there are probably more important challenges to our liberty and our safety than the TSA. ”

I assume you mean by this that he puts forth his usual sophistry that is designed primarily to make himself look really clever while staying safely within the bounds of acceptable opinion on the matter? Thus a court intellectual maintains his (self-cultivated) reputation as an “original thinker.” At least his comments here aren’t as thoroughly ignorant (really dishonest) as when he attempts to assure his readers at the New York Times that there’s really nothing about Austrian Business Cycle Theory that they need acquaint themselves with.

I see Pete Boettke isn’t the only Austrian who’s drinken the Kool-Aid when it comes to Tyler Cowen.

By: Phinn

Phinn — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:12:48 +0000

FTA:“have Americans shift to a more European attitude on nude bodies”

Yeah, let’s get right on that. While we’re at it, let’s adopt a more European attitude toward hygiene, dental care, perpetual graduate school and the support of dictators.

Tyler Cowen lost me a long time ago, but even if he hadn’t, he would have lost me with childish crap like this.