The Volokh Conspiracy, Stewart Baker, and the TSA

Stewart Baker doesn't understand why we hate the TSA so much. He's completely baffled by it. Loved the post on Popehat.

As for the Volokh Conspiracy (blog) -- the people who post articles there are for the most part, lawyers or law professors, mostly of a libertarian bent.

more at link
The Volokh Conspiracy Turned Into A TSA Porn Site So Gradually, I Hardly Noticed

The one thing I take away from Stewart Baker's extremely unsettling extended sexual metaphor about opposition to the TSA is that the man is very frustrated.
Mr. Baker — a self-described "privacy skeptic and national security conservative" — is frustrated at his inability to comprehend all of that nasty opposition to the TSA. He seizes upon a belabored sexual analogy: TSA lines give us (him) performance anxiety, causing us to fumble about, alarmed at any change in routine, thwarting us from the smooth, economical physical movements that, Astaire-like, make us sexually irresistible to virginal women. No, really. No, damn it, I'm serious, go read it yourself. There. I told you.
Baker, surrounded by a tissue of lies about TSA opponents and a double handful of the balm of self-regard, flogs that metaphor raw, but is unable to conclude it satisfactorily. He dreams of a TSA that would post encouraging signs to us that we're doing fine, just fine, steadily building in tempo, moving us towards the end of the security line, until we shoot with a relieved sigh out of it all over the Sbarro Express.

 

Interesting, what a commenter points out. Stewart Baker used to work for DHS. He's not an apologist, he's a tyranny architect.

Dig the pic, too. Those eyebrows make him look old-school as tyrants go.

The whole thing is very illuminating about how DHS wonks think. "Women? Why don't they appreciate having their labia palpitated in the name of safety? I just can't fathom."

 

wow. the comments to Baker's nonsense piece really reamed him effectively and intelligently, for the most part. I see many old comrades in arms there, including one halls120....

what a soul-less pr*k. Is our government really staffed by empty holes like this?

I liked Jorge Landivar's response to Baker's comment "But it’s only when I defend TSA that the comments go beyond hostile to visceral and occasionally even spittle-flecked."

 

I liked the comment in response to Baker's:
"I can’t explain the women who hate TSA with a passion, though I’m not sure how many there are."

 

Which comment was halls120? I think I read them all and didn't pick that one out of the crowd. Perhaps a different handle.

 

this one:

 

Thanks, had read the comments from the first link, not the second. Will go back and review both links.

 

It's been argued that it is significantly less effective.