Full body whiners

I don’t understand the ranting and raving over the airport’s full body scanners. Yes, they capture remarkably life-like images of your unclothed body, and yes, if you wish to avoid this scanners, an aggressive pat-down by TSA security is required, but have we forgotten how many people around the world are constantly trying to bring down American airplanes and kill American citizens.

Seriously.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women around the world who spend their every waking moment plotting and scheming to kill Americans by destroying the planes in which they fly.

Yet as Americans, we cannot deign to submit to a scan that would help to ensure our safety and the safety of our fellow passengers, as well as protecting the airline industry as a whole?

Stupid.

Flying is not a Constitutionally guaranteed. It is a choice that a person makes.  And yes, those scanners are intrusive and perhaps  even embarrassing (though why you would care if a stranger sees your digitally-enhanced naked image amidst a sea of other similarly naked images is beyond me), but they hardly equate to the loss of civil liberties that Americans suffered as a result of the PATRIOT Act.

These scanners are simply a thorough and effective means by which security personnel can verify that no weapons or explosives are being brought on a plane.

Yet people are rising up in opposition to them.

It makes no sense.

I recently learned that there is a Connecticut law that requires all schools to have an AED (automated external defibrillator) on site in case of a heart emergency. But there is also a provision in the law that allows school districts that cannot afford the device ($1,200) to ignore the requirement as long as a plan is in place for purchasing the AED when the financial constraints are alleviated.

What does a plan like this look like?

“When we have enough money, we will go to Amazon.com (yes, Amazon sells them) and buy an AED.”

Is that enough to bypass the requirement?

More important, guess what is going to happen if a student experiences a heart-related emergency and dies in a Connecticut school, and it is later determined that an AED could have saved his life?

That silly a-plan-is-just-as-good-as-an-AED clause will be gone in a flash.

Same thing with the new airport scanners. We can wait for a plane to explode over Detroit or crash into downtown Los Angeles and then accept these scanners as a necessity, or we could just shut up and allow ourselves to be scanned for the safety of our fellow passengers.