Sunday, November 21, 2010

The inevitability of TSA failure

No, this isn't about how their "security" measures are doomed to fail - I've discussed this at some length here.  This is about how their new PervScan™ and "Aggressive Pat Down" policy was guaranteed to fail, from its very inception.  Indeed, all we need to do is sit back and watch the wheels come off.  Monkeybrains explains it all.

Aretae has offered a theory of how human social interaction works, based on our (evolutionary-speaking) not so very long separation from monkeys.  Our brains are wired from millions of years of evolution, hammering simian thought patterns into the very fiber of our beings.  At a basic level, we think with Monkeybrains:
I claim that there's a simple, easy grand synthesis that explains human behavior in 3 words:

Status Matters Most.
For 80%+ of human behaviors, when asking why did they do that...trace the status effects.  Trace the status effects in-family, in-group, on the opposite gender, in the neighborhood/community/polis.
It's hard to argue that humans are not status seeking beings, and this is precisely what the TSA policymakers should have realized.  Their new policies could not have been designed to more offend Monkeybrains if they'd tried.

Consider a parent flying with a child.  The child will be groped.  The parent will be restrained from interfering, forceably if necessary.  How much of the parent's self image - and image to others - is based on keeping their child safe?  How does their Monkeybrains portion of their grey matter interpret the TSA's "love pat"?

Or consider a husband flying with his wife.  He too will be prevented from interfering with a sexual assault on his wife.  How will his Monkeybrains interpret the TSA?  Protecting the family is one of the basic instincts with which we're wired.  Failure to protect the family risks major status loss in the tribe.

The TSA is triggering a reaction that is primal, not cerebral.  Because it is primal, it can't be reasoned with.  Because it is primal, the story has "legs" - people are sitting up and paying attention.  Monkeybrains are becoming engaged, from sea to shining sea.

What is astonishing about this whole situation is that the TSA (and DHS) top leadership are politicians.  Good politicians understand Monkeybrains.  Clinton, Reagan, (Jack) Kennedy, all worked on that primal level.  So what's up with Janet Napolitano?
Pat-downs have long been one of the many security measures used by the U.S. and countries across the world to make air travel as secure as possible. They're conducted by same-gender officers, and all passengers have the right to request private screening and have a traveling companion present during the screening process.
Napolitano is a politician.  Doesn't she realize that when it's someone kid being groped that this is what Monkeybrains hears?
Blah blah blah blah you loser little man, you.
The fact that the Administration seems to be surprised by all this says that they're not just incompetent as administrators (there's no security benefit to all this), but incompetent as politicians.

And this won't go away.  Every day sees new stories - some well documented with video proof, some hearsay and potentially fabricated.  Is this story true or made up?
En route home through Charlotte, our 6 year old son was subjected to an aggressive pat down by a female TSA employee. He was pleading for me to help him and I was admonished for trying to comfort him. His genitals area was groped. He walked down to the plane in tears. When the stewardess asked why he was crying, I explained my frustration and I was further admonished for not being more compliant.
The answer is that it doesn't matter. Everyone's Monkeybrains has already seen credible examples of abuse, has heard incompetent government flunkies spout nonsense that further offends their Monkeybrains, and so is in a mood to believe everything.

It was inevitable, as if Napolitano had driven off with all the lug nuts removed from the wheels of her car.  The question was not whether the wheels would come off, but when they would come off.

6 comments:

Carteach said...

Agreed on all counts. Well thought out, well explained.

Retardo said...

You've already completely explained Napolitano's attitude, the administration's attitude (last I heard, The One's solution was a psychopathically irrelevant scheme to unionize TSA gropers), and that of TSA gropers themselves:

It's status. They've just handed themselves the authority to sexually humiliate everybody who sets foot in an airport, and to prosecute anybody who so much as complains. Talk about status! They're blind drunk on it.

If this is a problem for you, you by definition have so little relative status that it's a mortal affront for you to speak up at all.

It's true Napolitano et al are politicians, but politicians are just hyperactive status accumulators. This isn't a stumble along the way to their goal. This is the goal itself, right here. And they'll probably make it stick. Populations have been tolerating greater humiliations since the dawn of civilization. Americans just happen not to be broken to harness yet.

I'd like to know how off-duty TSA employees are treated when they fly. I should Google that, but I don't think I'll find anything that surprises me.

Midwest Chick said...

You called it. One of the reasons that ALL stories about the TSA will be believed now is because they are possible. They've proven that they cannot be trusted.

Just like everyone took Obama's $200 million/day trip figure without that grain of salt. Because it was not outside the realm of possibility, considering Michelle's trip to Spain, etc.

And the eliteriti like Obama and Napolitano don't understand the power of the Monkeybrain. It's not like anyone they know are having to undergo this--so it's an intellectual problem to them. If they had to have the patdown, or their kids did, the TSA would be abolished immediately.

Home on the Range said...

My last dealing with the TSA was when they stole all the high end cosmetics out of my bag. The clue was it was from an airport where ALL the bags are searched and they leave their little "Hi I've searched your bag" paper in there. Never missed it, ever. This time no paper, and about $300 worth of Chanel cosmetics and perfume that had been a birthday gift was gone. When I filed a complaint they said "oh it must have fallen out". Yes, that's why the Noxema skin cream and the $3.99mascara that was in the same contaner WAS STILL THERE.

SiGraybeard said...

Borepatch, I was going to give you the "Winz the Interwebz" award today until I read the comment from Retardo.

Both of you are brilliant, but he grasped an essential gem. They have given themselves the ultimate high of being higher status than anyone in the airport. They're more important than the guy who flies a 747 or A380 because they can humiliate pilots. They can sexually humiliate anyone who sets foot in the airport and fine them $11,000 if they so much as question the process.

Can you think of a better situation for someone who has been in low-status positions all their life?

Blah blah blah you little loser man - indeed!

Anonymous said...

The TSA is an insult to respectable brute squads everywhere. Thank you for the elegant description of why they're so offensive.

Jim