What this country (the United States) needs is less
airport security, not more. Let us get back to liberty, decency and normalcy.
March the 11th 2002: A call for a return to liberty, decency and
normalcy at our airports 6 months after September the 11th.
(Introduction:) I have never
been convicted of any crime, not even a misdemeanor. I was falsely arrested in
the United States at two occations in cases I later unconditionally won. In both
cases the police officers lied to protect their own skin. In the first case the
police in writing wrongfully accused me of up to 20 times threatening a
stewardess with hijacking the plane I was riding on. This in spite of the
officer and airline employees making the accusations knowing very well that I
hadn't been riding on any plane or been near any stewardess in the first place.
The police and the INS attempted to and succeeded (in 1994) in having me
railroaded out of the country before I could get redress for the wrongful
arrest, the fabricated charges, the fabrications they deliberately used to
support the charges with, the police officers' perjury, their threats, their
undue violence and their other transgressions. But the cases are not forgotten
and eventually the police and INS officers or their employers at the time will
be brought to justice for the officers transgressions. There is no statute of
limitation on violation of basic universal unalienable rights. Freedom of travel
and freedom of contract, due process and the right to trial by jury are such
rights. And to systematically and deliberatly use the law as an instrument to
violate these rights, constitute a crime against humanity, for which there is no
statute of limitation either.
(Main letter:)
The INS has for a
long time been used to railroad out of the country victims of the American
police state, before the victims can get redress for just grievances.
Or
as I would say it: The police state is the domestic policy of protectionism, and
protectionism is the foreign policy of the police state.
And After
September the 11th you are just getting more of the same. When will you ever
learn that a police state only compounds the problems!
Who guards the
guards? More guards???
My highest goal is to live as long as possible
and to be as happy as I can be along the way. Today the average life-expectancy
is close to eighty years. That means that I have about 80 years to try to earn
an even longer life.
To greatly extend human life-expectancy takes a lot
of scientific, medical and entrepreneurial efforts.
Historically and
logically such valumaximizing can best take place in entrepreneurial liberty.
Drastic increases in individual life-extension and entrepreneurial
liberty go hand in hand, You won't get the former without the latter.
Entrepreneurial liberty implies freedom of travel, freedom of contract,
due process, trial by jury etc.
Protectionism violates all these rights.
The only way to reach high goals is to practice what you preach.
Liberty is also a question of dignity. Of being in charge of one's own
life without violating the lives of others and without being herded around as
sheep to the slaughter.
Entrepreneurial liberty is a value in itself.
Try to enforce liberty within liberty, without violating liberty. And then live
and die with what you can't get rid of without violating liberty. Look upon that
as the cost of liberty. Liberty has its cost. There will be dangers. But the
solution is not to violate liberty, but to do one's best to combat the dangers
within liberty.
Look at the dangers of highrises. Many more would have
survived in the twin towers if people in highrises had started stocking base jumping
equipment and paragliders and learned how to use such.
As to hijackings:
The solution is not a police state but a little entrepeneurial ingenuity:
There are ways to travel safely, with liberty and dignity:
Look
at how parachute teams and army groups often fly:
There is a market
for a private company offering flights with smaller planes, that fly at lower
altitudes, where the cabins are not pressurized, the back door is always open,
all the passengers carry parachutes and know how to use such, everyone is aware
of their second amendment rights, the crew is armed and the cockpit door is
armored. All the incidents on September the 11th would have been stopped if you
beforehand had taken away airport security and let the passengers and crew bring their
guns.
Unpressurized cabins do not explode because of a bullet hole or
two. And if you are concerned about bombs in the luggage, then the solution is
to have two parallell flights to the same destination one for people and one for
luggage. Two parallell flights at the same time instead of two different flights
at different times, and we have safely split passengers and their luggage
without adding more fligths or expenses. People could even pay extra to have
their luggage sent without being xrayed or searched, it is just to pack it on a
catapult so that it would be catapulted out of the plane in case of an
explotion. If necessary the crew on the luggage flight can always parachute to
safety. Even the space shuttle disaster a few years back would have had a
different outcome if one had equipped the crew or the whole cockpit section with
parachutes! Somewhere along the line it should be possible to develop airplane
cockpit sections that can free themselves from the cargo section and land safely
on their own.
I think there is a market for a private company offering
to let passengers travel in liberty, with dignity and without being searched,
seized and detained at the airport. I would not hesitate to say that it would
even be safer to travel that way.
I would much rather face a real
hijacker in liberty than being once again hijacked by the police.
I
remember thinking when I was hijacked by the police and the INS, "Where is the
ACLU when you need them?" maybe I should have thought: "Where are the private
traditional hijackers when you need them!"
When forced to chose between
safety and liberty, I do not feel safe without the latter.
The second
amendment is there to protect against the government ever again acting as King
George with his searches, seizures and star chambers. (Amendments that
originally applied to king George the third are there to prevent that we ever
get a king George the first!)
Let us face it: Yes there will be
hijackings, there will be incidents like September the 11th, but let us look
upon such as the price of liberty, instead of reasons to do away with liberty.
Arms do not cause crimes. Per capita there are far more weapons in
private hands in Norway and in Switzerland than in the United States, and both
countries have far fewer homicides per capita than the US. In Norway the police
isn't even armed, in spite of the population being armed. Only when faced with
an armed suspect are special armed units occationally called in. Most but not
all the arms in private possession are army weapons or hunting rifles. Both
countries having militias made up of most of the male population and Norway
having a lot of wilderness and a large hunting population. It is not uncommon to
see people carrying these weapons around in public, and they would have done a
hell of a lot of a difference on board those 4 flights on September the 11th.
A few thousand people died on September the eleventh. Many more people
die on the highways, in domestic disputes or from smoking tobacco every year,
and we don't do away with liberty for those reasons. People are still free to
drive, quarrel and smoke as they certainly should be.
Today it is six
months after the incident. Let us stop the paranoia over September the eleventh.
Let us look upon such incidents as a part of life, that we of course will try to
prevent, but only to the extent this can be accomplished by means of liberty, in
liberty and without violating liberty.
What this country needs is less
airport security, not more. Let us start the process towards liberty, decency
and normalcy by removing all travel and trade restrictions including all airport
check points, and all passport, visa, work permit and custom requirements between
EU and the United States.
If you can not enforce liberty without
violating it: then get the hell out of the way of those of us who can!
Sincerely,
Trygve Bauge
Undocumented American by heart,
spirit and choice
Presently in involuntary exile in Norway.
There was a time when people took pride in being undocumented and equated that with liberty, I still do.
Thomas Jefferson enforced the right to expatriate at will, I will
enforce the right to patriate at will.
Trygve Bauge, Life-Extension
Systems, The Norw. Icebathing club &