Having just spent a week traveling by air, following several years of being away, I may have a unique perspective on the way the system has changed.
Whenever I was in an Airport, I was induced to conform. Watch what you read. Watch how you move. Watch your stuff. Be suspicious. Take off your shoes. Submit to inspection. Show us your papers.
This is the price we now routinely pay to travel by air. The people I saw in all the Airports I visited, both large and small, shared the same glass-eyed, vacant expressions. The same resignation.
In today's air system you have no rights. This was made clear to us when we arrived. Our non-stop flight was replaced by a one-stop, no notice, no apology, no nothing. The airline didn't even transfer the reservation correctly. We had to stand at a desk, helpless, for 40 minutes, while someone went into a back room to check, manually. We had arrived in plenty of time to have breakfast after getting through security, but this meant we could barely grab a single overpriced sandwich before being shuttled into our cramped seats.
And of course, the connection was two hours late.
In today's air system you have no competition. It might as well be
state-controlled. Half the flights I saw were being operated by
airlines other than those originally booked. Delta flights run by
Continental, United flights run by American, all in the name of
guaranteeing that each flight is jam-packed full of people or it
doesn't take off.
Security is the claimed excuse for all this. But every study I've seen indicates the new "security measures" do nothing to enhance security.
I think they have another purpose. To enforce obedience.
It's all in those vacant stares. People have come to accept the
absence of freedom in the name of convenience. Accept freedom's absence
on that lame excuse, and you won't miss it at all in other areas of
life. You won't miss having your actions online traced, and used
against you. You won't miss having your mail checked, or your phones
tapped. You won't miss the privacy of walking down a street without
government cameras on you.
You won't miss being an American, in other words, and the authorities can make you into whatever they want.
What they seem to want, from the evidence of the last 7 years, is a Soviet system. After a lifetime spent fighting the Cold War, telling everyone how strong and united and deadly the Soviets were, the American Right convinced itself that this was the way to go, that somehow the only way to win the next Cold War was to copy the last one's losers.
This has been common throughout American history. Our paranoia makes us into copies of what we oppose. At least for a time. But for America to continue that time must pass, and our drive for liberty must re-assert itself.
In the case of air travel I have a modest proposal:
- Cut the volume of air travel in half.
- Auction take-off and landing slots and put that money into upgrading the air traffic control system.
- Use the time and space of less-crowded airports to get our systems for security and traffic handling back to safe, convenient levels.
- Raise flight levels slowly, adding airport slots only as the system can handle them.
The result is likely to double the cost of air travel. This should increase demand for trains and other alternatives. Hopefully that will lead to more investment in those areas, especially for short-hauls like those in the northeast megalopolis.
The system is broken. It's Soviet-ized. When Americans get back their government, it demands true market-based reform, aimed at treating every air traveler the way they deserve to be treated, as a free human being deserving of respect.
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