{"id":3810,"date":"2011-01-10T19:14:17","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T02:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=3810"},"modified":"2011-01-10T19:14:17","modified_gmt":"2011-01-11T02:14:17","slug":"asking-the-right-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/10\/asking-the-right-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Asking the right questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Richwine of the American Enterprise Institute asks all the wrong questions<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Full-body scanners, invasive pat-downs, harsh carry-on restrictions\u2014has the Transportation Security Administration gone too far? Critics and defenders of the TSA tend to talk past each other, so I propose a new approach to answering the question. Let us imagine there were a major airline that could opt out of all TSA regulations. Call it \u201cLiberty Air.\u201d Liberty Air openly advertises that it takes zero safety precautions when it comes to screening passengers and baggage. Would you fly on this airline? …<\/p>\n

To bolster the argument, imagine that Liberty Air actually employs a little bit of security. Let\u2019s say it checks IDs against a government database in order to prevent people on a terrorist watch list from boarding. For those of you previously wary of Liberty Air, would you fly it now? Maybe Liberty Air also bans knives and guns from flights. How about now?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

… And when you ask the wrong questions, you’re most likely to get the wrong answers. Granted, the guy’s just doing a thought experiment and it seems his heart is in the right place. At least he’s questioning How Things Are Done, and that’s something. <\/p>\n

But when you posit that it’s either TSA “security” or zero security, you’ve already departed from Planet Reality. And it doesn’t help one bit when you then posit that a “government database” or disarmed passengers constitute “security.” Both premises assume it’s either business as usual or no business at all. Nowhere in the discussion Richwine’s attempting to start is there any room to consider innovation — that is, actual improved security conducted by airlines on their own behalf and for the safety of their paying customers, using techniques that might actually, you know, work<\/i>.<\/p>\n

If this is where your thought experiment begins, you have nowhere to go but around and around in the same old maze. You can’t get out of the box. You keep coming right back to the same false dichotomy: that you must surrender freedom if you want security.<\/p>\n

Well, that’s the way the American Enterprise Institute is: Sometimes well-intentioned, but always invested in the status quo. (This reminds me of a post I’d like to write one of these days — the eternal conflict between reformers and revolutionaries; but that’s for another time.)<\/p>\n

Real<\/i> change always begins with asking the right questions. But asking real questions upsets the apple cart. The powers that be, and even their best-intentioned reformers, have a vested interest in making sure the real questions, the ones that lead to real change, are never asked.<\/p>\n

Here’s another example that (she says self-promotionally) I used in The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship<\/i><\/a>: Nearly everybody in government, media, think tanks, and interest groups wants us to all to be either “for” or “against” legalizing gay marriage. Virtually nobody in any part of the mainstream, right or left, ever raises the real<\/i> question, which is, “Why should government be involved in our relationships at all?”<\/p>\n

I’m convinced that nearly all journeys toward freedom begin with a realization that not only is the truth out there, but that it can be found only by stepping outside what everyone else commonly defines as reality. It’s not a choice between government schools or blithering ignorance. It’s not a choice between government cops or lawlessness in the streets. It’s not a choice between government social security and old people dying in the gutter. It’s not a choice between government delivering the mail and no mail at all — and so on. But in each case, powerful people and useful idiots have a vested interest in making you believe it’s so, and most people go along with it because most people don’t like to think. You know what I mean.<\/p>\n

So what were some of the out-of-the-box questions that sent you on your journey? Or what are some of the questions you’d like to see others open their eyes to?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Richwine of the American Enterprise Institute asks all the wrong questions: Full-body scanners, invasive pat-downs, harsh carry-on restrictions\u2014has the Transportation Security Administration gone too far? Critics and defenders of the TSA tend to talk past each other, so I propose a new approach to answering the question. Let us imagine there were a major airline that could opt out of all TSA regulations. Call it \u201cLiberty Air.\u201d Liberty Air openly advertises that it takes zero safety precautions when it comes to screening passengers and baggage. Would you fly on this airline? … To bolster the argument, imagine that Liberty…<\/p>\n

Continue readingAsking the right questions<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-and-spirit","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}