The Tragic Idiocy of Political Correctness

Glenn Reynolds relays a note from a reader who'd rather remain anonymous.

...My wife and I are the guardians of a girl who came from a home where we believe she may have been sexually abused or witnessed sexual abuse of her mother. Her father had abandoned their family and the mother had struggled to survive and eventually turned to prostitution with the child in the house. This all happened when she was a preschooler. She did the most disturbing things when she was taken from her mother and placed in our custody. For example, she had the habit of walking up to any random male who paid any fleeting attention to her, such as a pizza deliveryman, hug him, and say “I love you.” We, along with child therapists have worked with her since we’ve had her, and now, 5 years later, she is a very normal middle grade schooler. She is successful in school, has close friends, and is good at sports and music We are protective. We keep an eye on her, especially the adults she interacts with.

At this point I will not take her to an airport. How could I? I am unable to justify the risk of exposing her to a situation where not only would she would be forced to submit to a stranger fondling her genitals, but my wife and I would be forced, under threat of a multi-thousand dollar fine, to “force” our child to comply. I can’t imagine anything more threatening to her mental well being, and the fine we would have to pay to refuse might cost us our house. This means that until the situation changes, she will not travel by air. Fortunately, we have no plans to travel by air anytime in the near future. We did earlier in the summer, ,and so it was only by sheer luck that we did not have to eat three plane tickets.

So when I read Guy Winch suggest that airports have “a mental health professional on staff or available as a referral ” for the poor TSA agents who have to grope people day in and day out, all I can think of is that if anything, the airports should have a mental health professional on staff to handle the inevitable situation where a prior victim of sexual abuse is singled out, groped, and melts down right there in the airport security area. The TSA agents are not the people most endangered by this outrageous policy, and when I see videos of TSA agents strip searching children, it is obvious that the TSA has never considered the potential of what they might be doing or have already done to both child and adult victims of sexual abuse, some of whom may not be known to their parents or guardians.

Here's a really tough question: what prevents the TSA from simply pre-screening the vast majority of American airline passengers who represent no threat whatsoever?

• The family of four traveling to Orlando for their sixth vacation in six years?
• The frequent flier who has 100 segments piled up over the last 18 months?
• The DOD contractor with a Top Secret security clearance?
• The grandparents who fly to Florida each fall and back to Michigan every spring?
• The 18 cheerleaders flying to San Antonio for a competition?

The list goes on and on. These are the same big government addicts who want to control your physical well-being and ration health care using a vast database of electronic health records and a panel of advisers who recommend treatments.

Yet they can't figure out that Joe Fubar is a cleared defense contractor working on the F-22 Raptor. Or that Mrs. Beasley is headed to Phoenix for the 12th year in a row to visit her best friend.

So they end up giving each air traveler the colonoscopy they will routinely deny to seniors because of the "Complete Lives" formula. These Democrats are a freaking joke. A sad joke, to be sure, but a joke all the same.