The hundred dollar idea.

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The hundred dollar idea.

So, you're in the airport, and the nice lady smiles at you and says "Do you mind if I open your bags ?"

"I don't mind" I always say "but if you don't find anything you owe me a nickle".

So how about we pass a law saying that every time some agency opens bags and doesn't find anything, it pays the owner one crisp hundred dollar bill ?

I understand bags must be opened for National Security. Fine. I gather if bags aren't opened, buildings shall collapse, implicitly. Fine. From what I'm told, catching terrorists depends on opening bags. Okay.

So then, pay for it. On one hand, if opening my bag isn't worth 100$ of National Security, then I don't see why I should be bothered. If exposing some girl's collection of tan bikinis does not keep 100$ worth of sky scraper erect, I don't see why she should be bothered.

On the other hand, if every opened bag cost 100 dollars, suddenly all these delightfully incompetent agencies would have an incentive to only open those bags that actually contain something. As opposed to simply pestering the citizenry.

As it stands right now, they have absolutely no incentive to go after the real criminals, and every incentive in the world to rumage through freshman lingerie. After all, it's free. Wouldn't you want to see what's in her bag ?

I'm sure the government will wail and screech as to how this would make the cost of "preserving democracy and our way of life" skyrocket. Not so. First off, the opening of bags at the airport costs, per hour, tens of thousands of dollars in pay. They open what, 10, 20 bags an hour ? So cost would increase by 10-20% then. If you consider all the laptops, speed boats and SUV's misplaced by the various agencies out of last year's budget, you'll see my hundred dollar idea will have no significant impact in the cost of being bumbling idiots.

Make the mistake cost. It's bothersome, irksome and in fact not constitutional. I am certain "screening" is not "reasonable search". Screening basically means, we're curious. Curiosity alone isn't reason. Try telling some founding father that randomly opening bags by quota is what is meant by "protected against unreasonable search"

I guess we live in particularly dangerous times. Back when being boilt in oil for being a "rebel" was a weekly occurence, times were not particularly dangerous. When everybody you knew had at least one relative scalped by indians, times were not particularly dangerous.

Today, when 10,000 people die of eating too much beacon and eggs for every one killed by the loathsome, fearsome terrorists, we live dangerous times indeed.

Such truely dangerous times call for throwing away the laws of the land and writing new ones, inspired by the laws of our former Cold War co-hosts. Fine. Could we at least keep the capitalism if we can't keep the democracy ? One out of two isn't that bad, it's at least not complete failure.

You wanna fuck miss Liberty ? Got a hundred ? Get in line.

If this became law, 15 incompetent idiots would have nowhere to hide.
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this page was made using a bent spoon. anything else is for failures