All The Trouble In The World

I solved it all, this morning while brushing my teeth.

I have a Zippo lighter I got as a consolation prize in a charity poker tournament. I’ve never filled it with lighter fluid, because I haven’t smoked in a decade (one experiment and the occasional cigar aside), but I carry it around. I always loved Zippos, and it’s one of the things I miss about cigarettes.

Anyway, nowadays, there’s no way I could travel by air with it. It’s illegal in my pocket, and it’s illegal in my bags (which are subject to random search). This is so I don’t use it to set a passengers hair on fire or light a shoe bomb.

But I heard recently on NPR that back in the 1970s, there wasn’t any screening at all, you could get on a flight with a .357 Magnum, sticks of dynamite, a Bowie knife, and no one would know it. It’s how D.B. Cooper was able to do his thing. Hijackings were so common that people on flights through the southern United States basically expected to have a Havana layover every so often.

Also, back in the 1970s, you could smoke on the plane. You could stick a Pall Mall in your mouth and light it with a Zippo, and no one would say boo unless you were in the ‘non-smoking’ section. Which is a funny thing itself, since smoke notoriously does not stay were the smoker is, and even 'jumbo' jets are about as impressive as a minivan in terms of passenger space.

Anyway, the NPR story told how they picked up thousands of guns in the first few months of 'bothering' to check. Those metal detectors were going off left and right, at a time when the FAA was arguing that armed Air Marshals would be a threat to the safety of flights.

Hell, most of the people packing were probably otherwise solid citizens who figured a gun would come in handy if some whacko decided to hijack the flight. Or who carried all the time for self protection.

Fast forward to 9/11 and passengers are so disarmed that a box cutter is a sufficient weapon to take over a flight. Zero resistance policies turned out to have a tragic side effect. But when that shoe-bomb kook tried to light his fuse, he was practically beaten to death by his fellow passengers.

Now, you can’t even carry finger nail clippers on an airplane legally.

I say, take out the x-ray machines and go back to the 1970 standard. Yeah, the second-hand smoke will be a drawback, but assholes with box cutters will face what amounts to volunteer air marshals. Try and light a shoe bomb, don’t be surprised if you get perforated by three different calibers of handgun fire. Pull a box-cutter on a stewardess, and get your ass shot to pieces.

And if you think guns are ‘the problem,’ you probably also believe the world is overpopulated, so shut up. If I’m wrong and it rains airplanes, be grateful someone’s thinning the herd.

Oh, and prescription drugs. They’re expensive, and with government subsidies for Seniors, they’ll get more expensive. Public spending on healthcare is already the main inflationary pressure in that market sector, so knock it off. After two decades of the ‘War on Drugs,’ cocaine, marijuana, and pretty much every other drug except Sudafed is cheaper and more readily available. This is good and well, but instead of issuing patents for statins, beta blockers, etc., just ban them. Declare war on the prescription drugs, try and stop the pharmaceutical companies from delivering them to the customers. Use Gestapo tactics, jail people for possession, for use, for dealing. You won’t find a cholesterol count over 130 in ten years, even among inmates. Plus, by making it a covert operation, you’ll automatically generate competition not only for better drugs but for a price advantage.