In the toilet.

A recent incident I was involved in on the local general aviation ramp — which involved yet more security rules in regards to the need for government-sanctioned ID for anyone that has access to the ramp, in which I was “challenged” and checked and made note of while trying to go flying in my dad’s airplane which has been out there for nearly a year on a ramp I’ve had access to for even longer for a pilot’s license that meant the FAA had personal and medical information on me — reminded me of a story a friend was telling me about toilets.

Bear with me.

My friend and I started talking about a Seinfeld episode, the one in which Kramer was forced to buy a “black market” shower head because he is dissatisfied with the low-flow shower heads the building had installed in all the apartments. To get the shower he wanted, that he previously had and enjoyed, Kramer had to become a small-time criminal. My friend was telling me that when he remodeled his rather old bathroom, he was surprised to discover that the toilets made available to him were of a sort of “low flow” nature and that, when he went about trying to purchase and install a more robust model, was informed that such toilets were not environmentally friendly and were no longer allowed for use in his state due to recent regulations.

“You can imagine my discomfort,” he said, and I snickered at his use of words. “Every time I go to use the bathroom, I have to have a plunger ready because the toilet that I am allowed by the government to install can barely do the job. This, all thanks to lawmakers who can’t stop meddling in absolutely everything in a private person’s life.”

We made several jokes about a particular Mexican restaurant and how that would affect the situation. What it all boiled down to, however, was the common understanding that we all grasp, yet somehow neglect to rebel against: our government turns law-abiding citizens into law-breakers, insisting it is for our own good.

Case in point: people in Washington state who have now begun smuggling dish detergent from Idaho, all due to a ban on phosphate-based dish detergent which left them with “environmentally friendly” detergents that did a lackluster job. Normally law-abiding grandmas are turned into law-breakers because they want clean dishes. Grandma becomes a kind of Palmolive Al Capone, and my friend is forced to plunge a few hours after a rough meal.

God bless America, the land of the formerly free but currently choked-on-bored-lawmaker’s-minutiae. A waste of resources all around, these stupid laws and the enforcement of them.

But back to the incident on the GA ramp that got me started on all of this, which really isn’t far from the toilet.

Apparently, I wasn’t the intended target of the security check, but I happened to be there, so that was good enough.

I’m not sure what the value is of harassing and paper-checking and going after people who are complying with every imaginable law and regulation that gets thrown at them, beyond a tally mark on someone’s belt, a percentage of people harassed/challenged to boast about at some yearly administration get-together, and maybe a Christmas bonus. Though I know it not popular to point out a significant underlying fact about the majority of terrorist incidents and their religion and race, and the ridiculousness of going after licensed pilots on a ramp where they have had their airplanes tied down for months all in the name of avoiding profiling, I can’t help but wonder at the obvious glaring problem with the idea of trying to get security clearance for everyone accessing and using the GA ramp at a public airport. Without putting too fine a point on it, and other concerns, I’ll just give you a list:

1. The farmers and other GA pilots who basically fly out of their back yards with their own fuel who have access to an airport by merely landing.
2. The small airports that are unmanned or simply can’t provide the “level of security” that a larger airport does still provide an access point for anyone wanting to get into the air and do what they want.
3. The elephant on the table which is: you can fly out of and into places other than an airport and that the sky is huge and it is impossible to control the sky and who is in it and what they want to do from a little patch of concrete behind a cheap chainlink fence on the ground. Checking the papers and clearance for some blonde chick attempting to load up a pink travel bag in her father’s old 172 is a damn fine waste of time.
4. The frickin’ highway robbery of cost for pilots, FBOs, and pretty much anyone else wanting to be a part of aviation, that all these continued forays into “securing” general avaition from itself will lead to.
5. People who like power trips.
6. It is little wonder that, when being screened by TSA, you end up raising your hands. Much like getting mugged.
7. Why do I, a person who makes complete stops at deserted intersection stop signs and never speeds while driving, feel nervous and guilty around TSA and other officials involved in supposedly keeping me safe? That’s not freedom.
8. Turning every airport into Checkpoint Charlie.
9. All the rules and efforts in the world won’t stop incidents like this from happening. The new eAPIS rules that went into effect December 2008 probably wouldn’t have stopped that Canadian student from flying to Missouri. It does, however, represent a pain in the ass for everyone who abides by the law and has no intention of wreaking havoc.
10. What does all this paperwork and regulation hope to do? Are you going to bury a terrorist under paper and hope it’ll stop him?
11. Laws that turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into miscreants or criminals create a false sense of “we’re doing something” because it then becomes a numbers game. We become, however, less secure. More laws distract those trying to obey them and enforce them; it does nothing to those trying to break them.

I remember watching President Bush announce the newly formed department of Homeland Security shortly after 9/11, my heart sinking while visions of the Brandenburg Gate and Wagner-esque music wafted through my mind. Once a new government behemoth is created, it is there to stay. While it might change its name (i.e. Dept. of War to the Dept. of Defense), it only gets bigger and clumsier. I often chuckle at the phrase “transportation security administration.” By the time they have their way, there will be little being transported, and security will be achieved only because no one will be flying. You will note on the TSA’s web site that their mission is as follows:

The Transportation Security Administration will continuously set the standard for excellence in transportation security through its people, processes, and technology.

Besides several guffaws going through my mind after reading that, I want to point out that it does not say anything about improving transportation, but transportation security. Their goal is security; it has nothing to do with actual transportation and everything else (cost, convenience, freedom, life in general) is irrelevant. Security is god.

I would encourage you to print out the page which outlines their mission, vision, and core values. The next time you’re pulled out of line or find yourself harassed or throwing something away that you forgot to check in your baggage, you may want to reread it to remind yourself how to really see it.

The terrorists really were successful that day. Some idiot tries to light up his shoe bomb? Everyone has to take off their shoes. Some loser tries to blow up an airplane with liquids? We now get baggie and ounce rules for shampoo and drinks. I dread the day when someone tries to smuggle something past security in body orifices; there’s not enough latex gloves in the world that’s going to make that OK.

The only homeland that the Department of Homeland Security seems to be protecting are the little banana republics that they’ve made enclosed behind chain link fence at airports all across the country. In these homelands, you have no rights. You really don’t. By random selection or by merely acting suspicious (an undefined term which is completely subjective to the person doing the determining), you can:

• have personal property confiscated
• be searched
• be questioned
• be detained
• be harassed in the name of “security”
• be criminalized despite being a law-abiding citizen on all other accounts
• be doing nothing wrong and still be doing something wrong

The Statue of Liberty has a plaque inside which has a poem that contains the famous lines

…Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…

I would add a few things to that noble sentiment which is meant to welcome people to the United States of America, in keeping with the idea of my friend being unable to buy a toilet he wanted to the continued explosion of intrusiveness from agencies trying to make us “secure”:

1. Welcome to the USA. We keep tabs on everything, including your bowel movements. One reason is that, in the name of safety and security, we are full of shit.
2. Because of this, I wouldn’t breathe to deeply no matter how much you’re yearning.

For my friend with the toilet woes, I recommended a book I bought while camping in Colorado: How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art. For the rest of us dealing with increasing government intrusiveness?

I don’t know.

Maybe, like California, the government will go bankrupt and we can finally breathe deeply, either on the ground or in the air.