How long will it be before some public intellectual finally declares that the American century has come to a close? With gas prices on the rise, a smirking man-child of a president who faces token opposition from a callow, spineless minority party and a foreign policy that looks as if it was plagiarized from the Cliff Notes of “The Prince,” these are, at the very least, interesting times to live in the United States.
Perhaps one of the saddest markers of our decline has been what was once one of the most enjoyable ways in which to travel: the air. It has been no secret that the joy of flying has been in decline since the advent of budget airlines, services which democratized the air with low prices, but which also lowered comfort levels to a level on par with being packed in a sardine can. Since the events of September 11th, however, air travel has changed from a quasi-uncomfortable experience to one that has all the joys of a stop at a border checkpoint combined with a body cavity search.
Americans, in the great family of nations, have always been among the most willing of subjects to trade freedom for security — surpassed only by the Belgians and Swedish. Therefore, it has been no surprise in the past three and a half years that every new security measure, every new abuse of power has been tolerated by a complaisant and scared public.
The latest offense is the ban on cigarette lighters from planes and airports. Now, most who read this know my predilection towards supporting the rights of smokers to light up pretty much anywhere. Still, with only two airlines allowing smoking left in the world — Cuban airlines and some carrier in Lithuania, if memory serves — carrying lighters onto planes is a bit of a moot point. But a good deal of the airports in this country have smoking sections or allow it in bars and restaurants. This ban, done in the name of national security, may well end the practice of allowing smoking in airports — a dream for anti-smoking crusaders and a nightmare for a two-pack a day smoker on a six hour layover.
The issue for me, of course, goes beyond whether or not I can light up in a smoking lounge or not (although, truth be told, I have met some of the most interesting people I have ever known during layovers while billeted therein). I see this as yet another example of a government obsessed with enforcing a one-size-fits-all approach to airport security impinging on the rights of those who fly. What’s next, one might ask? Will airports refuse to serve alcohol due to fears that passengers may get drunk and unruly on flights — which, given the price of a pint of beer, is nearly impossible unless one is able to write it off on an expense account? How about knitting needles, since we all know that the terrible menace of terrorism means that even grandma could be in bed with Al Qaeda.
To those who would defend this new policy, I am willing to admit, yes, there is a tiny danger that someone, somewhere, might try to use a lighter to blow up a plane. The question, though, is in an era of shoe removal and a metal detector almost sensitive enough to pick up fillings, where would anybody be able to hide a bomb to begin with? Instead, I see all of this as a further crazed attempt to wrap ourselves up in our security blankets and flee from things that bump in the night.
In the end, I see this increasing emphasis on turning airplanes and airports into an extension of our worst bureaucracies, a combination of the driver’s license bureau and the less efficiently run prisons, which is an unfortunate change from what they were originally meant to be: convenient and luxurious. Thanks to a combination of mismanagement and federal interference, they now more closely resemble New Jersey’s public transportation system. As for me, I think I’ll stick to my car — at least until I need a passport to get to Mississippi.