A TSA agent had just felt up my balls as I boarded a plane. I felt seriously fucking violated but I needed to board that red eye so I kept my mouth shut and got myself molested in the interest of 'getting where I needed to be in a harsh economy'. I handed over my boarding card and got directed to my seat. I stuck my carry on luggage into the overhead compartment. I chit chatted with the random guy who sat next to me. Both of us were uneasy as we whipped out our laptops. After all, either of us could have a strip of semtex explosive instead of a lithium battery installed. Not that the TSA would know any better. And I realized...
Airport security is theater.
The necessary fiction of modern life.
I then came to a sudden realization as I tested my flotation device, that if I were an actual terrorist boarding a flight in any American airport, why would I waste my time trying to fool the TSA and smuggle a 'bomb' on board a plane when I could cause far more havoc by simply taking the same bomb and walking to the busiest local shopping mall, tossing my bomb in a rubbish bin at the food court and walking slowly away.
BOOM!
The 'terrorists' have just made every shopping facility in America a no go area. The greatest hit to a consumer economy ever! Why, if the terrorist threat is so real, are soft targets like shopping malls not blowing up every week? A true terrorist would simply bypass flying and blow up soft civilian targets. If Al Qaida are so prevalent, and the war on terror is real, then why are Al Qaida wasting their time smuggling bombs onto airplanes?
There are so many soft targets that could do far more economic damage.
Why are they not happening?
Oh shit, as the author of this entire piece, I suddenly realize how shit gets skewed.
