7 May 18
Security Theater:
From a friend in MA:
“I recently attended an indoor concert in Boston. Like you, I don’t like crowds, but I made an exception in this case.
Music was canonical and conservative, and the admission price was hefty, so I calculated that attendees would be mostly middle-aged and well-behaved.
Right on the former. Wrong on the latter!
I routinely carry a 1911 in an IWB belt-holster, along with two spare magazines on the opposite side. Also blades, flashlight, OC, etc.
As I approached the venue, I realized that ticket-holders all had to pass-through physical ‘security-screening’ performed by ununiformed, unarmed, minimum-wage private security personnel.
First, each attendee had to have bags searched. Then, ‘wanders’ checked bodies.
Screening was done on the street outside the venue, so I figured I could plead ignorance, if necessary.
It wasn’t!
The ‘bag-screener’ casually looked inside my bag, and waved me through. He didn’t look into the side-pocket, which contained my knives, flashlight, and OC bottle.
The ‘wander’ then asked me if I had any weapons. I didn’t answer.
He then briefly ran his wand over my chest, ignoring my belt area, completely missing my pistol and magazines. Obviously bored, he then waved me through without another word.
So much for any expectation that ‘security guards’ were going to keep me ‘safe’ during the concert!
‘Security’ was a joke, as it usually is. Just a hollow ‘show.’ It is ‘security theater,’ and little else, as you’ve noted before.
Attendees were, sure-enough mostly white and middle class. Most were, in fact, well-behaved and were there to hear the music.
But, there were sufficient number who were loud, vulgar, and otherwise ill-behaved to ruin it for everyone else!
Ushers and ‘security guards’ did nothing about their boisterousness and rowdiness.
In any event, in disgust I left early, but came away with these important lessons reinforced:
1) I’m not going places I can’t be armed. So-called ‘security,’ provided by anyone claiming to provide it, is invariably a lie and a joke!
2) Hooliganism is now so common in our civilization, and so accepted just about everywhere people gather, that you can expect to be physically assaulted in any artistic, sporting, or political venue, and the only thing you can really depend upon is that no one will help you, and nothing will be done about it!”
“At the core, of our nation’s decline is the displacement of the concept that the government exists to protect the liberty of the people, by the fanciful notion that it is responsible for their material well-being.
Once the latter takes hold, there is no intellectual basis for disputing that the government is responsible for ensuring that material well-being is shared by all people equally, except for the fact that that outcome it is impossible to achieve, other than by subjecting everyone (other than those overseeing the system) to being equally impoverished.
That matters little in early stages, when the few Peters are being robbed to pay hordes of voting Pauls.
A side but motivating benefit enjoyed by ruling politicians is that they gain ever-increasing power and simultaneously ever less accountability, as the ‘equality-of-outcomes’ concept advances.”
Taussig
/John
