Taxation, Privatization and Porno Scanners

[Joanne98]

What happens to Corporate Persons in an economy where human consumers suddenly run out of spending money? That isn’t a problem for companies who sell to Uncle Sam. But even Uncle Sam has limits, and now that Republicans have suddenly rediscovered their love of balanced budgets, inherited from Herbert Hoover, even Uncle Sam is feeling the pinch.

Fear is one selling point. Even the most devout members of the Church of Small Government grudgingly agree that Uncle Sam has some duties, one of which is to protect the American people from lurking terrorists at any cost. What could be a better way to do that and meet the real goals of the Priests of the CoSG than to persuade Uncle Sam to buy machines to take naked pictures of people before they get on an airplane?

In the era of reality TV, it is a small surprise that there are still Americans who don’t want people looking at them naked. Libertarians, for example, meant it when they said they didn’t want government in their private parts. They also don’t want to be x-rayed. What is a surprise is that they were able to seize upon a civil liberties issue while the Democrats were instructing us that government gets to look in your pants or grope you, all for your own protection.

The libertarian leader Ron Paul used the issue to demand privatization of airport security systems. Apparently he has forgotten that we had private security before September 11, and that the private screeners let a bunch of people get on an airplane with box cutters. Of course, it is just madness to suggest that we would be better off if a Blackwater XE or its ilk took over the naked picture/groping business. We would lose control of the people doing the smutty work, and lose our ability to sue for the abuses that would follow. At least in the current system, we have theoretical redress by holding the government liable, or maybe even bringing reason to the table in setting the rules
http://firedoglake.com/2010/11/21/taxation-privatization-and-porno-scanners/