Dr. Fleming on air travel, the TSA, and proposals on how Americans should deal with the new screening machines: Liberty and Justice–For Jerks. (He also quickly mentions the proper attitude towards the obese and why. I am still undecided on that question, as to whether one can make a generalization concerning moral culpability of obese Americans.)

There is no more dangerous delusion than the persistent American delusion that we live in a free country. ”If we only can rouse the good hearts and common sense of our people, we can take this country back again.” Such people do exist, but most of them have “opted out” of politics. They are too busy leading their own lives to have much time or energy for busybodying into yours. They accept the fact that our government is tyrannical because they know it is simply a reflection of the servile populace. They fully understand that a nation of sports fans, mall shoppers, and petition signers will never possess the moral freedom required of a people that can achieve political liberty. Above all, they want to be protected from the Jerks, whether on the right or left, who try to use the rest of us as cannon fodder for their pointless campaigns. They understand all too well that the average middle class Americans they meet in airports and restaurants–the goodhearted people we are going to save America for–are, if not complete Jerks, well on their way to perfection.


Liberty is not a natural human condition. It is a precious art form that must be cultivated by people with moral discipline. A nation of Jerks cannot be free, and every attempt they make to recover their freedom will not only provoke more oppression, but it will also subject them to a more degrading form of slavery, the moral and spiritual slavery of the slave who thinks himself free.

Edit. I just looked at the LRC blog, and Lew Rockwell makes some of the same points regarding proposed responses, if in a less grumpy manner:

Opting for the feel-up always struck me as worse, and intended to gum up the works, which is good if it only hurts the State, but not good if it hurts other passengers. I am reminded of the antiwar demos intended to cause traffic jams. I agree with the cause, but not the method. Far better to really Opt Out.