I spent the past weekend in Philadelphia, USA, the city of brotherly love and the hometown of Benjamin Franklin, he of the "They who sacrifice essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither freedom nor safety." Funny how the birthplace of American liberty and the Constitution resembles a police state. You have to stand in line for tickets to tour Independence Hall, then you are given a specific time to stand in the security line. After an invasive airport-like screening process, you are permitted to enter the building that houses the Liberty Bell. The set up is not impressive. When you have arrived to the small area that actually contains the liberty bell, you must wait for people to get out from in front of it so you can take a photo, then you exit the building to go to Independence Hall. Be careful not to step in the wrong place, however, for the gestapo will scream at you. There is a road that runs right in front of IH, but pedestrians are only permitted to walk in front of the building if they have gone through security.
Once you are inside the security compound, there is no bathroom. They really should put a warning sign before you stand in the security line, because it just doesn't seem possible that you could be confined for an hour without having restroom facilities around. You do have the option of leaving the "secured" area, going to the restroom at the visitors' center, and then waiting in the security line again, though you will most likely miss your tour time if you do that.
I don't know if the security guards are trying to impress the tourists or if they are there to scare people, but they are pretty rude. I know that tourists are irritating; however, they don't need to scream at people like that. I don't understand the need for it all, anyway. If some terrorist freak wanted to take out Independence Hall, a car bomb right in front of it would do the trick. Ditto goes for suicide bombers. It would be quite easy to run up to the building and destroy it regardless of these pervasive security procedures. There just is no common sense in it all.
The police state is alive and well, folks. The irony in this is that American independence was declared from this spot, and our Constitution was written on this spot. What is Liberty if you aren't even free to tour the sacred relics of our nation's founding?
They hate us for our freedom?
were these security guards "government" workers?
ReplyDeletedon't like the "police state" yet you want every shipping container searched?!
which is it socialists?!?!
Common sense!
ReplyDelete(published, of course, in Philadelphia)
is it common sense to search every shipping container entering the US?
ReplyDeleteYES or NO?
of course it's not. i never said it was. i did say that we needed to search more than one percent of them.
ReplyDeletewhere is the sense? you think it's ok to senselessly search tourists when the place you're trying to protect is completely vulnerable, yet when a terrorist could blow up an entire port and our economy, it's not ok to try to stop it?
you are right. would would think to stop someone boarding a plane with a box-cutter on 9/10. what possible harm could they do?
ReplyDeleteyou both overestimate and underestimate terrorism at the same time. nice & confusing, ie. leftism.
will you be blogging this story:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/international/middleeast/17kuwait.html?hp
of course not, doesn't fit the Hate America First template.
p.s. is this story Bush's fault too?
Ben Franklin would tell you you deserve neither liberty nor safety.
ReplyDeleteRight, bush had so much to do with these developments that have been in the works for a decade. You think so little of non-Westerners that you believe they can't decide things for themselves and are at the beck and call of Americans.
ReplyDeletebtw- a locked cabin door is a hell of a lot better than the sometimes humiliating procedures old ladies and pregnant women go through at airports.
what are you willing to give up for the "safety" of social security?
ReplyDeleteretirement is not temporary
ReplyDeleteIt's common sense as well that malcontents would want to damage a national symbol.
ReplyDeleteI've lived in police states before. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Ah, you assume again you are the only one who has ever lived in a "police state." It doesn't count when you were there for three months when you were three years old.
ReplyDeleteLearn to read. My point is that they CAN destroy these things now. The security procedures are a joke.
Your comments are doubleplusgood.