"Unidentified Flying Objector" arrested

[Ed]

Then there is this:

http://comp.uark.edu/~dmorton/images/misc/0102news2.jpg

http://comp.uark.edu/~dmorton/images/misc/0102news3.jpg

These luggage containers are composed of a material dubbed 'Glare', which might be used on airliners soon.

From the Scientific American (http://www.sciam.com/2002/0102issue/0102scicit2.html) article:

<blockquote>
Glare (short for glass reinforced), consists of multiple aluminum layers interspersed with layers of fiberglass and adhesive bonding that are supple yet strong. When used in fabricating luggage containers, Glare can absorb bomb blasts without breaching

As Glare expands with the blast, it absorbs the explosive energy and redistributes the impact load to the adjacent surface area rather than to one specific weak spot. The bomb blast leaves a sizable deformation in the container's surface, but it remains intact. Moreover, whereas other FAA-tested containers were also able to contain the bomb blast, Glare, whose glass fibers boast a melting point of 1,500 degrees Celsius, could resist the subsequent luggage-fueled fire inside the container. The postblast fire melts Glare's innermost aluminum layer, but in doing so the underlying adhesive bond carbonizes, keeping the fiberglass layers in place and effectively forming a fire wall that prevents the container from collapsing.

The Explosive Containment System3 (Ecos3) container that incorporates Glare--designed by Galaxy Aviation Securi-ty in Egg Harbor Township, N.J.--is 150 pounds heavier than standard aluminum luggage containers. Because extra weight means lower profits, aluminum luggage containers remain the industry standard.
</blockquote>
http://cellar.org/archive/index.php/t-1038.html

Which leads me to the question:

What safety features have airlines themselves initiated and installed?

 

[davefoc]

Leir Roar wrote this directed at Shanek:

Then why don't you discuss that, the underlying question of wether the government should be responsible for the security at airports, rather than the incidental and symptomatic matter of the particulars of how the government does what it is currently responsible for doing in one particular incident.

You might be of the opinion that the government should not have this responsibility, but that's an entirely different subject from wether the government acted correctly in this particular situation -- because the government do have this responsibility, wether you like it or not.

Exactly and nicely said. (Note that when LR wrote wether in the above I think he meant whether and didn't mean to refer to a castrated ram).

Ed wrote:

Why didn't they do it pre 9/11? Perhaps depending on the (strapped) airlines is dangerous

I think there's a pretty good argument to made here that the doors weren't reinforced exactly because of government involvement. The airlines benefited from a government agency in charge of security because it allowed them to do the minimum to meet the government security requirements and still have plausible deniability when things went badly.

The airlines lobbied the FAA to minimize security costs and then used the fact that they are in compliance with the regulations that they help craft as an excuse for failure.

Despite what seems obvious to most people, I suspect that, in net, air travel would be safer without any government involvement at all.

With respect to the comment about strapped airlines I think it is reasonable that the government require liability insurance coverage for airlines. I suspect that in order to qualify for this insurance coverage the private insurance carriers would enforce strong security and safety procedures on the airlines which are likely to not only be tougher but more effective than what is in place now.

 

[RandFan]

If it's depriving you of your liberty, then how can you be said to have agreed to it? Agreement requires that you have the liberty to negotiate the terms of the agreement. That is gone here.

I'm confused. John Madden chooses not to use airplanes and he travels across the United States coast to coast border to border all of the time. I hardly think you could make a case of lost liberty. One can travel almost anywhere in the world by one or more of a number of options. Boat, train, car, bus, etc.

John Madden: America's biggest commuter

Sportscaster John Madden has not boarded a plane since 1979, but crisscrosses the nation weekly during the football season covering "NFL Monday Night Football" for ABC-TV.

His transport isn't Amtrak or Greyhound. It's the ultimate SUV -- an $800,000, 45-foot luxury coach fitted with everything from sauna to gourmet galley.

Madden, 67, works, sleeps and eats as he covers 80,000 miles annually -- almost all of it between September and January -- across America's interstate highways.

Here's a peek at the highway lifestyle of America's best-known "road warrior."

The Madden Cruiser rolls out of the commentator's upscale, gated Blackhawk development near Oakland for a routine, 53-hour transcontinental trek to New York for a Monday Night Football assignment.

So what liberty are we losing? I can go anywhere in the US that I want and any place outside of the US that I could go on a plane. A plane simple is convenience. I don't equate that to liberty. I'm guessing you do, if so why?

 

[davefoc]

I think Randfan, that you are attempting to make a semantic point. Shanek, uses the phrase "deprivation of liberty" with a less narrow definition in mind than you do. It doesn't mean that his usage is wrong, just different.

Shanek, believes, the government involvement in most things is bad. One of the ways he attempts to prove this is (as he does in this thread) to characterize government regulations put forth as part of the running of a government business as deprivations of liberty. He makes this argument even when those regulations are necessary for the running of the government business and would be similar to the regulations put forth by a private entity running the same business.

I think this is exactly what Leif Roar was talking about with his post that I quoted. Shanek's logic as I understand it is something like this:

Part of running a business is the establishment of regulations.
Government regulations are deprivations of liberty.
Deprivations of liberty are bad.
Therefore government run businesses are bad.

If you accept this logic, all government businesses are bad. If they don't establish regulations that a private entity would running the same business the government is not exercising due diligence. If they do establish regulations that are required for the running of that business they are depriving people of their liberty.

To most of us this reasoning is a little silly I think. It's like saying that socialism is bad because socialism is bad. But somehow this reasoning resonates strongly with Shanek because he keeps starting threads like this.

 

[Ian Osborne]

"Those who would give up their essential liberty in order to obtain safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." —Benjamin Franklin

What's so 'essential' about carrying nail clippers onto aircraft, or flying without undergoing a search?

 

[Ian Osborne]

[Shane's assertion that road accidents went down when Montana abandoned certain speed restrictions is] False.

In the years of the no-speed limit, there was a sharp increase in the number of traffic casualties:

Source: National Center for Statistics and Analysis of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:
Analysis of Speeding-Related Fatal Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes

Quoted so Shanek can see it.

 

[Kerberos]

Quoted so Shanek can see it.

Well shanel still claims that the number for hijackings after guns were banned supports him, so I don't expect that these data willl make an impression either. Still in fairness what we see isn't so much a sharp rise in the years there was no speed limit, but a sharp rise in the forst year and then a fall back to around the original level, after which the speed limit is reinstated. No solid conclusion can be reached form that data.

 

[CFLarsen]

Quoted so Shanek can see it.

He will ignore it.

 

[CFLarsen]

Well shanel still claims that the number for hijackings after guns were banned supports him, so I don't expect that these data willl make an impression either. Still in fairness what we see isn't so much a sharp rise in the years there was no speed limit, but a sharp rise in the forst year and then a fall back to around the original level, after which the speed limit is reinstated. No solid conclusion can be reached form that data.

The moment the speed limit is gone, we see a sharp rise, sharper than any before.

I'm guessing that, after the first atrociously bloody year, people began to drive more carefully, but - alas - it wasn't enough. So, the speed limit was imposed again.

The only result from the "Montana Experiment" was a pile of dead bodies.

 

[richardm]

a sharp rise in the forst year and then a fall back to around the original level, after which the speed limit is reinstated. No solid conclusion can be reached form that data.

We can conclude that Shanek was mistaken when he said

There was a period of time when Montana had no speed limits on its interstates and rural highways. Traffic fatalities went down, only to go back up again once speed limits were reinstated.

- according to the graphs, that simply didn't happen. Perhaps he was thinking of somewhere else?

 

[CFLarsen]

We can conclude that Shanek was mistaken when he said



- according to the graphs, that simply didn't happen. Perhaps he was thinking of somewhere else?

Perhaps shanek was mistaken when he thought nobody would check?

He is wrong so often that I have come to think that it might not be due to ignorance.

 

[Ian Osborne]

I'm guessing that, after the first atrociously bloody year, people began to drive more carefully, but - alas - it wasn't enough. So, the speed limit was imposed again.

Or people stayed off the unrestricted roads altogether, causing a fall the quantity of traffic using these roads.

 

[Santa666]

Perhaps shanek was mistaken when he thought nobody would check?

He is wrong so often that I have come to think that it might not be due to ignorance.

You see CFLarsen, we are all missing the WHOLE point here. Its not about whether Shanek is right or wrong; it's about whether the government even has the right to impose a speed limit at all on interstate highways. Remember, we ALL should have the FREEDOM and LIBERTY to travel at whatever speed we so choose and it is wrong for the goverment to infringed upon such a right, regardless of the safety of others.

I think I will ignore those pesky red lights too, they just get in my way when I am in a hurry.

Oh, wait, nevermind, I have a sleigh and flying reindeer. How silly of me to forget those. I will just use them instead; perhaps I can go get myself "sighted" and we can see some more UFO footage.

Santa (cannot stop adding these silly comments in my name) Clause

 

[CFLarsen]

Or people stayed off the unrestricted roads altogether, causing a fall the quantity of traffic using these roads.

Very likely. Word gets around, when there's a dangerous stretch ahead.

There's a reason why Queens Boulevard in NYC was called "Boulevard of Death". Of course, the Big Bad Gubmint forced all those Noo Yawkers to take the same road...

 

[Earthborn]

Perhaps shanek was mistaken when he thought nobody would check?

Actually, he will probably claim that the figures you presented are 'bogus' because they are absolute numbers, and he only accepts traffic death figures adjusted for vehicle miles travelled. He usually accepts figures by anti-speedlimit lobbyists unquestioningly.

There is a clear pattern in his attitude towards statistics: any numbers that contradict his beliefs are bogus and he will point out the problems with them. Numbers that support his beliefs, often with the same or similar problems, prove his beliefs beyond reasonable doubt. He does not seem to accept that sometimes there just aren't any clearcut answers, that sometimes figures can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, many of which reasonable.

 

[shanek]

I think this is exactly what Leif Roar was talking about with his post that I quoted. Shanek's logic as I understand it is something like this:

Part of running a business is the establishment of regulations.
Government regulations are deprivations of liberty.
Deprivations of liberty are bad.
Therefore government run businesses are bad.

If you accept this logic, all government businesses are bad. If they don't establish regulations that a private entity would running the same business the government is not exercising due diligence. If they do establish regulations that are required for the running of that business they are depriving people of their liberty.

They are depriving people of their liberty because government is force. If the private businesses were to use such force, they'd be depriving us of our liberties, too. But they don't.

 

[Darat]

They are depriving people of their liberty because government is force. If the private businesses were to use such force, they'd be depriving us of our liberties, too. But they don't.

Hang on - are you saying that a private company couldn’t as part of their terms and conditions state that an "ID card" had to be shown to board one of their plans or that a contact body search was required?

 

[rdtjr]

If you accept this logic, all government businesses are bad. If they don't establish regulations that a private entity would running the same business the government is not exercising due diligence. If they do establish regulations that are required for the running of that business they are depriving people of their liberty.

Part of the points I was trying to make. If a conglomerate of all the U.S. commercial air carriers enforced the same rules and regulations upon air travellers it would be ok by Shanek. If the same conglomerate said that they could randomly execute 1 of every 10 passengers that would be ok by him too... You can always choose not to accept the agreement and not take the risk. The airlines aren't forcing you to fly and risk the decimation rule.

But, put the gov't into the equation and suddenly it's evil. It's either an imposition on my liberties when other commercial and private interests do it or it's not an imposition on my liberties when the gov't does the exact same thing. If the end state for the consumer is the same the same level of liberty is reached. The only x factor is government and it seems for Shanek that x is a constant that equals "evil".

Frankly, this paradox is a pretty glaring weakness in Shanek's particular brand of libertarianism. It seems he'll just keep shouting "it isn't so", but in the absence of rational discourse on his part I don't see how he can be taken seriously on some of these topics.

 

[RandFan]

I think Randfan, that you are attempting to make a semantic point. Shanek, uses the phrase "deprivation of liberty" with a less narrow definition in mind than you do. It doesn't mean that his usage is wrong, just different.

Shanek, believes, the government involvement in most things is bad. One of the ways he attempts to prove this is (as he does in this thread) to characterize government regulations put forth as part of the running of a government business as deprivations of liberty.

You have a point. One of the definitions of liberty is "Freedom from unjust or undue governmental control." If Shane is correct and this actions is unjust or undue then he would be correct.

Thanks,

BTW, I certainly don't agree that he is. That's the difference between being "Libertarian" and "libertarian".

For the record, given a choice between too much or too little I would take too little government intervention.

 

[rdtjr]

Hang on - are you saying that a private company couldn’t as part of their terms and conditions state that an "ID card" had to be shown to board one of their plans or that a contact body search was required?

Yeah... come again? Is a libertarian saying that a commercial or private entity is not allowed to set the conditions of participation for any product or service they offer? And enforce any agreement the consumer willingly agrees to?

I don't understand that any more than how a libertarian could believe that the airlines and the government are "forcing" any individual to fly.