I’m a bit confused about the reasoning here.
It took me a while to puzzle out that it’s the TSA’s imagined message here that the author is objecting to – but his reading of the message is so fundamentally hostile that it’s hard to figure out what the problem is unless you automatically fault the TSA for everything they do.
The TSA is much derided, and showing that they accomplish something meaningful is important to their legitimacy. Keeping people from bringing guns and concealed weapons on planes is important – even when it’s a nice white person who a TSA agent would never suspect of hijacking a plane.
So, the TSA shows you that indeed, they are getting something important done – that is not strictly theater. Cory faults them for that.
Then faulting them for not prosecuting people who they believe just made a dumb mistake? That seems unbelievable disingenuous. They are BEING KIND to people who messed up.
The TSA agent you quote is probably just spouting a catch phrase, but it’s very true here. He or she is just a grunt, and he should not be making the determination about people’s intent. The TSA presumably has people that specialize in that sort of thing, presumably above his paygrade.
I am not sure about the benefits of the program, but is seems like Cory decided that everything that the TSA does that’s not in line with his demands is rotten – like a recent ex.
