Dangerous Babies
L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - acerbic commentary on the TSA's recent nazi excercise covering a huge area covering parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
Lately, however, I have discovered a context in which that odd expression, "dangerous baby" is the most appropriate possible. If you've attended a local science fiction convention any time in the last forty years, then you'll remember the kid (if you were one of these and eventually grew out of it, I salute you)—usually male, overweight, and pimply—who, armed with a walkie-talkie, swaggered around in a sweat-stained faded t-shirt emblazoned with the word "Security". He clearly enjoyed his imagined authority over others, and probably aspired to be a police officer or a member of the Special Forces.
In short, an over-aged infant.
Today, as seems likely, if he couldn't make the cut (psychological or otherwise) for the local police department, the sheriff's office, the military, or any federal agency from the FBI right down to the bottom of the barrel, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, he can still count on being accepted as a TSA crotch grabber.
And his fondest infantile wish can be fulfilled at last, as he runs around the five-state area of Operation VIPR, with an automatic weapon at his shoulder, and on his belt, an autopistol, the bludgeon that is eumphemistically referred to as a "baton", and a license to grope.
