An old man with a curious little metal cross

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:01:38 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JAN. 27, 2002
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
An old man with a curious little metal cross

I see where the crack airport security teams who let 19 out of 19 terrorists slip through their net last Sept. 11 have been saving the republic from terror, again.

The Washington Times reported last week that airline security personnel at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport stopped a suspicious looking gentleman as he tried to board an America West plane Jan. 11 on his way to attend a meeting of the National Rifle Association in Arlington, Virginia.

Searching the 86-year-old duffer, they found in his sports coat pocket a commemorative metal nail file, a dummy rifle cartridge -- the kind with a hole drilled through it to show it contains no powder or primer but is instead to be used on a key chain -- and the subject of this little account, a square piece of metal somewhat more than an inch across, with somewhat sharp edges.

The press widely reports that metal nail files and other instruments with blades are now prohibited in aircraft cabins under Federal Aviation Administration regulations that went into effect after the September 11 -- though in fact the FAA has no power to enact any new laws through its advisory "security directives."

In this case, the 86-year-old South Dakota native explained to the crack operatives of the Fred & Ethel Mertz Security Team -- soon to be sworn in as full-fledged federal employees, complete with membership cards in the federal employees union and a whopping jump in pay -- that he doesn't normally travel with the little metal cross.

"I do not carry the medal around with me," Joseph J. Foss told the Times in a Jan. 18 telephone interview (www.washtimes.com/national/20020119-79003878.htm). "But I had it with me this time to show to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point," where he'd been a guest speaker the previous week.

Starting to get the idea this wasn't just your standard, retired Western cowboy?

Mr. Foss figures his one-way, first-class ticket, coupled with the cowboy hat and western boots he was wearing, made him seem suspicious to security personnel.

Because he wears a pacemaker, he couldn't go through a metal detector and so was told he'd have to be frisked by guards. "I had to take off my cowboy boots three times, as well as my belt and necktie. I compared the situation to bailing out to land in a foreign country," he relates.

Mr. Foss says security personnel went so far as to remove razor blades from his luggage, going beyond any known FAA directives. And they seemed to have trouble understanding his explanation about the little metal cross, which shouldn't surprise us, since it's been revealed since Sept. 11 that enormous numbers of these crack security operatives are non-citizens, whose mastery of English is spotty at best, and among whom a high school diploma is a relative rarity.

"They just didn't know what it was but they acted like I shouldn't be carrying it on," explains retired Marine Corps Gen. Joseph J. Foss, former governor of the proud state of South Dakota, former president of the National Rifle Association, and former commissioner of the old American Football League.

"I received the medal in 1943 from President Franklin Roosevelt," Gen. Foss explained to his tormentors. He received the medal after shooting down 26 enemy planes in the Pacific.

"It states all that stuff on the back of the medal," says Gen. Foss.

On the back of the medal they didn't want him to carry aboard the plane, you understand. The kind of medal that war heroes receive from the President of the United States, personally. The Medal of Honor.

"I was held up for 45 minutes while they decided what to do about the medal. I almost missed my flight, as they went back and forth," Gen. Foss relates, stressing that he would not have boarded the plane if he had been stopped from taking the medal aboard.

"I'm one of only about 140 surviving Medal of Honor recipients." Gov. Foss says. He seems to figure that gives him something to stand up for.

An FAA spokesman was unable to say whether a deactivated cartridge would be banned under federal regulations. But he told the Times reporter that airlines are allowed to impose restrictions that go beyond those of the federal agency.

Some will say, "Well, they can't make exceptions. They were just doing their jobs. Everyone has to be treated the same if we're all to be safe and secure."

But were the disarmed passengers and air crews who had no way to stop the hijackings of Sept. 11 "safe and secure"?

This is nuts. Law-abiding Americans are being systematically accustomed and acclimatized to submit to humiliating body searches anytime and anyplace the government dictates, in order to make sure we're disarmed the next time the terrorists strike. What's "safe and secure" about that?

Do the Israelis disarm in order to make themselves safer? Just the opposite -- attacks on the Israeli schools stopped only when teachers and parent chaperones were issued firearms, and told to use them.

I'll tell you what would make us a whole lot safer in our skies: Spotting an 86-year-old Marine Medal of Honor winner in line about to board one of our planes, security personnel should have approached him, asked if he still felt steady enough of eye and hand to help out, and then handed him a loaded Colt .45 and asked if he'd be willing to carry it at the ready for the duration of his flight.

What's that? If they'd done that with retired Marine Corps Gen. Joseph J. Foss, Medal of Honor winner, they'd have to do it with everyone?

Well, yes. Precisely. Because, you see, a well-armed citizenry -- practiced in the use of their arms -- being necessary to the security of a free country, the right of individual Americans to keep and bear their arms of military usefulness -- anytime, anywhere -- shall never be infringed.

And that's not just a proposal. It's the highest law of the land.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $96 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591, where information on his next book, "The Ballad of Carl Drega," is also available.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair

End the War on Freedom

An old man with a curious little metal cross