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Kevin Pezzi, MD

I developed technology to instantly
stop school shooters and other criminals,
such as rapists, robbers, home invaders,
and shoplifters. I also created ways to block
airborne germ transmission. Read more >

Iconoclastic views on economics, politics, technology, science, and life.

Disagree with something I wrote? So do I! Read more

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

— Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher, and writer (1856–1915)

Trivia: He and his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, the noted feminist and writer, died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine on May 7, 1915, when they were heading to Europe to cover the war and interview Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

If you disagree with something I wrote, feel free to challenge it. Some of my viewpoints are the antithesis (exact opposite) of what they once were. That isn't flip-flopping; that is changing opinions with scant evidence to support them into convictions with a firmer foundation of facts.

My political philosophy is an amalgamation of libertarian, conservative, and liberal principles. My opinions have changed so significantly that my conservative friends might be horrified by how I strongly believe that liberals are correct on certain issues. I've previously written about some of them, but to make this more fun, I will present others as challenges in which I offer $100,000 to the first person who can refute the logic I used in forming that opinion. Please note that due to my limited time and difficulty using my hands after I broke my neck, I cannot quickly update my previously published opinions. However, now that I am balancing the promptings of head and heart, I strongly disagree with many opinions I expressed in my writings.

I like finding people who make me think, not necessarily those who agree with me. Genius Robert Heinlein said, “I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” If you can educate me, I'm all ears.

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
— Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
— Albert Einstein

“What I would like to see more often in this nation is an open and intelligent conversation, not people just casting aspersions at each other … it's unbelievable to me the way people act like third graders. And if somebody doesn't agree with them, they're this and they're that … it comes from both sides. And it's just so infantile.”
— Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon

“The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about and refuse to investigate.”
— Dr. Wayne Dyer

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
— General George Patton

“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

“A lot of people risk their lives in a brief act of heroism, which is kind of cool, but Jill has what I call slow heroism. She is risking her professional life on something that her own calculations show may not work for a thousand years—may not ever. So I like to support people that are risking their lives.”
— ex-Microsoft billionaire brainiac Nathan Myhrvold speaking about Jill Tarter, who inspired the character played by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. It takes a brilliant person to see that others who go against the grain of conventional wisdom may be sages although lesser minds often ridicule their ideas.

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
— Oscar Wilde

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
— Winston Churchill

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
— Euripides, Greek tragic dramatist (484 BC - 406 BC)

“It is socially unacceptable to be right too early.”
— Robert Heinlein

“I'd rather stand alone on the truth than with millions on a lie.”

“The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture.”
— Arthur H. R. Fairchild

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
— Abraham Lincoln

This reminds me of something stressed by one of my psychology professors, who said that society imposes rigid boundaries for what behavior is acceptable, and applies tremendous pressure trying to force people to conform to the behavioral expectations. Some of the most brilliant and productive outside-the-box thinkers led unconventional lives. One of the side effects of forcing people to think inside the box is that by lopping off outside-the-box behavior, potentially great outside-the-box ideas are lost, too.

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
— Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (1908-1965)

“You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.”
— John Eliot

1. Former Director admits TSA is violating the Fourth Amendment
2. Woman groped by TSA screener

One of my friends (Deena Stephens) detailed what the TSA did to her:

“In 2005 I was groped by TSA in Atlanta. This was not the type of pat down in place today by any standards. I was randomly chosen and made to stand in front of passengers, extending my arms over my head while the screener rubbed my breasts in the same manner as my Ob-Gyn conducts a breast exam and then using her fingers pulled my nipples. Then she used the same care between my legs. There was not one inch of my genitals that this woman did not touch. This was not a pat down but extremely intrusive. This was done after I had gone through the standard x-ray as well as endured their baton check. I was not boarding the flight but rather accompanying my kids to their gate as they were being dropped off and flying unaccompanied to their fathers in NC for a Christmas visit. This agent had no right to use her fingers instead of the backs of her hands to touch me in such a fashion. It was a most embarrassing and dehumanizing experience.

While I was being subjected to this treatment, another TSA agent was meticulously going through my purse especially looking through my credit cards and ID. When I focused my attention on the agent perusing my pocketbook the woman sternly told me to look back at her and I refused. I said, “That is my purse over there and I will be focused intently on my identification.” To this day I think they were wanting to find some contraband on my person or possibly looking for any cash.”

Deena's concern is well-founded (see NYC agent arrested in latest TSA theft allegation, which mentions “a series of recent theft allegations against TSA employees”). This grossly exceeded the bounds of propriety and bordered on a sexual assault. As John Tyner (the man currently at the forefront of the news regarding his protracted run-in with the San Diego TSA) correctly pointed out, these intrusive TSA checks would indeed be sexual assaults if done by anyone other than the government (or a doctor with the patient's consent, of course).

Now the question becomes: does the government have the right to search someone because there is a one-in-fifty-million chance he or she might be a terrorist? The Constitution says no. According to the Fourth Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Without “probable cause,” supported by an “Oath or affirmation,” no search is constitutional. Having a pulse is not probable cause.

Mo McGowan, a former Assistant TSA Administrator and Director of Security Operations, admitted the TSA is violating the 4^th Amendment. On Fox News, he said, “Nobody likes having their 4^th Amendment violated going through a security line, but the truth of the matter is, uh, we're gonna have to do it.”

No, Mr. McGowan, the TSA is “gonna have to” follow the Constitution. The problem for the TSA is that such searches are unconstitutional and hence illegal. McGowan likely isn't smart or educated enough to fully grasp the alarming implications of what he said so cavalierly, tacitly suggesting the federal government is now so powerful—and us citizens so weak—that they can revoke any provision of the Constitution whenever they wish. Again, not legally.

Regrettably, the TSA is resorting to patting and groping airline passengers because liberals have cowered the government into rejecting profiling, which common sense and a long track record of success in Israel suggests is highly effective. Hence, the TSA expects Americans to voluntarily relinquish their 4^th Amendment rights so airport screeners can put their hands on the breasts of hot Main Street soccer Moms and in the crotch of 12-year-old all-American girls so young Islamic men chanting passages from the Koran can breeze through security, lest anyone think we're politically incorrect enough to admit that such a man is statistically much more likely to be a terrorist than a frail 88-year-old grandmother from Iowa in a wheelchair.

As Charles Krauthammer astutely noted:

“We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to ensure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety—95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling—when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.”

If our national leaders wonder why so many people loathe them, they should look at this and similar examples of pusillanimously caving in to the Left because shredding the Constitution is easier than having the courage to do the right thing. As Harry Truman was fond of saying, “If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen.” If our leaders don't have enough spine and brains to govern without trampling the Constitution, they should get out of Washington and get out of our lives. We deserve better.

Abiding by the Constitution and following all laws are mandatory for everyone, from children to the President of the United States and his increasingly large band of federal agents. If federal agents violate the Constitution, they are breaking the law. Good people follow the law; bad people do not. As President Bush said, “You're either with us, or against us.” No federal agent should break the Constitution to perform his or her job, so they and their superiors must decide if they are with us or against us. If they insist on continuing to violate the Constitution, they are not with us.

A TSA officer wrote that “in private, most TSA officers I talked to told me they felt the agency’s day-to-day operations represented an abuse of public trust and funds.”

I agree.

He added, “All the old, crass stereotypes about race and genitalia size thrived on our secure government radio channels.” That's an excerpt from Dear America, I Saw You Naked: And yes, we were laughing. Confessions of an ex-TSA agent.

Kevin Pezzi, MD

1. Former Director admits TSA is violating the Fourth Amendment
2. Woman groped by TSA screener

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Comments (0)

Kevin Pezzi, MD

1. Former Director admits TSA is violating the Fourth Amendment 2. Woman groped by TSA screener

Related topics

Notes:

Comments (0)

1. Former Director admits TSA is violating the Fourth Amendment
2. Woman groped by TSA screener