The Freedom to Move
At the age of 52, I experienced a lifetime first: I flew by private plane to speak at a conference at University of California, Santa Barbara. In the process, I learned something about true freedom
Earlier today, in a Telegram post, I wrote this comment (somewhat facetiously)
“Mayorkas, as head of DHS, secretly wants your online utterances to go through a TSA-like screening before they can appear on social media.
He runs the Travel-by-Air Ministry, too. Where they look up your skirts and do things that would make a proctologist blush using millimeter-wave scanning machines to virtually disrobe you, all while you are forced to put your hands over your head in a symbolic "I surrender" pose. Just to be permitted to get on a plane.
Remember that. “
That phrase: “I surrender” — reminded me of this post I had written on November 16, 2020 on WordPress.
It is important for you to realize two things about the modern TSA humiliation ritual:
(1) it is NOT about your safety. It IS about your submission to the State and (2) it is about controlling your mind, to disabuse you of the idea that you have the ability to move about freely without permission.
You shouldn’t need a license—or permission by the State—to move.
As I wrote about in It’s all about Energy— the ability to create as much energy as you need or want directly at the point of use will allow you to travel freely in ways we can only dream of now.
What is the dream of travel that most people haven’t experienced? Read on.
Here is my original post from WordPress, reformatted for Substack.
At the age of 52, I experienced a lifetime first: I flew by private plane to speak at a conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
At the time, I was working as the CTO and Chief Scientist of a start-up company involved with commercial insect rearing; I had developed some considerable and world-recognized expertise in the field, and the primary investor in the company owned a private plane.
He had arranged for me to give the talk. The plane, which he co-owned with the pilot, was a six-seater King Air with twin propellers. It wasn’t a Lear Jet or anything, but it was nice, comfortable, and a smooth ride.
Here’s what I discovered about how the world elite experience air travel on private planes: this was the first one I’d ever been on.
For starters, I drove straight to the hangar and parked about 50 feet from the plane. There was no TSA; no lines; no agents of the state checking to see if I had permission to be there; no uniformed authority figures with weapons holstered demanding “Paperien, Bitte” to allow me to pass.
I didn’t need permission from the state to travel, as the rest of the population does. I just showed up at the hangar, and in a few minutes, we were airborne.
There was no awkward fumbling of IDs or boarding passes, no sprinting between gates separated by miles of corridors, no limit on my luggage, nobody peeking inside my bag to see if I had 3.5 or 4.237 ounces of fluid inside my shaving kit instead of 3 oz, nobody telling me that I couldn’t bring my water bottle with me.
There was no forced disrobing or removing my shoes while my belongings were X-rayed and peered into.
There was no symbolic “hands up surrender” posture required to indicate my submission to the state while they scanned my body with millimeter wave technology that basically looked underneath my clothes.
None of that.
It was just pure, unfettered free travel, the way our ancestors used to experience freedom to travel by horseback.
The reason they make you raise your hands the way you must do (or else) is a subliminal, forced symbolic submissiveness: with your pants falling down because you had to take your belt off and in your stockinged shoeless feet, you have to “pose” the way the state orders you to.
Submit. Or don’t pass.
All of these rituals of control are looked upon favorably by the political party that is all about conformity, control, and coercion: the modern liberal Democrat. Do as we say, or we’ll silence you. Or worse.
I didn’t have to go through any of that.
In my case, I parked near the plane, shook hands with the pilot, got on board, and in 45 minutes – about half the time it would have taken commercially — I was on the ground in Santa Barbara.
There was no locked cabin door between me and the pilot; I joked and chatted with him while he tossed back skittles and feathered the throttle.
What did I see at the other end? It was a nicely appointed “club lounge” sort of facility with overstuffed chairs, a bar, quiet spaces to meet, a bathroom/locker room with a shower. Concierge feeling everywhere.
People smiling and asking if you needed something, rather than a warning not to park in the white zone, or blaring speakers asking Mr. So-and-So to please find a white courtesy phone.
No lost luggage. No crowds.
None of that.
A rental car could be waiting twenty feet from the door at these terminals, or a Lyft/Uber driver picking me up 10 steps outside the door of the lounge.
No metal detectors; no police state. No papers, no hassle, no restrictions, no intrusiveness, just the sheer joy of travelling via air from point A to point B in as pleasant a manner as you can imagine.
Everyone in the whole world deserves to experience air travel like that, instead of being scanned, poked, prodded, intimidated, jammed and crammed into uncomfortable seats only to be lectured by overbearing “air crew” personnel about what you can and can’t do onboard.
You shouldn’t have to grin and bear it while they order you to put on your mask, put on your seatbelt, and listen to them drone on for the 10th time that day about how they’re sorry, but there’s no food aboard today’s flight and please put your seat and tray tables in their full upright and locked positions while you put away all the meager belongings they graciously let you bring on board until they give you permission to touch them again.
The elites have a freedom to move that the rest of us only dream about.
These are the people who are telling you that you can’t drive gasoline powered cars or heat your house with gas while they jet from point to point without a care in the world.
We need to develop personal “hover cars” like we used to see in those futuristic sci-fi movies so that all of humanity can experience what it feels like to be truly free.
To travel where you want, when you want, how you want, without needing permission from Big Brother first.
CC. I’m old enough to have enjoyed flying commercially in the days before the monstrous TSA. Sending loved ones off at the gate. Waiting eagerly for them to arrive, kids waving to Grandma’s plane, swamping her with hugs & shouts the moment she comes refreshed & smiling through the gate, having been lavished with courtesy and every comfort. Her bags proudly carried out of the gate by jabbering munchkins. All anticipating a special time.
I tolerated it as I had to fly frequently to take care of my ailing parents. Before that it was the only way the family could visit since they lived an ocean away. I gritted my teeth and for a while there they let most people through with belts & shoes on. Well, yay, phew — got off easy. Maybe it’s getting better — maybe they’ll finally stop it & go back to normal.
But it got worse. Even before covid they began their routine submission posture. And there you were, a naked spectacle, feet apart, arms up, zapped and felt up by the soviet matron in blue gloves — fighting every instinct to protect your person, to cover, to fight, to run. (Nowhere to run, Nowhere to hide now baby… )
It’s foreboding and not just because of it’s deliberate visceral message: You are NOTHING. You are powerless and ve can do vis you just as ve vish… But because to so many it is NORMAL — accepted, routine, not extraordinary and vile. This is why they could blandly conform to all the covid rules. It has been part of our conditioning.
My children, now in their early thirties, don’t remember that time of freedom; they have no metric and accepted as normal. They have no idea how purposely oppressed their lives are.
How deliberately contrived & machinated the dehumanizing measures were (by coordinated incremented steps), and are, all aimed at them - who lack a memory or even an interest in the past (And we can say the same for the Vogon bureaucracies of the Borg and every institution, too.) For thom, now adults, a delusional “freedom” is merely a (carefully, deliberately infused) notion of free (physical, societal, appetital) expression: Free to be me ( as the PTB have for so long defined, invented, instilled & reduced it: you are a two-legged animal, autonomous and morally perfect.)
I will not be travelling again. My daughter doesn’t understand why I won’t just put up with it. How can I explain it to her?
I thought I was a creative, descriptive writer until I found you.
I hate you.
I punt.
Out.
With envy,
Beer at the Parade