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
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 edited 👆🏼to complete the paragraph. Doh! I’d c/p’d it to notes so to complete it — Was much surprised to see I’d forgotten to cancel & there it was, half done, inadvertently posted and already commented on!!) In my later version it became ponderous —whopping huge! — as I wrote and saw so many more implications going in all directions. I also got into some lyrical ponderings ranging from parasitic wasps, flukes, termites, black mold & the like (and parasited organized human systems), to tangential personal air travel history & self-forgetfulness for loved ones’ sake to, well, the Loving God. With lots of metaphor. Prolly a good thing for you I didn’t post that one!
I found this to be a vastly greater & more nuanced topic than just the gross humiliation endured at the command of a TSA stooge.]
That’s exactly what they want. They want us all to despise leaving our 15 minute prisons.
It’s why domestic US flights are now like riding a bus in a 3rd world heck-hole.
They are de-glamorizing and demoralizing flight. They will criminalize carbon.
They are dismembering and demoralizing car culture as well, with Covid being the first fatal attacks. End commutes by destroying the jobs. Kill suburbs by euthanizing single-family zoning. Burn down a few key exurbs and rural paradise locations to start an insurance collapse.
Corner utility companies into false climate guilt for the meta-arson in play.
Make shopping so miserable, nobody does it.
Don’t give up. Stay free. NEVER give up. Fly. Drive. Eat. Visit. Connect. Work. Play. Explore. Travel at will. If we don’t, we’re done.
Like almost everything, "their" goal is to deprive us of humanity and joy. I miss those days deep in my soul...the anticipation and excitement of waiting for your loved ones to get off the plane and give you a big hug. Likewise, the same anticipation and excitement you felt as you were getting ready to get off the plane to greet those loved ones. TSA post 911 took that all away from us.
By the way, could you please clarify your last statement? Is there a word missing? "...why I won't just I will not be travelling again." I'd like to know what is meant here.
You’re so right, Cheryl! Those days are sorely missed. I think we are actually either in mass grief or mass denial.
We mustn’t let them deprive us of our humanity and joy. It doesn’t come from them and they can’t take it away. Remember and live it. I may have given the impression that I had been broken. Far from it! Never! And I have hope and expect that it will be restored. For now, we smile, we cry, we tell and study truth, we hope, we do our best, we love like our lives depend on it, because it does. We pray to God — who is indeed there and who is good. Who gives us love and wisdom and courage and peace and life. Our humanity and joy belong to Him, as we do, and He will not let them have us or take those away.
Yikes! I just went to your telegram feed and saw you had reposted my comment I can’t thank you there (merely a reader), so I do here. I posted the above first, just so you know 😂.
I had also edited it & added an explanation and some goofiness, which I now wish I hadn’t — I may move it as an addendum. Noticed more typos too.
Thanks for appreciating and sharing it, tho’!
I do think it’s a bigger thing than we realize — for manifold reasons.
I'm flight crew on one of those fancy $70 million private jets. Every thing you are describing is correct. No security, pax drive up to the jet, no restrictions on luggage, luxury from end to end. Some pax are pleasant, some are not. They all think they are special; they are not. I used to like my job, but now that I'm awake, these people give me the heebie-jeebies.
True innovation upsets the norm to the point that the old system fails because it didn't innovate. True innovation takes what is the norm for the elites and gives it to the common man without the need for injustice or theft. The elites thrive on injustice.
Boaters have ceased to be the conscientious, courteous beings they once were. I have friends who lived on a fairly large inland lake in NC. They loved it at first, bought a boat and enjoyed leisurely trips around the lake on evenings and weekends.
As the population grew around the lakes and more and more people bought boats and launched them there, they found those boating excursions more fraught with stress and danger. Younger and younger boaters with low impulse control and a need for speed, more and more drunken boaters, more crowded waterways, boaters who seem to exist in a bubble where only they exist and everyone else be damned - much like driving on the interstates these days. They finally gave up when, one Saturday evening they were almost hit by some drunken college kids roaring around in a Cigarette boat. Those same kids later hit someone’s wake which shot them airborne and they landed on the highway that ran along the lakeshore. The kids were killed and the $100,000+ boat destroyed.
I talked to an old friend who works at NVIDIA on self-driving car chipsets. We talked about this for two hours. He told me that solving the problem for self-flying vehicles is actually significantly easier than self driving cars--the reason is that there are more degrees of freedom to avoid a collision. Think of how many 50 ft "lanes" there are, both vertically and horizontally. We wouldnt need ATC
Got to fly twice on private corporate planes - what an awesome experience. Just as you describe. FBO to FBO. Once the COV got going, I knew I would never fly again.
We live in the flight path of SFO. At the start of CV, the commercial flight traffic decreased dramatically. The private traffic - business as usual. Infuriating.
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 edited 👆🏼to complete the paragraph. Doh! I’d c/p’d it to notes so to complete it — Was much surprised to see I’d forgotten to cancel & there it was, half done, inadvertently posted and already commented on!!) In my later version it became ponderous —whopping huge! — as I wrote and saw so many more implications going in all directions. I also got into some lyrical ponderings ranging from parasitic wasps, flukes, termites, black mold & the like (and parasited organized human systems), to tangential personal air travel history & self-forgetfulness for loved ones’ sake to, well, the Loving God. With lots of metaphor. Prolly a good thing for you I didn’t post that one!
I found this to be a vastly greater & more nuanced topic than just the gross humiliation endured at the command of a TSA stooge.]
If you stop flying, they really have beat you.
That’s exactly what they want. They want us all to despise leaving our 15 minute prisons.
It’s why domestic US flights are now like riding a bus in a 3rd world heck-hole.
They are de-glamorizing and demoralizing flight. They will criminalize carbon.
They are dismembering and demoralizing car culture as well, with Covid being the first fatal attacks. End commutes by destroying the jobs. Kill suburbs by euthanizing single-family zoning. Burn down a few key exurbs and rural paradise locations to start an insurance collapse.
Corner utility companies into false climate guilt for the meta-arson in play.
Make shopping so miserable, nobody does it.
Don’t give up. Stay free. NEVER give up. Fly. Drive. Eat. Visit. Connect. Work. Play. Explore. Travel at will. If we don’t, we’re done.
Thanks, Warren!
Oh, go ahead and say hellhole:)) !
Don’t worry, I’m not holing up. I just will not fly as long as the TSA routine is the hoop we jump through to do it.
…Auto, motorcycle, bicycle, feet, horse, fishing boat, barge, ferry, train, horse & buggy, name it, I’ll take it. Even, if I’m lucky, private plane.
Are all fine modes of travel.
But I will not fly TSA airlines.
My long response will be as a general post.
I like your spirit!
As CognitiveCarbon, I hereby vociferously object to being criminalized or de-carbonized 🤓
That’s the spirit!
“I am Carbon, hear me roar !”
Culturally coal-roll these unelected demicidocrats.
Like almost everything, "their" goal is to deprive us of humanity and joy. I miss those days deep in my soul...the anticipation and excitement of waiting for your loved ones to get off the plane and give you a big hug. Likewise, the same anticipation and excitement you felt as you were getting ready to get off the plane to greet those loved ones. TSA post 911 took that all away from us.
By the way, could you please clarify your last statement? Is there a word missing? "...why I won't just I will not be travelling again." I'd like to know what is meant here.
Thanks! I edited it to finish.
You’re so right, Cheryl! Those days are sorely missed. I think we are actually either in mass grief or mass denial.
We mustn’t let them deprive us of our humanity and joy. It doesn’t come from them and they can’t take it away. Remember and live it. I may have given the impression that I had been broken. Far from it! Never! And I have hope and expect that it will be restored. For now, we smile, we cry, we tell and study truth, we hope, we do our best, we love like our lives depend on it, because it does. We pray to God — who is indeed there and who is good. Who gives us love and wisdom and courage and peace and life. Our humanity and joy belong to Him, as we do, and He will not let them have us or take those away.
…But will not be flying ;))
Godspeed!
🕊
brilliant comment. Thank you for sharing those thoughts!
Yikes! I just went to your telegram feed and saw you had reposted my comment I can’t thank you there (merely a reader), so I do here. I posted the above first, just so you know 😂.
I had also edited it & added an explanation and some goofiness, which I now wish I hadn’t — I may move it as an addendum. Noticed more typos too.
Thanks for appreciating and sharing it, tho’!
I do think it’s a bigger thing than we realize — for manifold reasons.
I'm flight crew on one of those fancy $70 million private jets. Every thing you are describing is correct. No security, pax drive up to the jet, no restrictions on luggage, luxury from end to end. Some pax are pleasant, some are not. They all think they are special; they are not. I used to like my job, but now that I'm awake, these people give me the heebie-jeebies.
True innovation upsets the norm to the point that the old system fails because it didn't innovate. True innovation takes what is the norm for the elites and gives it to the common man without the need for injustice or theft. The elites thrive on injustice.
We can totally do this. My dad has this awesome set of tools!
I'm not that bad at designing and engineering control systems either. ;-)
I thought I was a creative, descriptive writer until I found you.
I hate you.
I punt.
Out.
With envy,
Beer at the Parade
❤ U 🍺 !
On Jeff Tuckers page on FB, quite a long time ago now, we chatted about how the Jetsons mode of travel should be reality already.
Air traffic controllers will tell you it’s because there is no way (yet) to keep yield signs and stop lights about.
Obviously that is a conundrum, however, seems like boaters and fishermen have very few problems figuring out left/right green/red.
Or perhaps those that drive watercraft are simply considered more courteous to others, and cognizant to the dangers of being otherwise minded.
Boaters have ceased to be the conscientious, courteous beings they once were. I have friends who lived on a fairly large inland lake in NC. They loved it at first, bought a boat and enjoyed leisurely trips around the lake on evenings and weekends.
As the population grew around the lakes and more and more people bought boats and launched them there, they found those boating excursions more fraught with stress and danger. Younger and younger boaters with low impulse control and a need for speed, more and more drunken boaters, more crowded waterways, boaters who seem to exist in a bubble where only they exist and everyone else be damned - much like driving on the interstates these days. They finally gave up when, one Saturday evening they were almost hit by some drunken college kids roaring around in a Cigarette boat. Those same kids later hit someone’s wake which shot them airborne and they landed on the highway that ran along the lakeshore. The kids were killed and the $100,000+ boat destroyed.
I talked to an old friend who works at NVIDIA on self-driving car chipsets. We talked about this for two hours. He told me that solving the problem for self-flying vehicles is actually significantly easier than self driving cars--the reason is that there are more degrees of freedom to avoid a collision. Think of how many 50 ft "lanes" there are, both vertically and horizontally. We wouldnt need ATC
Got to fly twice on private corporate planes - what an awesome experience. Just as you describe. FBO to FBO. Once the COV got going, I knew I would never fly again.
We live in the flight path of SFO. At the start of CV, the commercial flight traffic decreased dramatically. The private traffic - business as usual. Infuriating.
Awesome article, really makes you think about the Us vs Them world
Until I experienced what I did, I never realized nor gave it much thought. It was an awakening to see how "the 1%" experience travel.