Margaret Wente on why airport security measures are so infernally stupid

I don't always agree with her, but I have liked her ever since she admitted the unthinkable (recycling is a waste of time, and Margaret Atwood's writing can be crappy.) 

The following quotation comes from The Globe and Mail.

Ours must be the first society in history that has tried to stop the killers by imposing collective punishment on ourselves.


How did we arrive at this absurd impasse? Because of our elaborately overdeveloped concern for human rights, combined with our towering fear of the hurt feelings of Muslims. If everyone is equal, then differential treatment must be racist, which is why we have decided that your grandma from Moose Jaw gets the same pat-down as a devout young male Muslim from Nigeria who did a recent stint at a religious school in Yemen.


The case of the underwear bomber certainly revealed lapses in the system. But there will always be lapses in the system. Trying to safeguard against the last thing a suicide killer tried – Surrender your liquids, Granny! – is merely theatre, because it's not the technique that needs to be intercepted, it's the killers.

Link from SteynOnline.