- The primary form of control that anyone can have over anyone else is control over exit. (Aretae's 3rd Law: Scarcity is the whole of Power). See, for example, the Berlin Wall...Cuba, etc.
- The basic structure in place for the US to control exit/travel has historically been very weak.
- If someone wants centralized control...one needs travel to be relatively expensive.
- Expensive doesn't have to be expensive in purely monetary terms.
- Hence the TSA is an important tool of social control. It massively increases the costs of travel.
- FWIW, so does the FAA, and passport controls, and exit-taxes, etc.
- Taking down the TSA, and fundamentally decreasing the cost of travel (to different systems) should be among the top priorities for the liberty-loving. It will decrease the effectiveness of social control substantially.
- This especially true in acute, non-threatening medical conditions. Travel to India? $2000. Cost of medical procedure in India + care in India? ????$10,000????. Cost of equivalent care in US? $200,000? Quality of care differential? 5%?. With HSA-ish options, or simply mandatory savings...inside of 5 years, one could completely destroy the AMA's bullshit monopoly on expensive procedures.
- What do conservatives think of this? It would, of course, mean the complete inability to make social control happen for conservatives as well. Abortion control? The flight to Mexico/Canada isn't long or expensive. And our laws (basically) don't apply outside the borders.
Exit is essential. Travel is important. Destroy the TSA.
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I don't know whether I count as a 'conservative' (it's what I call myself, but I'm acutely aware I probably mostly sound like a libertarian, and sometimes a reactionary), but count me as wanting to do away with TSA/etc and not giving a lick about the supposed 'social control' I'd be giving up in doing so.
On the specific issue of abortion, a Mexico-abortion-getter could still just be prosecuted upon coming back, if evidence were there. Or, the evidence might not be there (but the same is true of underground domestic abortions). Not saying any of that's what I favor, just saying that free travel doesn't really undermine the social-control-goal of anti-abortion (to people who really care about that) all that much over & above the extent to which it's already undermined.
In other words, even hard-core conservatives don't have much to gain by restricting travel for the sake of 'social control'.
I probably don't actually count as a conservative, being a reactionary, and really almost a counter-revolutionary, but I'm in favor of disbanding the TSA and trying many of its members for sexual assault under color of law. I do find the TSA useful in terms of generating outrage against the existing powers that be though.
The TSA has value in that it keeps us safe from terrorists. If we disband the TSA, then terrorists will descend upon us and destroy us.
Now you know.
Bwaahaahaahaa.
What RWCG said. Current legal theory has no trouble with prosecuting people who travel overseas for what is viewed as morally outrageous law skirting. e.g. pedophilia.
On abortion,
Very few pro-life activist types lose much sleep over abortions done across a meaningful (i.e. national or even a state border when meaningful federalism exists) boundary from them. A lot of this reason is religious and relates to the typical parameters of Divine Wrath.
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