Competence, Common Sense and Washington’s Approval Ratings

The woman with the sippy cup and the small child is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Transportation Security Administration released a video showing a TSA guard harassing a poor mother as she tried to go through the security line at the airport, child in one hand, sippy cup in the other.

The TSA was trying to make an example of the mother. Instead, it made an example of itself. They are a bunch of complete idiots.

Earlier this month, they let a guy — who had a rare form of highly contagious tuberculosis — go through aiport security and fly to Europe (this guy was on the watch list, by the way) because he didn’t seem to be sick.

And they routinely frisk and harass young mothers, great-grandfathers, senators and assorted other completely innocent people, all in the name of great security. Common sense is routinely sacrificed in the name of CYA at TSA. 

On top of this daily fiasco is the mad rush to get passports, the result of a stupid law passed by the Congress. The law makes people who want to take a vacation to the Caribbean or Canada get a passport for the first time.

But guess what? The Passport Agency (i.e., the federal government) couldn’t abide by the law. Didn’t have enough resources.

So Congress had to delay its own law.

This is the face of the federal government.

And that is why its approval ratings are so low.

People have no faith in the ability of the government to enforce the current laws. That is why they don’t want Congress passing any other laws, especially immigration reform.

I am a proponent of a comprehensive immigration bill, and I always have been.

But first, I think we need to fundamentally rethink how the government does its business today.

Those things it can’t do, it should stop doing.

Those things that it shouldn’t do, it should stop trying to do.

And for those things it should do, it should show more competence and more old-fashioned common sense.

Once the government starts showing some competence and common sense, it might get some more respect from the American people.