Wait Wait

I no longer wanted to see the Liberty Bell.

[Note: If this bores you, there is some stuff at the end that's funnier than all of this.]

Even though the line "moved quickly," it was a block long. It's possible that the Liberty Bell was a fun thing to see, but when you balanced it out with the time spent waiting, it was not a pleasant experience overall.* It was also hot and smelled like horse poop. The actual Liberty Bell was not particularly interesting, but that's not the point. Even if it was particularly interesting, it still probably wouldn't have been worthwhile overall.

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So, I recently returned from a trip to Washington, DC.** A common theme on this trip was that you had to wait a lot. A lot. When you go to the White House, for example, you have to wait in a line, and then go through a metal detector. Then another line, and another metal detector. There are like six lines in total. It's actually a clever trick–at the end of each line, you feel like you may be getting somewhere. Then, haha, nope. Maybe someone will sneak in metal between the metal detectors. Same deal at the Capitol.***

I've been whining a lot**** about how this waiting is so annoying and there are so many lines, but I guess it's kind of a first-world problem. However, when a lot of people wait, overall, there are chain reactions where people lose time to do something, and other bad consequences happen. They might not be as clear, but they are still existent.

In the Capitol or White House (or Liberty Bell*****), it probably makes sense to wait in those long sequences of lines, however painful or annoying it might be. But in, say, airports, I will make the somewhat controversial case that the main cause of waiting, Security, should be eliminated. 

In 2017, the most recent year in which we have data, approximately 10,900 people died from terrorism worldwide, and just 65 in the United States. In contrast, over 1,250,000 people died from car crashes last year worldwide, and 37,000 in the USA. That's a ratio of over 100:1 worldwide and 500:1 in the United States. 

Now, some of you may be saying, "This is great! Security is doing it's job." However, there has never been a problem with terrorism as big as the problem with car crashes, which we aren't doing all that much to deal with. If we wanted to efficiently deal with death, we should make cars safer; we all seem to have acclimated to car crashes. 

Now, you also may be saying, "Even if there isn't all that much terrorism, aren't we better safe than sorry?" Good question, and my response is twofold. First and foremost, I think that a lot of big inconveniences can add up. Maybe someone was delivering important medicine to their family member on the other side of the country, and they suffered because of Security forcing them to miss their flight. Maybe an Important Person had to miss their plane on their way to their Important Business, since that's what we value in this country. Maybe someone got stranded in a foreign country for days after missing a flight while the rest were snowed out. My point is not that any one of these are horrible. My point is when you balance it out*******, it creates a net worse situation. Secondly, it's not an efficient use of taxpayer dollars, like I said; if we want to save lives, look at car crashes, not terrorist attacks.

It's a PR thing, though. Governments look stupid if, after a school shooting or a suicide bombing, they don't do anything, even if it's the logical thing to do. Our political process has problems, and I hold the opinion that this is one of them.

Wow, how did I get from the Liberty Bell to terrorism? Who knows. Time for the fun part: some ridiculous things I found in Washington.

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Who knew that pepper spray didn't have wings? (Sorry for bad photo quality.)

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Not related to Washington per se, but since I took this on the trip, I'm including it. The deal here is that the New York Times made a mistake. It's "I, too, sing America."

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Whoever wrote this sign didn't have such a long mlmory either.

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It wouldn't surprise me all that much if it was legit, but it looks GreenScreened******* to me.

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Why did it all turn sideways?

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Because that's what IDs say, just your name, a photo, a barcode, and whether or not you're over or under 21. Also, the barcode here doesn't have numbers.

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Let me just pull out my handy-dandy mask...

Thanks for reading what I wrote. Are you willing to wait for it?

–beautifulthorns

Originally aired April 10, 2019

*At my old school, we had to learn about this decision-making process called the Force Field Analysis. If you don't have the time, capability, or (most likely) desire to click the link, let me give you an executive summary. You list your pros. You list your cons. You rate each pro and con on a scale of, say, 1 to 5. Then you draw arrows with length equal to that many units. The idea is that this gives you a visual representation of the issue. Finally, you sum up the numbers for pro and the numbers for con. Whichever number is higher, wins. 

Here's the problem:

"Mx. President, we need a decision."

"Hold on, I'm drawing arrows."

I understand that it a visual representation can be useful, but since it does not actually aid you in arriving at the final decision, it should be an afterthought if anything.

How does this footnote relate to my Liberty Bell story? It was clearer in my head. Oh well, I'm not deleting it because it's mildly funny, and hey, bigger is always better, right? (I know someone who always uses the claymore (a really big (more long than big, probably (but whatever)) sword) in (Fanwar) LARP. (Protip: don't.)) 

**I was skeptical of the comma at first, but it actually makes sense. DC stands for District of Columbia, and actually refers to it in its capacity as a state. Washington, on the other hand, is the name of the city. Now, Washington takes up all of DC, but it's still a city within a state. So Washington, DC is really just like San Francisco, CA. And San Francisco CA looks like you don't know grammar. 

Also, the trip did hit Pennsylvania for a few days, which is where the Liberty Bell is.

***The capital/capitol distinction always bothered me. I used to think that capitol referred to any sort of national capital. It's confusing and dumb. Then again, most is the English language, peppered with compromises between special interests now obsolete and cemented by good old tradition.

****Hey, complaining feels good.

*****There is no entry fee at the Liberty Bell, and a lot of people want to see it, apparently, so the line is logical. I just didn't want to wait in it, and if you ever see the Liberty Bell, I wouldn't.

******This is where the Force Field Analysis comes in. (See footnote * if you don't understand.)

*******Or BlueScreened or GrayScreened or whatever.