The Voting Ostrich: Stuff you don't want to know about

Remember way back when when I posted the Stuff you don't need to know about tech tip? Well, it occurs to me that there's an even greater category, stuff you don't want to know about.

What don't you want to know about? Oh, all kinds of stuff.

Shot like a dog. Remember Mayor Calvo? Local SWAT decided that he had some pot. Yeah, the mayor. They got a no-knock warrant, raided his house and shot both of his black labs.

"The cops then handcuffed Calvo and his mother-in-law and interrogated them for hours, while the dogs’ bodies laid in pools of blood nearby," writes Thomas Firey.

No arrests were made. Oh, and it turns out that the police did not have a no-knock warrant. Oops.

I listened incredulously to local opinion about the botched raid. Everyone thought it was a horrible thing, but thank God it was a one time thing that happened somewhere else! I asked Gary if he knew whether shooting dogs is a fairly standard procedure or not. A call to our local police and DA's offices might shed some light on this.

As soon as I said that, I told him not to bother. A week from now, I promised, no one will care. And you know what? I was right. You really don't want to know about this. It might cause you to ask questions about how we enforce our laws. Worse, it might highlight a tension between our civil liberties and the War on Drugs. Much better to not know.

Asleep at the wheel and the evils of the free market. We all now know that our economic woes are the result of regulators being asleep at the wheel and a free market run amok. Case closed! We just need to get rid of the Bush Administration and regulate more.

Naturally, reality is more complex -- and troubling. But you don't want to know about it. If you did, you might start asking questions.

Like why does Robert Rubin (former Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration) get a free pass for his involvement in the financial collapse? After all, as Timothy Noah writes in a Slate article "as a consequence of Rubin's obstruction and inaction, the market for one particular derivative—credit-default swaps—grew like a noxious weed." Noah goes on to detail other contributions Rubin made to our current crisis in that article.

Don't worry yourself -- I know why Rubin gets a free pass. He worked for the Clinton Administration. We already figured out that it's easier to blame all our woes on Republicans. Ergo, we've addressed the problem by getting rid of the Republicans.

It's easier to say we just need more regulation and less Republicans. Mission accomplished! See? Much better not to know.

Security theater. Enjoying the show? For some reason, our government decided to invest money and effort into convincing idiots that the government is on top of things. Security expert Bruce Schneier coined the term "security theater" to describe this nonsense.

Some people -- Schneier included -- have pointed out that there are times when security theater can have benefits. But let's look at some of the harmless BS we've accomplished with security theater:

* James Robinson is a retired brigadier general and a commercial pilot. The TSA -- the TSA! -- certified him to carry a weapon into the cockpit. But, for some reason, he's on the terrorist watch list. He must go through a special screening before boarding the plane that he will pilot while armed.

* Security subjected an 86-year old man, to all kinds of searches and questioning because of a threatening-looking item he was carrying. What was this old man, a former Governor of South Dakota carrying? The Medal of Honor he earned in WWII. He also had a nail file and a drilled out dummy bullet, so you know, he was asking for it.

* The TSA took a five-year old boy into custody because he shared a name with someone on the no-fly list. Funny stuff, eh? Here's the report.

Why do I say this is harmless? Because it is, sorta. Sure, it's embarrassing and shameful, but at least no one's life was endangered in the above examples.

But when the TSA isn't busy yoinking feeding tubes and interrogating five-year olds, they do some pretty hard-core security stuff behind the scenes, right? Right. Like losing an unknown number of TSA uniforms and security passes. I bet no bad guy wants those!

But listen, you don't want to know about this stuff. It's upsetting. I recommend getting all worked up about this for five minutes and then forgetting about it. It's better not to know.