As regular readers of my posts know (see here, here, here, and here, for example), I think the TSA is one of the most anti-liberty, intrusive government organizations in America. So I follow the culture to see what people are saying about it. Are they close to resisting? Are they at least angry? Have they given up on reclaiming their freedom to travel?

Last night, at the urging of my daughter, who is reading lots of David Sedaris, my wife and I went to see his performance in Carmel. I had never read him but I had heard good things. We enjoyed it immensely. Interestingly, early in the evening, he talked about his experience with the TSA on his book tour. He told about going through the airport in Arcata and, even though he didn’t trigger the beeper, being pulled aside for a full-body patdown. Somewhat miffed, he said to the TSA guy, “OK, let’s get this over with.” The TSA guy replied in a threatening voice, “Calm down, sir.” Sedaris explained to the audience that he was calm but that he wasn’t happy. They expect you to be happy and inviting when they pat you down, he said. Later in the evening, he referred to the TSA people as “security goons.”

This morning I did a Google of David Sedaris and TSA and found this. It’s from about a year ago, just about the time the TSA was starting its fairly frequent intrusive patdowns. The host seemed to want to push him to minimize the issue based on Sedaris’s own experiences. Sedaris cooperated, pointing out that he hadn’t experienced much of what the media had been talking about. Still, even then, Sedaris, a keen observer of reality (he couldn’t make the good living he makes if he weren’t), pointed out that a woman in front of him in a TSA line who had accused the TSA guy of being bossy was apparently retaliated against by being put through the X-ray.

In a year’s time, there appears to have been a major shift in Sedaris’s attitude to the TSA.

Postscript: Check out this “toy” on Amazon.com and many of the customer comments that go with it. HT to Jeff Hummel.