patrick.net

It's morally wrong to pay to move ahead of others in line. It's morally wrong that we allow this at all.

Perhaps the Declaration of Independence should be rewritten:

"All men are created equal, except those who can pay for preferential treatment by the government. They are greater than the others."

I'm of another opinion, but not entirely.
I feel superior as a US citizen as I am native born, as were my parents and grandparents.
I also am among the 43% who pay income taxes.
I should qualify for global entry for free, and go ahead of those who weren't born in the USA, and the welfare queens and assorted losers.

@Patrick, there is no doubt that you are correct. Our government is increasingly in business for themselves. Some years ago, I dumped everyone of my friends and acquaintances who were attached to the government. Even those who worked for government contractors.

Shame and disassociation is all we have to fight with. Which I believe only encourages their petulance.

clambo says

I feel superior as a US citizen as I am native born, as were my parents and grandparents.

I'm native born, as were my parents, but only 3 out of 4 of my grandparents were born here (grandma from Poland).

So do I get 3/4 of the privileges?

clambo says

There is a way to go through the immigration line very quickly; but you have to pay for the privilege and have an interview.
It's called "global entry".
It's not too expensive, so you don't have to be so rich.
You can get it extended to your car and they call it "sentri" lane entering the USA from Mexico.
But either way it sucks that you have to pay for it.

Credit card. There are quite a few that pay for it with the annual fee for global entry and Sentri. I got an Amex card for global entry, TSA pre and lounges. Any airport outside of the US, but including US territories, I don't pay for food, booze or drinks. $99/yr. A few domestic airports have lounges, but usually you'll need an international ticket or first class ticket.

The big catch 22 is if you're a privacy person. You do have to get finger printed with either global entry or TSA pre. I've enjoyed probably 50 Medallia's in Puerto Rico in the last 3 years. At an airport restaurant that's probably $400 alone. Wife will eat the food at the lounge. We'll let the kids have a coke and sandwich. Throw in other destinations like Jamaica, Dominican, Mexico and $99/yr is a steal.

I know it pisses a few people off here. I'm not bragging. It's a don't hate the player hate the game situation. If you learn the game you can travel for next to nothing if you're smart. $25-30k worth of travel I've learned to get down to $5-8k in a year. We just did Dominican in January with the kids. Resort was points, flight was points beside international fees, so we paid $400 and literally skipped customs in the Dominican and had drinks in the lounge. I'm not joking that no one looked at our passports.

I get what Patrick is saying, but those people are not necessarily rich that get to cut the line. They're savvy in my opinion. You also give up some information in the process. It's a give and take.

Flying private those passengers generally are going out of FBO and not normal TSA hence why private aviation is popular if you have the $$. Flown a few times in private planes. Park the car at the FBO (free) and literally walk through a lobby and hop on a plane.

Want my private pilots license, but I think high BP will stop that on the medical. Not weight, but it's just fucking hereditary. I've got multiple people I could share a plane with as a partner, kind of like a time share for planes. Sucks. We'll see. Still a dream though.

This is a good idea.

There must be no special government services or lines for the wealthy or the politically connected.

If there were 2 identical flights...one you needed to get in the tsa line and the other didn't have that requirement, which one would you choose?

WookieMan says

We just did Dominican in January with the kids

I envy you...I haven't had my fill of being around poor dark skinned people..

komputodo says

If there were 2 identical flights...one you needed to get in the tsa line and the other didn't have that requirement, which one would you choose?

Obviously the no TSA line.

But what I'm objecting to is that some people pay the government for preferential service.

Should you be able to pay the police for better protection than your neighbor gets?

Patrick says

komputodo says

If there were 2 identical flights...one you needed to get in the tsa line and the other didn't have that requirement, which one would you choose?

Obviously the no TSA line.

Then allow it. Allow people to pick TSA or no TSA, that's the free market solution.

Are you at risk going through a non TSA line? Yeah, but considering how incompetent the TSA is, I doubt much more, but a madman would pick the non TSA flight as well.

Let the market decide, but our government never will. We're not in capitalism. This is not a free market economy.

Patrick says

But what I'm objecting to is that some people pay the government for preferential service.

Lobbying is about preferential service right? Governments always put their interest first and have always given preferential treatment to the haves, its a give and take, this is the reflected in laws too.

gabbar says

Patrick says

But what I'm objecting to is that some people pay the government for preferential service.

Lobbying is about preferential service right? Governments always put their interest first and have always given preferential treatment to the haves, its a give and take, this is the reflected in laws too.

Justice is supposed to be blind.

It just isn't.



Doesn't prevent EVERYBODY from lying about it. Every politician lies about it, every talking head on the propaganda box lies about it, everybody does. If justice was blind, Hunter Biden would be in jail 10 times over.

Patrick says

Obviously the no TSA line.

But what I'm objecting to is that some people pay the government for preferential service.

Should you be able to pay the police for better protection than your neighbor gets?

you say "obviously"..do you think that 90% of passengers would choose the no TSA line? And if so, who is it that they are supposedly protecting?
As far as paying police, hasn't the usa always operated this way? Rich neighborhoods get great service and the ghetto gets shit service.

komputodo says

you say "obviously"..do you think that 90% of passengers would choose the no TSA line? And if so, who is it that they are supposedly protecting?

Try it out. Allow airlines to forego TSA, certain flights to skip TSA. Bags can still be searched, but no more taking off shoes, going through a radiation machine. See what people actually prefer.

TSA isn't protecting anything, it's just another way to sell a bunch of crap that doesn't work. Michael Chertoff handled all the new equipment. Know who he is? It's just another grift.

I agree with Patrick; it's bullshit to be treated differently.

But, I found out you can download an app and basically skip the long line as if you had paid for Global Entry.

Download onto your phone: "Customs and Border Patrol" "Mobile Passport Control".

The icon for the app just shows MPC.

When I returned from Cabo to Dallas airport, I had this app and skipped ahead of about 400 people.

Funny thing, it was not working correctly, but an agent saw it and said "go ahead" .

When I reached a certain age is when I stopped wanting to wait in any line. To me, my money is less limited than my time now. I will be glad to pay something to keep me from suffering a delay of any kind.

What else is money for anyway? You can sometimes buy convenience with it.

komputodo says

As far as paying police, hasn't the usa always operated this way?

@komputodo You're right that bad neighborhoods get worse police service because they have lower tax bases in general.

But that's a different issue from individuals paying for special treatment by government workers.

gabbar says

Lobbying is about preferential service right? Governments always put their interest first and have always given preferential treatment to the haves, its a give and take, this is the reflected in laws too.

I'm saying that it's wrong in all cases for government to give preferential service to anyone.

Patrick says

I'm saying that it's wrong in all cases for government to give preferential service to anyone.

So it's wrong.

Nobody will do anything about it. So Hunter Biden is making bullshit art to openly sell the office of the presidency to assholes across the world. Our DOJ isn't going to do anything, and neither will you, or I. MOST "people" aren't even aware.

So our goal should be able to make most people aware.

Vox populi, vox dei.

The internet has given us this great opportunity to bypass the corporate media.

And the PTB are obviously afraid, or they would not be organizing mass censorship:

https://patrick.net/post/1381338/2024-05-09-brilliant-expos-of-government-s

Patrick says

So our goal should be able to make most people aware.

No insult intended here, but you can't. They cannot be made aware. You may as well try to teach a dog algebra. I'm 15 years ahead of you in this pointless endeavor.

Patrick says

The internet has given us this great opportunity to bypass the corporate media.

Yes it did. We're both in the silly con valley, how many people made use of our creation to realize there really was no pandemic? All the information was there. I could point to CDC stats, I used Onvacation's charts, I sourced them, sent them out, do you think that mattered? To 1 out of 10 it did. The propaganda box didn't report it, so I was wrong. Simple as that "if it were true somebody would tell me" - I'M TELLING YOU. But I'm not on the propaganda box and if the propaganda box doesn't state it, it's wrong.

Patrick says

And the PTB are obviously afraid, or they would not be organizing mass censorship:

They might be. I hope so. This is a 30 year effort for me, seriously it is. Convincing people to look at actual data, and sources, it seems hopeless. I post links to statistical data, and in response I get some fucking propagandist they KNOW LIES, as a "source".

I have a friend, I fear I'm poisoning him, but I really honestly am starting to think of many people as inhuman. I was a vegetarian for 25 years of my life, still mostly am, I don't eat meat except rarely now, and I certainly can't kill or butcher, so don't worry about that - but these things aren't human - yet, I'm loathe to exploit them. I know they have a human body, but they can't think. They are completely controlled. Meat robots everywhere. The NPC meme is real.

How long did it take before everybody was panicked over COVID to then start screaming about "Slava Ukraini"? ONE WEEK. The Ukraine war is what killed covid, in literally a week.

I expect most people will see this post as deranged. Hopefully it is. I'd rather be insane than if most people have no goddamned no self direction, and they don't seem to have it.

I have not given up, and I won't.

I can feel the "vibe shift" and that's a good sign.

I don't know. What about toll lanes for another example? Yet, those funds are "supposed" to help improve transit for everyone. Does that make it different?

Payment for special access to any government service is wrong. Government should treat all citizens the same.

So toll lanes are also wrong. They create a two-tier society, where government favors the rich over the poor.

Patrick says

I have not given up, and I won't.

I can feel the "vibe shift" and that's a good sign.

I've not completely given up, but I've lost ground for certain.

I have an MIT graduate friend that he still can't (or says? he cannot) believe Ukraine was overthrown. I've shown him the evidence 4 times. He took the injections, his father is a semi-famous biologist. He's smart, and he can think, in very limited areas. His father took the injections too, a pHD biologist! Well, it doesn't matter much, he's in his 80's.

He kind of scares me, he would work cleaning toilets for $120 an hour, or designing things to murder people for the same price I think. He doesn't think about what he's doing, but he's very good at what he does and he always does his best job possible. A natural slave, a smart one.

I hope there is a change, I hope there is a shift, but I don't know. We seriously should have revolted 20 years ago. This government doesn't serve us, but who am I? I'm not one of these things around me. They aren't going to revolt.