In the familiar round of terror attempts, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab failed in his attempt to bomb a Detroit bound plane. His efforts were not foiled by the tens of billions of dollars the US Government spends on intelligence and homeland security, but by vigilant citizens who took just action when called upon. The travelling public joined an unwritten compact even before the Twin Towers finished burning and collapsed: nobody shall be permitted to hijack an airplane. Within a few minutes of the three planes’ successful attacks on 9/11, the fourth plane’s passengers realized their grim reality and took action against their attackers. From that minute on, the Government has failed to stop several airline attacks, but never the People.

Congressmen have rightly asked how the TSA failed to prevent the terrorist from boarding the plane with explosives strapped to his legs. The answer is that the TSA is the largest body of sloths and self-important buffoons ever created without the benefit of an election. As with every government body, the TSA seeks to prevent yesterday’s attacks while Al Qaeda cooks up new ones. While the TSA hassles grandmothers over illicit shoes and oversized shampoo bottles, the travelling public is no safer for it.

Without a doubt, the TSA is more focused on its discrimination policies than on focusing on the probable sources of trouble, but the trouble runs deeper. Like any government agency, the front line of the TSA simply follows orders. While the prospect of individual low level functionaries exercising their own discretion is itself troubling, terrorists know that the TSA’s procedures and their weaknesses are predictable. Even if the TSA were staffed with competent, honest people, they and the air marshals would never be able to stop all threats.

The one reliable safety resource of the past decade has been the travelling public, so why not leverage that advantage? Rather than disarm honest citizens at the advantage of terrorists, why not deputize a legion of frequent fliers? A rough outline:

• Offer US citizens who pass a background check a discount (10%?) on their plane tickets in exchange for providing security on their flights.
• These deputy marshals would check out firearms, Tasers, or other weapons at the departure gate, carry them onboard their flights, and return them at their arrival gates.
• Deputy marshals would have to pass periodic training and testing to prove that they are competent to carry and use weapons onboard a plane.

Of course this system flies in the face of the Government’s way of life. The idea of citizens doing the work of overpaid government goons is against everything Washington stands for, but it is consistent with a long tradition of US Citizens taking charge of their own security.

Shout Bits readers will rightly dismiss this proposal as impossible in this day and age, when even pilots are discouraged by the FAA to carry weapons. Still, the next time a TSA agent treats your parents like terrorists, ask yourself how much good the TSA is really doing. Ask if you wouldn’t rather trust in yourself for your flying safety.

This week, the EPA extended its reach into every aspect of every American’s life. Relying on shaky research and logic, the EPA declared CO2 and other gasses a public health hazard. Never mind that the plants, animals, and people the EPA seeks to protect have all lived through natural climate changes greater than any foretold by climate models. Even if global warming is real, the direst predictions are of economic disasters. Droughts, storms (or lack of storms), rising sea levels, are all things that ecosystems have dealt with for millions of years. While some scientists think global warming will cause human suffering, it is not expected to affect the health of the environment (not even polar bears).

Why, then, did the EPA decide to regulate everything everyone does every day? Because they can; while flippant, there is no better explanation. The EPA, along with a host of other agencies, is an expert agency that Congress gave a broad and permanent mandate. Better still, for the EPA, its status as an expert agency gives it the presumption of authority. In other words, citizens cannot simply prove the EPA is wrong based on the facts it used. Those who object to the EPA’s mandates must do more than prove the EPA is wrong, they must prove that it acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

Arbitrary and capricious are code words from a Supreme Court case that essentially gave expert agencies the right to be as wrong as they want, so long as they explain their reasoning for their wrongness and are not haphazard. Better still, for the EPA, on the rare occasion when its decisions are reversed, the EPA is given ample time to rewrite its rules to be less arbitrary and capricious, yet have the same practical effect. In short, the EPA, along with the FCC, OSHA, the NLRB, and many others can do whatever it likes so long as its actions have a tangential connection to its mandate. The real shadow government is the endless sea of regulators who answer to nobody as they grab more and more power.

Voters might rightly ask who gave these agencies such power. Who voted for the EPA’s rules? Where is my say? Who can control these people? All the rights of participation that would check abuses like the EPA’s regulation of carbon have been surrendered or muted by a willing Congress. Congress, especially Democrats, like to wash their hands of unpopular decisions by punting to a faceless bureaucracy. Democrats know that Washington bureaucrats are overwhelmingly leftists who can be trusted to advance a socialist agenda. In effect, by giving sweeping and open ended authority to the likes of the EPA, Democrats are advancing their agenda without paying much of a political price.

Consider carbon regulation. Democrats have failed to pass a cap and trade bill, despite a nearly insurmountable super majority. The EPA stepped in to do their dirty work, yet should a future Republican majority vote to strip the EPA of its powers, the Republicans will pay a political price for doing so. Not only does the EPA give Democrats political cover, it forces Republicans to expend limited political capital to fight a battle the Democrats should have been forced to fight themselves. Brilliant!

Every day, a million unelected do-gooders go to work and try to remake the US into a socialist nanny state. There are far too many new regulations each year to address them all. From how warm your house will be at night to the shape of the sidewalk down on the corner, unelected expert agencies are there to interfere.

There is an answer, though. Congress is not permitted to delegate its spending authority (the recent court ruling forcing Congress to fund ACORN notwithstanding), and must vote each year to enable every agency’s programs. Congress can simply defund rogue agencies like the EPA. Even a minority party can affect the EPA’s overall funding, and rest assured the EPA will get the message. So the next time a faceless regulator tries to ruin your life, ask your Congressman why he voted to increase that bureaucrat’s budget.