08 Aug Market madness – open the doors

Reflecting on the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market’s opening day (previous posts here and here), Contrarian reader Jeff Pinhey writes:

You are kidding me.  An American Homeland Security regulation, the one requiring a Port Security plan in all ports with ships leaving for a US port, causes that silliness?  Let me see, if I were a terrorist trying to sneak into Canada so I could board a ship bound for the states, and I could get as far as the waterfront in front of the market, I certainly could get as far as…  Herring Cove, Eastern Passage, whatever.  Heck from the Eastern Passage government wharf, I could catch a bus into Dartmouth, take the ferry over and walk down the TransCanada Trail to the Market, have some nice locally grown food, then go find my ship and try to make my terror.

There is zero effective risk of those doors being used for that purpose when so many other easier options to accomplish the highly unlikely event being deterred exist.

There really are too many people in government working too hard to come up with reasons why things cannot be done, instead of why, or how, they can be done.

I don’t know if this is true generally of government, but it is certainly true of government employees acting in the name of security. We are living through a period of crazy imbalance. By simply invoking security, no matter how inane or preposterous, low level bureaucrats can trump every other consideration, no matter who valid of socially useful. A steady drumbeat of fear mongering about the threat of terrorism enforces this dynamic. The assumption is that politicians can’t stand up to this, because they will be crucified for lessening our security. I think the public is fed up, and a politician who gave voice to obvious simple truths about security excesses would gain support, not lose it.

The Farmer’s Market in Sydney was forced to leave that city’s waterfront pavilion over looney enforcement of goofy Homeland Security regulations. How long will we give free reign to small men with high F-scales?

A leadership role for Premier Dexter, perhaps?