Patti Davis, special commentator to Newsweek magazine, has a darkly humorous rant available on MSNBC today about the TSA’s latest invention to combat terrorists in airports: “Behavior Detection Officers.” These specially-trained security guards’ sole duty will be to scrutinize the facial expressions of airport patrons, looking for tiny outward signs that passengers may be attempting to deceive them. Expressions of “fear” or “disgust,” for example, are cited as highly suspicious in nature.

As Ms. Davis snarks, “Let’s see, fear and disgust in an airport? I’m frightened and disgusted weeks before I have to show up at an airport.” She’s got that one right. In fact, I dare say that I’d rather take my chances with being blown up than succumb to the dystopian, hyper-Orwellian future that the American government apparently sees for us. The mere prospect of making a living in the United States is going completely to hell in a handbasket, and in case you all may have forgotten, that was ultimately what the terrorists sought.

When Apple and I embark on our road trip to Michigan this October, it will be with great excitement and a sense of adventure — two things that seem to have altogether disembarked, no pun intended, from the typical American’s travels. Although traveling by car is statistically more dangerous than by plane, I don’t need statistics to tell me how much less of a pain in the ass it’s going to be. And that’s without even touching on how much fun it will be to have my own car in which to tool around my hometown again.

If you protect a free man from harm by isolating him in a locked chamber, you have essentially secured him from outside forces, yes? But in the process, have you not robbed him of his freedom and, in turn, the very reason for which someone would wish to do him harm? Quite a paradox we have brewing here, isn’t it?