‘Arlington Rap’ guy Remy Munasifi has teamed up with the libertarians at Reason Magazine to produce a new parody video about the much-maligned Transportation Security Administration.
The video, “Do the TSA Pokey Pokey,” makes fun of the TSA’s intrusive airport body scans and pat-downs. It also satirizes recent controversies involving pat-downs of young children.
“We touch you kid like that / We grope your kid like this / We touch them up and down because they might be terrorists,” Remy sings, dressed as a mustachioed TSA agent. “We do the pokey pokey because we somehow are allowed, that’s what it’s all about.”
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I think I feel a hit here. Hey, stand still.
Ok that was funny.
Remy looked super creepy with the pedostache in that video.
He does, yea. I didn’t think it was that funny until he smelled his finger.
He’s lost it. That wasn’t remotely as funny as past videos.
Remy’s made plenty of songs for his employers, which is fine – just don’t know why that warrants posting here.
I agree….the shark has been jumped.
++
This does not rank among his finer works.
And what is it with parents who force the TSA to do pat downs on their kids by refusing to let their kids go through the regular screening systems? I can’t believe that these parents would put their own self-interest (of trying to show that TSA is evil) ahead of their children’s interests. It isn’t just a coincidence that the parents just happen to have a camera rolling when their kid is getting patted down.
While you might be correct in some cases, I think many parents are doing this in the interest of their children. Protecting their child’s right to privacy doesn’t seem to me to be solely self-interested. And just in case I won’t already get enough flak from this post, let me throw in a Reagan quote for good measure:
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
How one “protects” their child’s privacy by forcing them to be patted down by a stranger rather than simply having them walk through a screening system is beyond me.
Radiation levels are suspect.
You get more radiation by talking on your iphone or walking by a telephone pole.
Not that the radiation levels have anything whatsoever to do with the privacy issue anyway…
Do you have any actual data comparing the radiation levels of a telephone pole or iphone versus an airport scanning device? Personally I don’t think it is unreasonable to avoid unnecessary radiation exposure for young children. I suspect that if people were better educated about the sources of radiation that they would want to consider ways to minimize it other than just avoiding airport scanners.
Just to show you how ridiculous the safety claims are….
1. Eating a banana exposes you to twice as much radiation as the backscatter x-ray machine (the other device used, the millimeter wavelength imager, does not expose you to ionizing radiation).
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/02/Screen-shot-2011-02-28-at-4.04.43-PM.png
2. The airplane that you pass through the scanner to fly on exposes you to as much radiation in every two minutes of flight as does the backscatter scanner.
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/02/Screen-shot-2011-02-28-at-4.04.43-PM.png
“The radiation levels are well below the threshold that could be considered a risk to an individual’s health, said Dr. James Thrall of the American College of Radiology and chief of radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.”
If the concern is really safety, then parents shouldn’t let their kids fly on airplanes because of the in-flight radiation exposure. And they shouldn’t let them eat bananas for that matter.
Great, now I’m scared of bananas.
Sorry, but second link should be this…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/06/us-security-airlines-scanners-idUSTRE60553920100106
* One year of naturally occurring background radiation: 300 millirem
* Annual recommended limit to the public of radiation from man-made sources: 100 millirem
* Chest X-ray: 10 millirem
* Flight from New York to Los Angeles: 4 millirem
* One day of natural background: approximately 1 millirem
* Drinking three glasses of water a day for a year: 0.045 millirem
* One backscatter X-ray screening: approximately 0.005 millirem
Source: Radiation dose comparisons from the Health Physics Society (http://hps.org/documents/WholeBodyScanners.pdf) and other safety experts (http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-204_162-10005685-3.html).
How one calls an electronic image of your naked body (although, of course it’s not as clear as some other images) a “screening system” is beyond me. I agree though– they’re both pretty invasive… One just is manned by an anonymous TSA agent (many of whom do not live up to the standards I’d require to be viewing pictures of people’s bodies), while the other one happens in front of a parent’s watchful eye. I wouldn’t want my 12 year old girl walking through one of those machines, I’d prefer her to be screened by a woman with me present in a private room. Personal preference, I guess, but I think it’s a bit narrow minded to bash all the parents who prefer the latter as self-interested.
So then the people who choose to be patted down (remember, it is a choice) shouldn’t complain about being touched if that is what they chose.
Jury’s still out on how safe (or not) those machines really are. Maybe parents are protecting their children’s health.
The jury is not “still out.” The machines have been independently, scientifically tested.
There is a small minority of people who continue to spread misinformation about them to support their broader view that the TSA is evil (and that the government’s “agenda” is to invade our lives rather than just to try to make flying safer). Whether these folks will be honest with themselves and admit this is another matter.
Everyone knows you just need some tinfoil on your head and you’re fine.
Unless it’s just a big microwave–everyone knows you can’t put metal in a microwave.
Someone needs to say it: Remy is a hypocrite. How can an professional anti-government hack working for libertarian political causes choose to live in a activist government jurisdiction like Arlington. He moved here from Fairfax to benefit from the planning, the government-funded amenities, but chooses to trash to government at every opportunity.
Bizarrely, Arlington is full of anti-government libertarian groups that choose to base themselves here because of the government-financed amenities, the good public transportation, but they see no irony saying it’s all wrong and no one else should enjoy such benefits.
There’s the Koch Foundation in Court House, the “Leadership Institute” in Clarendon training future anti-government fighters. Most ironic, in Virginia Square, is the tax-payer funded anti-government Mercatus Institute of GMU. By choosing to locate in Arlington while opposing public transit and smart growth I consider all these organizations hypocritical. Remy, go home.
People locate to Arlington because of the proximity to DC, not because of Arlington’s “activist” government or governmental amenities.
This post has been edited.
Actually, I moved here because it’s close to DC (and Metro, etc). but stayed because of its “activist” amenities.
Hack? Go Home? You seem angry. Maybe you should take advantage of some non-profit counseling services?
We all know, after all, that libertarians aren’t interested in promoting public policies that we see as sensible advances in individual liberty. They just want to DESTROY THE GOVERNMENT!
If that is how you view people with world views different from your own, more power to you. I would just think it’s a bitch being angry all the time. Also, you realize that it makes you just as bad as the Rush Limbaugh listeners you hate so much.
When I think about it, your logic should make you want to move to Maryland. There are considerably more pro-government folks for you there. Just a suggestion though.
There’s many different versions of libertarian. Your version is the most extreme, more like anarchist. Most aren’t this extreme.
I think you may not understand what “libertarian” means.
Ha, I couldn’t agree more.
I’d argue that most libertarians don’t understand what libertarian means.
These are not anti-government organizations, these are organizations that have a different role of the FEDERAL government than you seem to have. Most libertarians have no problem with a LOCAL government providing the services that the local population is in favor of as long as it has minimal effect on the individuals rights. It is not hypocritical to enjoy these benefits while working to shift the Federal Government into a less intrusive entity.
I strongly disagree with your version of libertarian. Most libertarians want minimal government, period. Some conservatives think state government should prevail over federal, but in general “libertarian” has nothing to do with a federal vs. state role. Libertarians don’t want state troopers groping your genitals any more than federal ones.
[...] Arl Now [...]
I am amused by how out-of-date and misinformed many commenters are about libertarianism. Libertarians are hostile to public spending at all levels of government — not just the federal level.
The Cato Institute, considered one of the leading voices for libertarianism, publishes scathing attacks on public transit, claiming that private car transit is cheaper and therefore better, and that public transit is simply a waste of tax money. Libertarians have in recent years even begun to attack the very concept of public eduction, which as always been run locally, by pushing for tax credits that can be spent at private schools. Again, the common them is that government is controlling, liberty-denying and incompetent. To say that it is simply “too big” at the federal level is missing their agenda entirely.
I challenge others to cite contemporary examples of libertarians who promote spending on public transit or public education. Good luck!
I’m certainly not in favor of Remy’s libertarian politics, but I thought the video was hilarious and posted it on my Facebook page. I’m hopeful that eventually the enthusiasm for libertarianism will subside in this country when people start finding out what it REALLY means to be so hostile to government. Everybody’s against the gubmint intruding on their personal lives until they need government services or government funded infrastructure.