“There are going to be snafus,”[Sgt. Richard] Aldridge said. “Understand what our long-range goals are, that this is to protect you.”
The Watauga County Courthouse has installed new security systems. I have long been of the impression that security meant safe in one’s person and property, but when it is pronounced secyoawrity, it means the opposite. Underlying the new secyoawrity measures at the courthouse is the assumption that it is best for the few in power to have all the implements. People are safest when only officers deputized by the state have weapons. Criminals are more intimidated when the state has surveillance cameras and panic buttons, than when individuals do not have cell phones.
Further illustrating the differentiation between security and secyoawrity, the courthouse is not equipped to evacuate ADA persons on the third floor in the event of a fire. Elevators are too small to fit stretchers.
“Those are things that we’re talking about that don’t have anything to do with security, but at the same time they have a lot to do with the potential saving of a life,” [Resident Superior Court Judge Phil] Ginn said.
On the subject of secyoawrity, there will be a lot of checkpoints this weekend. If you present your documents, do not act bewildered when the cop shines his flashlight in your eyes, and do not have any odors in your car, you may proceed about your business with only slight delays.
All in all, the total time wasted by society while the guilty-until are proven innocent, is probably great for the economy. (For example, somebody could have to go to the bathroom while awaiting his turn for a rubdown, and be too proud to duck into a store without patronizing it. The dollars spent on the chips and soda would then be used to buy more produce, and they would help the farmer, and he would buy a new hat, and the haberdasher would be able to patch his roof – the economic multipliers are endless!)
