The terrorists have won. They wanted to disrupt our lives, and they’ve succeeded. They did so by helping creating an organization so mind-numbingly stupefying it’s brought the greatest nation on earth to its knees.

I refer, of course, to the TSA.

First we couldn’t take our fingernail clippers onto planes with us, in case we tried to clip the pilots’ nails. Then all of a sudden it was okay again.

Then some would-be terrorists in Britain heard, probably on a movie, that if you mix some chemicals together, you can create an explosive. They performed a trial run using inert liquid in false bottomed containers, just to make sure they could get away with smuggling them onto a plane, before actually checking to make sure it was actually possible to blow up anything that way. They were caught, and the TSA realized they suddenly had a way to make the lives of ordinary citizens much worse.

They discovered that, while they could no longer take away our fingernail clippers, they could do something even more stupefying. They could confiscate our toothpaste. And our shampoo. And our expensive moisturizers.

Then, instead of relenting like they did when it came to clipping the pilots’ toenails, they decided to do something even more maddening. We were allowed to take our toothpaste on board with us but only if it were in a tiny tube enclosed in a one-quart Ziploc bag.

They claim this is for our safety. Why does this insane rule make us safer? It’s classified information!

The truth is that making explosives from liquid is very, very complicated. And nearly impossible to do on a plane.

What’s worse is the TSA already knows this! This is from the TSA’s brand spankin’ new blog:

The preparation of these bombs is very much more complex than tossing together several bottles-worth of formula and lighting it up. In fact, in recent tests, a National Lab was asked to formulate a test mixture and it took several tries using the best equipment and best scientists for it to even ignite. That was with a bomb prepared in advance in a lab setting. A less skilled person attempting to put it together inside a secure area or a plane is not a good bet. You have to have significant uninterrupted time with space and other requirements that are not easily available in a secured area of an airport. It adds complexity to their preferred model and reduces our risk, having the expert make the bomb and give it to someone else to carry aboard. They are well aware of the Richard Reid factor where he could not even ignite a completed bomb. Simple is truly better for them. Also, bomb-makers are easier for us to identify than so-called clean ‘mules.’

So they know it’s insane but they make us jump through these hoops anyway. The “Shoe Bomber” couldn’t manage to ignite his sneakers, but by golly, we’ve all got to walk through the magnetometer barefoot. The best minds in the best laboratories have a hard time creating explosives from liquids, and yet we can’t take a half empty normal size tube of toothpaste on board? Berck solves that problem by taking six little tubes with him in his one-quart plastic bag.

The fact of the matter is that there will never be another September 11th, at least not when there’s at least one American on board. As soon as someone tries to hijack a plane, every single American on board will jump up and stomp a would-be hijacker to his death. Then they’ll return to their seats, fasten their safety belts, and enjoy the rest of their in-flight movie (provided they shelled out $5 for a pair of crappy headphones). It didn’t take long for us to learn. It only took about half an hour for the passengers on board United Airlines Flight 93 to figure it out and take matters into their own hands.

But instead we are cowed in fear, not that we’ll die in a flaming ball of fire, but that we’ll miss our flight because we forgot a plastic baggie.