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HELP YOU MAKE IT TO YOUR FLIGHT – Buck Howdy
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TSA Gangstas
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Dr Phil Airport Assault Video
http://www.pakistan….eq0Facr0%5D.cfm
The reason for the TSA terrorism is that they want to stop people from smuggling their assets out of the country. Has nothing to do with physical security, according to Dr. Phil
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TSA sees sanitary napkins
SOURCE: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/tsa-sees-sanitary-napkins-body-scans/
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SOURCE: http://www.drudgereport.com/flash9p.htm
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FLASHBACK: PENN JILLETTE CALLS COPS ON GROPING TSA AGENT
11/13/02
Last Thursday I was flying to LA on the Midnight flight. I went through security my usual sour stuff. I beeped, of course, and was shuttled to the “toss-em” line. A security guy came over. I assumed the position. I had a button up shirt on that was untucked. He reached around while he was behind me and grabbed around my front pocket. I guess he was going for my flashlight, but the area could have loosely been called “crotch.” I said, “You have to ask me before you touch me or it's assault.”
He said, “Once you cross that line, I can do whatever I want.”
I said that wasn't true. I say that I have the option of saying no and not flying. He said, “Are you going to let me search you, or do I just throw you out?”
I said, “Finish up, and then call the police please.”
When he was finished with my shoes, he said, “Okay, you can go.”
I said, “I'd like to see your supervisor and I'd like LVPD to come here as well. I was assaulted by you.”
He said, “You're free to go, there's no problem.”
I said, “I have a problem, please send someone over.”
They sent a guy over and I said that I'd like to register a complaint. I insisted on his name and badge number. I filled it out with my name. The supervisor, I think trying to intimidate me, asked for my license, and I gave it to him happily as he wrote down information. I kept saying, “Please get the police,” and they kept saying, “You're free to go, we don't need the police.” I insisted and they got a higher up, female, supervisor. I was polite, cold, and a little funny. “Anyone is welcome to grab my crotch, I don't require dinner and a movie, just ask me. Is that asking too much? You wanna grab my crotch, please ask. Does that seem like a crazy person to you?” I had about 4 of them standing around. Finally Metro PD shows up. It's really interesting. First of all, the cop is a BIG P&T fan and that ain't hurting. Second, I get the vibe that he is WAY sick of these federal leather-sniffers. He has that vibe that real cops have toward renta-cops. This is working WAY to my advantage, so I play it.
The supervisor says to the cop, 'He's free to go. We have no problem, you don't have to be here.” Which shows me that the Feds are afraid of local. This is really cool. She says, “We have no trouble and he doesn't want to miss his flight.”
I say, “I can take an early morning flight or a private jet. ” The cop says, “If I have a citizen who is saying he was assaulted, you can't just send me away.”
I tell the cop the story, in a very funny way. The cop, the voice of sanity says, “What's wrong with you people? You can't just grab a guy's crank without his permission.” I tell him that my genitals weren't grabbed and the cop says, “I don't care, you can't do that to people. That's assault and battery in my book.”
The supervisor says that they'll take care of the security guy. The cop says, “I'm not leaving until Penn tells me to. Now do you want to fill out all the paper work and show up in court, because I'll be right there beside you.”
The supervisor says it's an internal matter, and they'll take care of it. “If you want to pursue this, we're going to have to go through the electronic evidence.”
I say, “You mean videotape? Yeah, go get it.”
She says, “Well, it'll take a long time, and you don't want to miss your flight. We have no problem with you, you're free to go.”
The cop says, “Your guy grabbed his crank. That ain't right.”
So, I fill out all the paper work and insist on a number to call to register a complaint. She says that I filled out a complaint, and I say, “I want more, give me another number. ” She gives me a number that I find out later has been disconnected. I leave. I have a card with the name and number on it and the bad 800 number for the FAA.
My flight is way delayed, so I go to Burger King with Glenn – and all the feds are now off duty and at BK and sneering at us.
The next day the woman in charge of public relations calls me to “do anything to make my McCarran experience more enjoyable.” I was a little under the weather with allergies and busy, so I didn't call back until yesterday.
It took some phone tag, but I finally got the woman on the phone. I was very cool and sweet. I explained the problem. “Do you allow your crotch to be grabbed without being asked?” I didn't exaggerate, I said that there was nothing sexual, I wasn't hurt, and it wasn't my genitals. I just said it was wrong. She said “Well, your feedback is really important because most people are afraid of us.” She said, “I'd love to meet you so we could clear this up, and everyone wants to meet a celebrity.” She said she had watched the videotape and there was no sound, but she saw him reach around. She said she couldn't tell me what was being done to him but . . . and I stopped her and said, she shouldn't do anything wrong.
I said that I had talked to two lawyers and they said it was really a weird case because no one knows if he can be charged with assault and battery while working in that job. But I told her, that some of my lawyer friends really wanted to find out. She said, “Well, we're very new to this job . . .” and I said, “Yeah, so we need these test cases to find out where you stand.”
She said, “Well, you know a LOT about this.” I said, “Well, it's not really the right word, but freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more of it.”
She said, “Well, the airport is very important to all of our incomes and we don't want bad press. It'll hurt everyone, but you have to do what you think is right. But, if you give me your itinerary every time you fly, I'll be at the airport with you and we can make sure it's very pleasant for you.”
I have no idea what this means, does it mean that they have a special area where all the friskers are topless showgirls, “We have nothing to hide, do you?” I have no idea. She pushes me for the next time I'm flying. I tell her I'm flying to Chicago around 2 on Sunday, if she wants to get that security guy there to sneer at me. She says, she'll be there, and it'll be very easy for me. I have no idea what this means.
I tell her that I'm still thinking about pressing charges, and I don't just care about me, it's freedom in general. I say the only thing that was good about it, was that while they were dealing with me, maybe they weren't beating up people in wheelchairs. It was amazing. All she was trying to do was make me happy. She said she'd burned a CD ROM of my video and it was being sent all around and they were going to change their training. She said, “We're federal employees, we're working for you, you pay us and we want customer satisfaction. It doesn't matter what the law is, we have to make you very happy so your flying experience is a pleasurable one, and most people don't give us this kind of intelligent feedback.”
So, that was it. I'm flying on Sunday, I have no idea what will happen. How crazy is this? Do I really have some sort of mysterious VIP status to shut me up? Should I press charges? She said she was going to talk to the cop. I said he didn't see anything. She said, “Well, he may be able to see the forest for the trees, because he was right there.” I quoted his “crank” comment and she laughed and then knew that was a very bad sign. I said, “He'll tell you I was polite, cold, angry, and funny” – that's more than should be expected of me. I still don't know what I'm going to do, but my advice to everyone is complain all you can and call the cops. I think it might make a little difference. Maybe you can become a VIP too.
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TSA Backscatter Xray Safety
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From today: TSA now puts hands down your pants! NO kidding…
http://www.prisonpla…iers-pants.html
Dont' wear loose clothing….They even groped this guys testes….getting sick…
Leave it to a lesbian at DHS to make everyone in the department into sexual perverts like herself.
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TSA Now Putting Hands Down Fliers’ Pants
Big Sis turns up the heat: New super-enhanced pat-down more invasive
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The TSA’s invasive new screening measures include officers literally putting their hands down people’s pants if they are wearing baggy clothing in a shocking new elevation of groping procedures that have stoked a nationwide revolt against privacy-busting airport security measures
Forget John Tyner’s “don’t touch my junk” experience at the hands of TSA goons in San Diego recently, another victim of Big Sis was told by TSA officials that it was now policy to go even further when dealing with people wearing loose pants or shorts.
Going through airport security this past weekend, radio host Owen JJ Stone, known as “OhDoctah,” related how he was told that the rules had been changed and was offered a private screening. When he asked what the procedure entailed, the TSA agent responded, “I have to go in your waistband, I have to put my hand down your pants,” after which he did precisely that.
Stone chose to conduct the search in public in the fear that the TSA worker would be even more aggressive in a private room.
“If you’re wearing sweat pants or baggy clothing, I was wearing sweat pants they’re not baggy, they’re sweat pants,” said Stone, adding that the agent pulled out his waistband before patting his backside and his crotch.
Even the TSA agent who put his hands down the man’s pants was embarrassed at what he had been told to do by his superiors, apologizing profusely to the victim.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
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A 54-year-old Missouri City man experienced similar treatment when he was going through security at Fort Lauderdale Airport.
Thomas Mollman was subject to a groping by a TSA officer that was tantamount to sexual molestation.
“I was wearing shorts at the time – between the underwear, right on the skin, all the way around the back, all the way around my front, 360 degrees, touched inappropriately,” he said.
“This was an assault. This was no different than a sexual assault,” said KTRK Legal Analyst Joel Androphy.
The level of abuse appears to be getting worse on an almost daily basis. First TSA agents use the back of their hands, then they outright grope you with the front, and now they are being trained to put their hands down traveler’s pants. What’s next? Mandatory bodily probes?
Even as the resistance to airport oppression grows, Big Sis and the TSA are responding by making the pat down procedures more invasive. Napolitano has figuratively said to the American people ‘let them eat cake’ as she slaps them in the face.
Given the fact that the TSA’s own woeful background checks for their own employees allows rapists and pedophiles to get jobs as pat down agents, will you allow TSA workers to put their hands down the pants of your daughter or wife?
UPDATE: Owen JJ Stone appeared on The Alex Jones Show today to discuss the incident and how the TSA goon ‘touched his junk’ by specifically patting his backside and testicles while his hand was inside Stone’s pants – video of the interview coming soon.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.
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Wesley Snipes argues for new trial in Floridahttp://news.yahoo.co…nipes_tax_trial
OCALA, Fla. – Federal attorneys have asked a central Florida judge to revoke Wesley Snipes' bond if the actor is not granted a new trial for tax evasion.
Snipes did not attend the hearing Monday in a federal court in Ocala. His attorneys say he deserves a new trial because of jury bias in his 2008 conviction. They say two jurors are now accusing other jurors of deciding the case without hearing evidence. They also say prosecutors hid damaging information about a key witness.
Federal prosecutors on Monday said questioning those jurors about their deliberations would violate juror rules and intimidate future juries.
The star of the “Blade” trilogy faces a three-year prison sentence. Snipes has been free on bond while appealing.
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SOURCE: http://www.lewrockwe…h/north906.html
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Dr. Bernanke Gets a Phone Call
by Gary NorthRecently by Gary North: Klaatu Obama NiktoZhou Xiaochuan is the Governor of the People's Bank of China. Imagine that the following phone call were to take place.
Zhou: Hello. Dr. Bernanke?
Bernanke: Yes.
Zhou: I wanted to let you know about the decision that our board has taken, after consulting with the Premier and the Politburo's Standing Committee. We hope you are sitting down.
Bernanke: I get it. A little Oriental humor.
Zhou: You could say that.
Bernanke: What can I do for you?
Zhou: You can abandon your plan to purchase $600 billion of Treasury bonds.
Bernanke: The Federal Open Market Committee voted ten to 1 for this policy. I cannot change it now.
Zhou: We think it is an unwise policy. It will lower the value of the dollar. Americans will then buy fewer goods from China.
Bernanke: That is not how we see it. We think the policy is required to put Americans back to work. They will buy more goods from China and everywhere else when they are once again working.
Zhou: You will increase the supply of dollars, which will lower the dollar's price internationally. Imported goods will cost Americans more. An increased supply of dollars will mean a lower price for dollars. It's supply and demand.
Bernanke: That is the old economics. That is the logic of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman and those kooks from Vienna. We are committed to the new economics.
Zhou: Who teaches it? Where?
Bernanke: I taught it for years at Princeton.
Zhou: Where Paul Krugman also teaches?
Bernanke: Yes.
Zhou: We see it differently here. We prefer the older economics.
Bernanke: Adam Smith's economics?
Zhou: No, even older.
Bernanke: Mercantilism?
Zhou: That is what you call it. We call it the export-driven Asian miracle.
Bernanke: But mercantilist governments wanted to hoard gold. Your nation does not hoard gold. Your bank holds U.S. Treasury debt.
Zhou: That is the purpose of my call.
Bernanke: Gold?
Zhou: No. U.S. Treasury debt.
Bernanke: What about it?
Zhou: There is too much of it.
Bernanke: You sound like Ron Paul.
Zhou: Ah, yes. Congressman Paul. I understand that he is likely to be the next chairman of the Monetary Policy Subcommittee. You and he should have some interesting discussions.
Bernanke: I prefer to talk about Treasury debt.
Zhou: We have determined that an increase of $600 billion in your purchases of Treasury debt will lower the rate of interest on the debt.
Bernanke: That is our thought, too.
Zhou: We hold almost $1 trillion in Treasury debt.
Bernanke: You ought to buy more.
Zhou: We will be losing money on our holdings if rates fall.
Bernanke: You ought to buy more.
Zhou: The value of the dollar will fall. That will lower the value of our holdings.
Bernanke: Nevertheless, you ought to buy more.
Zhou: We have decided to own less.
Bernanke: How much less?
Zhou: $600 billion less.
Bernanke:
Zhou: Dr. Bernanke?
Bernanke:
Zhou: Are you still there?
Bernanke: I am still here.
Zhou: We have decided that every time the Federal Reserve purchases its monthly total of $75 billion, we will sell $75 billion.
Bernanke: Are you serious?
Zhou: You sound like Nancy Pelosi.
Bernanke: But that would raise interest rates on Treasury debt.
Zhou: That is our conclusion, too. But remember: we own lots of Treasury debt. We could use a better rate of return.
Bernanke: But higher rates might cause a recession in the United States.
Zhou: That is our conclusion, too.
Bernanke: But that will mean fewer imports from China.
Zhou: We think it will mean more bankrupt manufacturing facilities in the United States. Then Americans will come back to our manufacturers.
Bernanke: But this could cause unemployment in China if you are wrong.
Zhou: We are willing to risk that.
Bernanke: That is a big risk on your part.
Zhou: No bigger than the risk on your part by inflating the monetary base by 30%. That could raise prices in the United States.
Bernanke: We don't think so.
Zhou: Why not?
Bernanke: Because our bankers are so frightened of recession in 2011 that they are not lending. They just turn the money over to the FED.
Zhou: Then you do not expect inflation?
Bernanke: Only a little. Maybe 2% to 3%.
Zhou: You sound like Milton Friedman.
Bernanke: Around here, we say, “Better 2% inflation than 9.6% unemployment.”
Zhou: We think it is better for us not to hold onto Treasury debt that cannot be paid off.
Bernanke. Don't worry. We owe it to ourselves.
Zhou: On the contrary, you owe it to us.
Bernanke: It's only a figure of speech.
Zhou: We can figure. We are going to be left holding the bag, as you say. All we have is a pile of IOUs.
Bernanke: They're as good as gold.
Zhou: Since they pay zero interest, we think gold is better.
Bernanke: It's only a figure of speech.
Zhou: We can figure. Gold is over $1,350 an ounce. The dollar has been falling. We think the older mercantilism was right. We want to own more gold.
Bernanke: You can't eat gold!
Zhou: We can't eat T-bonds, either.
Bernanke: But if you sell dollars, their price will fall.
Zhou: Why?
Bernanke: It's supply and demand.
Zhou: Gotcha!
Bernanke: You speak English very well.
Zhou: You see, I was educated in your country at UCRA.
Bernanke: Really?
Zhou: Not really. But I love those old Richard Loo World War II movies. He made a great Japanese officer.
Bernanke: But if you sell Treasury debt, that could start a fire sale. Central banks all over the world might start selling T-bonds.
Zhou: That is a possibility.
Bernanke: But that would make your holdings worth even less.
Zhou: That is true. So, if Japan starts selling, we will dump all of our holdings in one shot. We might as well get out before the rush.
Bernanke: But that could crash the dollar!
Zhou: That is a possibility.
Bernanke: You're bluffing!
Zhou: That is a possibility.
Bernanke: But this is not the way that central banks operate.
Zhou: How do they operate?
Bernanke: They inflate.
Zhou: Always?
Bernanke: Of course always. That is the only policy tool we have.
Zhou: You could deflate.
Bernanke: Are you serious?
Zhou: You really have Nancy Pelosi down pat.
Bernanke: There is no way we can deflate.
Zhou: What about your exit strategy? That is deflation.
Bernanke: In theory, yes. But we don't intend to execute it.
Zhou: That is not what you told Congress. You told Congress you have an exit strategy. Several, in fact.
Bernanke: We do have them. We just don't intend to implement them.
Zhou: Do you think you can fool Congress?
Bernanke: Are you serious? Congress doesn't know horse apples from apple butter.
Zhou: You mistake Barney Frank for Ron Paul. You will now have to deal with Ron Paul.
Bernanke:
Zhou: Hello.
Bernanke:
Zhou: Are you still there?
Bernanke: Yes, I'm still here.
Zhou: We are not asking you to deflate. We are asking you not to inflate.
Bernanke: But we must inflate.
Zhou: Why?
Bernanke: Because we have 9.6% unemployment.
Zhou: What has that got to do with your decision to inflate?
Bernanke: We must lower interest rates.
Zhou: For Treasury bonds.
Bernanke: Yes.
Zhou: What does that have to do with unemployment?
Bernanke: When mid-term rates are lower, businesses will start new projects and hire people.
Zhou: Mid-maturity T-bond interest rates are the lowest ever since what you call the Great Depression and what we call the old normal.
Bernanke: You can never have low enough T-bond rates.
Zhou: But, as Treasury bond investors, we don't like low rates. We like high rates. We hold lots of T-bonds. If we get very low rates, we might as well own gold.
Bernanke: But you will like all that increased demand for made-in-China goods when all those unemployed Americans go back to work.
Zhou: But rates are lower than they have been in 80 years. You still have 9.6% unemployment.
Bernanke: But if the 10-year T-bond rate goes from 2.6% to 1%, American businessmen will hire millions of workers.
Zhou: Do you have evidence for this in one of those dozen Federal Reserve bank monthly bulletins? Or maybe in the Federal Reserve Bulletin?
Bernanke: Not really. But it's the thought that counts.
Zhou: I don't think we are getting anywhere. So, just to remind you. We will sell enough Treasury debt each month to match any net increase in the amount you buy.
Bernanke: Dollar for dollar?
Zhou: Dollar for dollar. But, I'll tell you what. Buy them from us, and we'll give you a discount for volume purchases.
Bernanke: You guys never miss a trick, do you?
Zhou: We're really not inscrutable. We just offer discounts for volume purchases.
Bernanke: I will discuss this with the FOMC.
Zhou: Do that. Shalom!Bernanke: That's my middle name.
Zhou: You Americans have a saying for everything.
Bernanke: No. I mean it. That really is my middle name.
Zhou: If you start buying Treasury debt, you'll have an honorary middle name over here.
Bernanke: What's that?
Zhou: Paper Tiger.
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Great course. Thank you.
I would also add that the goal of public education is to breed better CHEATERS and LIARS, and when these cheaters graduate, they seem to gravitate towards the profession of government. See:
http://www.psycholog…ground-cheaters
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Cheating in Science, Part II: School is a Breeding Ground for Cheaters
By Peter GrayCreated Oct 30 2010 – 7:13am
In my last post I described some instances of cheating in science; summarized some data about the percentage of scientists who, on anonymous questionnaires, admit to cheating; and ended with the question, “Why do scientists cheat?” Cheating–by publishing fraudulent data–completely destroys the purpose of science, which is to discover truths; so why do they do it? In answer to that question, I suggested, “Many so-called scientists are not, in their heads, really scientists. Instead they are still students, going through one hoop after another to reach the next level. To them, cheating in science is like cheating in school; and who doesn't do that?” Here I will elaborate on that suggestion.
The Structure of Compulsory Schooling Promotes Cheating
Our system of compulsory (forced) schooling is almost perfectly designed to promote cheating. That is even truer today than in times past. Students are required to spend way more time than they wish doing work that they did not choose, that bores them, that seems purposeless to them. They are constantly told about the value of high grades. Grades are used as essentially the sole motivator. Everything is done for grades. Advancement through the system, and eventual freedom from it, depends upon grades.
Students become convinced that high grades and advancement to the next level are the be-all and end-all of their school work. By the time they are 11 or 12 years old, most are realistically cynical about the idea that school is fundamentally a place for learning. They realize that much of what they are required to do is senseless and that they will forget most of what they are tested on shortly after the test. They see little direct connection–because there usually is none–between their school assignments and the real world in which they live. They learn that their own questions and interests don't count. What counts are their abilities to provide the “correct” answers to questions that they did not ask and that do not interest them. And “correct” means the answers that the teachers or the test-producers are looking for, not answers that the students really understand to be correct.
A high-school student whom I was once trying to help with math homework summed it up nicely to me. After a few minutes of pretending politely to listen to my explanation of why a certain way of solving certain equations worked and another did not, she exclaimed: “I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I don't need or want to know why the method works! All I need to know is how to follow the steps that the teacher wants and get the answers that she wants.” This was an A student.
Students recognize that it would be impossible to delve deeply into their school subjects, even if they wanted to. Time does not permit it. They must follow the schedule set by the school curriculum. Moreover, many of them have become convinced that they must also engage in a certain number of formal extracurricular activities, to prove that they are the “well rounded” individuals that top colleges are seeking. Anyone who really allowed himself or herself to pursue a love of one subject would fail all the others. To succeed, students must acquire just the limited information and shallow understanding that is needed to perform well on the tests; anything beyond that is wasted time. All of the top students learn that lesson.
In many cases the rules about what is and isn't cheating in school are arbitrary and have nothing to do with learning. If you create a summary sheet of the terms and facts relevant to a test and then consult that sheet while taking the test, you have cheated. However, if you create such a sheet and commit it to a form of short-term memory that lasts just long enough for the test and then vanishes, you have not cheated. If you create a term paper by copying out large chunks of other people's writing and pasting them together, that is cheating; but if you do essentially the same thing and then paraphrase sufficiently rather than use the copied paragraphs exactly, that is not cheating.
Students understand that the rules distinguishing cheating from not cheating in school are like the rules of a game. But in this case it's a game that they did not choose to play. They are forced to go to school, forced to do the assignments, forced to take the tests. They have little or no say in what they study, how they are tested, or the rules concerning what is or isn't cheating. Under these conditions, it's hard to respect the rules.
Teachers often say that if you cheat in school you are only cheating yourself, because you are shortcutting your own education. But that argument holds water only if what you would have learned by not cheating outweighs the value of whatever you did with the time you saved by cheating. If, by cheating in Subject X you gain more time to really learn Subject Y–which you care about, and which may or may not be a school subject–then have you really shortcut your education by cheating?
In my experience talking with students, the argument against cheating that makes most sense to them is the argument that by cheating they are hurting students who didn't cheat (but they correctly add that this argument applies primarily in those rare cases where the teacher grades on a curve). They see the “system” as an enemy and hold few qualms about cheating to beat it, but they generally don't see other students as enemies, and so they feel bad if they think their cheating hurts other students.
In fact, one of the biggest reasons why cheaters are sometimes caught is that they share their cheating with other students, and somewhere in the sharing the word leaks out to school officials. For example, a student who steals a copy of an upcoming test shares the copy with everyone in the class, and then someone tells the teacher. The problems that arise from the “students versus the system” attitude that schools promote are serious and endless. The honest student, who reports the cheating, becomes a ratfink.
In other respects, cheating to get high grades seems to many students to be a win-win-win situation. They want to get high grades, their parents want them to get high grades, and their teachers want them to get high grades. Teachers generally don't look hard to see cheating and often ignore it when they do see it, because the higher grades–especially on standardized tests–make them (the teachers) look good too. And many parents, far from deploring their children's cheating, are ready to go to court to fight any school officials who dare make an accusation of cheating.
Cheating is Rampant in Schools, Especially Among the “Best” Students
Not surprisingly, surveys show that cheating is very common in schools. In fact, if “normal” means what most people do, then school cheating is normal. On anonymous questionnaires, as many as 98% of students admit to some form of cheating and roughly 70% percent admit to repeated acts of the most blatant forms of cheating, such as copying whole tests from other students or plagiarizing whole papers. When asked in such surveys why cheating occurs, many students give the kinds of answers that I just discussed in the paragraphs above. When asked whether they consider cheating in school to be a serious moral offense, many if not most say no. The rates of cheating and reasons given for it are pretty consistent at all levels of formal education, at least from middle school on through college.[1}
The surveys also reveal an overall increase in amount of cheating in recent years and a shift in who does most of it. In times past, the most frequent cheaters were the “poor students,” who cheated out of desperation just to pass. Today, however, the highest incidences of cheating are among the “best students,” the ones destined for the top colleges and graduate schools (see Pytel, in Note 1). As one high-school graduate put it in a call-in to an NPR program on school cheating, “I was in honors classes in high school because I wanted to get into the best schools, and all of us in those classes cheated; we needed the grades to get into the best schools.” (See Education-Portal, in Note 1.)
Apparently the “best” students today are driven as much by their own sense of desperation as poor students were in the past. They feel that they must get top grades and get into the top schools or else they will let everyone down who is important to them, including their parents and themselves. Not getting into the top schools is, to them, out and out failure. These are kids who are smart and hardworking, who would do well even without cheating, but who cheat to get the extra edge they feel they need to be seen as truly the best. They are like Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens taking steroids.
And, then, some of those top students choose science as a career.
The Continuity Between Cheating in School and Cheating in Science
Let's take the example of Bob, who decides at some point in college to go on to become a scientist. He makes this decision not because he really loves science or has some burning questions that he wants to answer through scientific methods. His own sense of curiosity was drilled out of him long ago. Rather, he decides to become a scientist because (a) he has always done well in science classes (only partly by cheating), (:cool: others have encouraged him to become a scientist, and (c) he sees that scientists have relatively high status and he would like that. In his gut, he doesn't really quite even know what it means to be a scientist, but he thinks it would be a good career.
So, Bob applies to and gets accepted into a graduate program in science leading to a Ph.D. Now, as a graduate student, he is in some sense “doing” science, as he carries out the research he must do for his doctoral dissertation. But is it “real” science, or is he still a student going through hoops? He finds that as he works on his research project–a project that was designed more by his advisor than by himself–he is not getting quite the results that his advisor expected. The advisor seems disappointed and is lavishing much more attention and praise on another Ph.D. candidate who is getting strong, positive, publishable results.
Bob gets worried about his future. He's working hard and, through no fault of his own, it's not paying off. So, the old habit of cheating returns. By manipulating just a few numbers, in some of his data sets, he turns statistically insignificant results into significant ones–results that lead to a much-praised dissertation and to a number of publications in prestigious scientific journals.
Bob has many ways to rationalize this cheating to himself. His advisor assigned him to a bum project; the laboratory conditions were not adequate for getting the expected results; the numbers he changed came from observations that may have been flukes; and he had to do this because otherwise his whole career was in jeopardy. The problem is that now his cheating has serious consequences. Bob may see himself as just doing what he had to do to go through another hoop, but others see his work as a serious scientific contribution. Every act of cheating in science pokes a hole in the scientific enterprise. Science absolutely depends upon honesty. Bob cheats because (a) he feels pressure to cheat, (:cool: he feels he's still really a student and not yet a scientist, and (c) he has a long history of cheating as a student and rationalizing that cheating.
And where does this end for Bob? At what point will he be done with hoops and become a “real scientist,” motivated solely by the search for truth? When Bob becomes a post-doctoral fellow working in someone else's lab, he is still in some ways a student, still needing to prove himself so he can get a real job. Then, when he becomes an assistant professor in a university science department, there are still hoops to go through. He must publish research articles in respected journals in order to get tenure. It's “up or out” after seven years as assistant professor, and now Bob has a young family to support and “out” is not, in his mind, an option. The pressure to cheat may now be even stronger than before. And suppose he does get tenure. By this time the habit of cheating has become rather fixed. It has worked all along. Moreover, by now he has his own graduate students, and to support them he must get grants. Also by now he has a high reputation, which he enjoys in spite of his uneasy knowledge that it is not entirely deserved. To keep getting grants, to keep supporting his students, and to keep up that high reputation, he must continue getting strong, publishable, positive results. The hoops never end.
One of the tragedies of our system of schooling is that it deflects students from discovering what they truly love and find worth doing for its own sake. Instead, it teaches them that life is a series of hoops that one must get through, by one means or another, and that success lies in others' judgments rather than in real, self-satisfying accomplishments. Fortunately, most people manage to get off of that track, or largely off of it, once they leave school and begin to enjoy more freedom of choice. But some never get off of it; they are perpetually like students, constantly striving to impress others in ways that lead them through one hoop after another. Some of those become cheaters in science–or in business, or law, or politics, or ….
Notes
1. Summaries of surveys on school cheating and students' reasons for cheating can be found at the following: (a) Joan Oleck, “Most High-School Students Admit to Cheating.” School Library Journal (03/10/2008); (:cool: Barbara Pytel “Cheating on the Rise“; (c) Education-Portal.com, “75 to 98 Percent of College Students Have Cheated“; and (d) Regan McMahon, “Everybody Does It: Academic Cheating is at an All-Time High,” San Francisco Chronicle (09/09/2007).
Source URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/49841Links:
[2] http://www.suite101.com/content/cheating-is-on-the-rise-a31238
[3] http://education-portal.com/articles/75_to_98_Percent_of_College_Students_Have_Cheated.html
[4] http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/teaser/2010/10/220px-cheating.jpg
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Fabulous!
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Neo,
Thanks for sharing that.
Skankbeat is definitely lost. He overlooked that:
1. The title of the section is “national AND citizen”.
2. The “United States” used establishes the NATIONALITY but not whether the the party is a statutory “citizen”.
3. You can’t be a statutory citizen under federal law without a domicile on federal territory.
4. The definition of “State” in 8 USC 1101(a)(36).
5. The definition of “continental United States”.
6. The definition of “United States” provided is the geographic sense, and that there are OTHER senses in which the word is used, such as the GOVERNMENT sense.
7. The geographic sense is NOT expressly invoked in 8 USC 1401 so by default, the GOVERNMENT sense is presumed.
8. There are TWO components to being a statutory citizen under federal law: domicile AND nationality.
Very presumptuous thinking, indeed. That kind of laziness may eventually land him in jail, if he isn’t careful. The Student may one day find himself in the circumstances of the teacher. Like father, like son. And “father”, in this case, is Pete Hendrickson, who apparently begat spiritual children who are just as presumptuous as he himself was.
Any of our readers who would like to avoid the serious mistakes that Skankbeat made in his post are encouraged to read:
Why You are a “national”, “state national”, and Constitutional but not Statutory Citizen
http://famguardian.org/Publications/WhyANational/WhyANational.pdf
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Prollins,
We are well aware of that fact. It is also discussed at lenth in:
1. Requirement For Consent, Form #05.003, Section 12
DIRECT LINK: http://sedm.org/Form…Law/Consent.pdf
FORMS PAGE: http://sedm.org/Forms/FormIndex.htm
2. Reasonable Belief About Income Tax Liability, Form #05.007, Section 10
DIRECT LINK: http://sedm.org/Form…nableBelief.pdf
FORMS PAGE: http://sedm.org/Forms/FormIndex.htm