It Would Be Wonderful if TSA Critics Had Proposals for Preventing Terrorism in the Skies

In my former life as a young lawyer, I used to hear the advice of experienced litigators as to what you should do if your case was weak on the facts and weak on the law. In that circumstance, I was told, "You yell like hell."
 
That apparently is the strategy of the several readers who have thus far responded with comments to my blog of several days ago, in which I welcomed the thoroughness shown by TSA agents at airports in fulfilling their responsibility to prevent terrorists from boarding planes with explosives on their person. The TSA's goal and their duty, we should always remember, is to keep the rest of us from dying in a plane crash.
 
The responses -- all but one of them -- have thus far consisted of sheer invective (defined in the dictionary as "abusive language, vituperation"), descending to a level lower than I for one have seen.
 
Rather than respond to such outrage, I should like to suggest an experiment. I should like to ask the critics to do something positive, to suggest how they would replace the TSA and with what. Are they actually suggesting that we should simply board planes in the future without undergoing any security checks at all? (Who among us would feel easy about doing that?) They we should rely entirely on counter-intelligence personnel working away from airports? What about the suicide bombers that aren't apprehended by C.I.A. agents before they reach an airport? Are they suggesting that racial profiling would do the trick?
 
Are they suggesting we replace federal employees with private persons earning the minimum wage?
 
In light of the photographs that have been published of Al Qaeda's earlier use of padded, long-john underwear covering arms, legs and torsos with pouches of explosives, are they actually claiming that pat-downs serve no purpose, and can be dispensed with?
 
What in the world do they suggest we do? Dispense with security checks altogether? Replace caution with sheer bravado? Simply take our chances? Become brave Uncle Sams who simply stroll into airports and challenge the world's terrorists to take down our planes? What are their positive recommendations? Can they compose a comment or two in which they actually set forth how they would replace the TSA with something more effective?
 
So let the critics weigh in with something positive. Let them put up or quiet down.