Anyone who sets off the warning buzzer while passing through a metal detector in an airport is presumed to be a danger to him/herself and to others—until proved otherwise. It is a temporary decision designed to save lives. Even low-paid human monitors are empowered to stop anyone who does not pass this test. More extensive and/or intensive tests are soon to follow.
Similar restrictions are placed on everyone before they can operate a vehicle on public roads, or drill your teeth in a dental chair, or teach our children math skills, or do hundreds of other activities before we are reasonably certain they can do no harm. The dangers are obvious.
But…
Any nincompoop who can barely walk and chew gum at the same time is deemed to be competent enough to be given the nuclear codes that could lead to the extinction of the human race merely by garnering enough votes (not the most votes) in an election that is riddled with flaws and rigged to accommodate the desired outcome.
Holy shit balls! Is this a case of not being able to see the forest because of all the trees? Or, put another way, do we have our collective heads wedged in a crevice of our own making? (You may choose the crevice).
This is an imperfect world, but some imperfections are worse than others. Electing our political representatives is one of the most glaring of them all. Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf in 1925 (with much help from Rudolf Hess after many revisions to make it readable), and that piece of revelatory evil did not stop him from seeking and acquiring political power. Much the same can be said for virtually every tyrant who ever came to power.
At some point, we need to stop them before they kill us all. Why not now while he can?
In this age of computers we need a screening device that can detect screwballs, mal contents, incompetents, and those who are hell bent on killing us. It could be just a first warning, much like that metal detector. Computers are now able to sift through massive amounts of data in seconds and identify those who cannot pass minimal standards. The same procedures can also reveal the fundamental reasons about why the person so identified is a danger to us all.
Is this idea just another example of Big Brother at work? No! It is rationality at work. It is the survival instinct at work. We use computers to monitor thousands of aircraft simultaneously, to predict the weather, to bring the best of science to bear on identifying health issues, and for hundreds of other uses. We need to know a lot more about the brainpower behind the fingers that grasp the phone, that forms the thought that speaks into it and says “nuke ‘em.”
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