Beginning in 1942, Capra directed a series on films for soldiers (and later civilians) called Why We Fight. It says much about the human condition that, even after Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, the government felt it necessary to fund films to explain the reasons for fighting the Axis.

In our present conflict, against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, we have no similar documentary series. If we did, I am sure that a film explaining the fight against terrorism, now in its seventh year, would not justify humiliating and degrading passengers at a Texas airport.

Nonetheless, that’s what happened to Mandi Hamlin, when

TSA [Transportation Security Administration] agents at the airport in Lubbock, Texas, forced Mandi Hamlin to remove her nipple rings on February 24, saying she could not board her flight to Dallas until she did so. The removal was a painful and embarrassing process that required the use of pliers and elicited snickers from the screeners.

At the time, the TSA had a written policy on its website, apparently, that allowed a passenger with piercings to (1) request a pat-down search or (2) remove the piercings in private. Security guards denied Hamlin’s offer to show the piercings privately to a female TSA agent.

She was given a pair of pliers instead.

A TSA internal investigation found no wrongdoing, although the TSA promises to change its procedures.

The TSA’s conduct is detestable for two reasons. First, the TSA’s conduct is wrong under any circumstances, and does nothing to promote our security. Other means for examination were available. It dilutes a serious fight against repressive regimes to rationalize this sort of humiliation of a citizen of a free society.

Power, placed in the hands of vulgar employees with a prurient interest, is power wrongly conferred.

Second, it’s predictable that an ill-trained force, with self-justifying leaders, would acquit itself of any wrongdoing. An internal investigation, from a force of a force, will typically yield no true accountability.

(That’s why a serious force uses an independent investigative unit, or wholly independent investigator. “Wholly” excludes those one sees at social gatherings, routine meetings, or situations were members of an extended group evaluate each other.)

You may have heard, as I have, of officials in our small town who dribble countless words from the jargon of modern business life: professional, accountable, responsible, etc.

You would be wise to be cautious — as they say this about themselves, you have reason to doubt the objectivity of their praise. I wonder if Narcissus loved himself half so much as some of the leaders in our city seem to love themselves.

The injury that I have described — and injury it was — befell the passenger first and foremost.

She was not alone in experiencing injury, however. Every time that a mediocre official of the TSA performs shamefully, denies responsibility for his conduct, all the while praising his own skill, he injuries mature men and women who live in his community.

The TSA official does this by asking others, implicitly, to look away, and to deny the truth of his misconduct. He asks them to remain silent while he dissembles, injures, degrades, and then praises himself for doing it.

He asks them to be silent partners to his wrongful actions and lies.

That’s one of the reasons that libertarians write. They are dissenters against this sort of conduct (as are many others), and are at their best when they are clear and firm in their dissent. One does not have to be loved; it is enough to speak forthrightly about the abuses one observes.

In the speaking, one affirms of the full rights of citizenship, for others, and for oneself, too.