All I can say is that the hysteria is at an amazingly-high level. I am not sure why I even read TSA-related articles anymore.
I think the reason people are incredulous because your claims are blinkered. You're a sharp dude. I like most of your posts. But you are just not aggressively shortsighted enough to be excusing this with a straight face.
And your argumentum ad leaderboardum sucked transcendentally. You are totally, totally better than that.
But I do think that the answer to someone being mistreated at airport security shouldn't be to "take the train". It is true that the train will probably not have as onerous security requirements, but then that isn't really the point either.
If we put restrictions on a mode of transportation those restrictions should in general be in keeping with some legit governmental goal. "Airport security" does meet this, but I don't think we can say the same for all of the treatment OP actually received.
It should be at least part of the answer; a big part of the idea of the TSA (and one of the reasons the airlines got on board to help lobby for it) was that it moved the responsibility and potential liability from the airlines to the government (who, incidentally, has a whole host of immunities to deal with the "liability" aspect.)
Voting with your dollars away from industries whose services require being subjected to the TSA sends a message -- not directly to the government, but to the industries involved.
That's not to say its the only response, but voting-with-dollars ought to be part of the response.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/02/29/the-tsa-is-c...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_Intermodal_Prevention_...
(EDIT: I misquoted you from memory)
First, it was easily three times the cost of a round-trip ticket. Okay, I'm willing to pay. Second, we're talking about four or five days worth of travel, which, again, might be okay, except that I end up at Salt Lake City (yeah, that far north) on a bus headed south to Las Vegas.
So much for a train to Las Vegas.
Okay, how about Seattle? The company I work for (in Ft. Lauderdale) is headquartered in Seattle. That was an easy $2,000 train ticket taking a week to travel one way.
If I wanted to take the train to Washington, D.C.? No problem there. Same with a train to New York, New York. Boston. In fact, if you are somewhere along the east coast of the US and want to head to the major northeast cities, you will probably have no issues taking the train. Elsewhere? Probably not.
Edit: If you think posts with lol are a good thing please say why.