Richard Dawkins: It's not about the honey, honey, honey

Bin Laden has won, in airports of the world every day. I had a little jar of honey, now thrown away by rule-bound dundridges. STUPID waste.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) November 3, 2013

A lot of people have been laughing at Richard Dawkins for sending this tweet.

But he is right.

As Dawkins said on the Guardian website today:

Unfortunately, when I returned to make a similar point on Twitter this week, I foolishly chose a peg that was vulnerable to misinterpretation as self-interested. And the result was a puerile display of sniggering frivolity such as only Twitter can serve up. 

This time the dangerous explosive was not eczema lotion but honey. And it belonged to me, at Edinburgh airport, bound for Heathrow with only carry-on luggage. Though the jar was small, it exceeded the limit laid down by the rule-happy officials of airport security, and it was thrown away. 

I tweeted to the effect that every time I see an incident of this kind I sense it as a victory for Bin Laden. However calamitous the destruction of the twin towers, doesn't the bureaucratically imposed vexation to airline passengers all over the world mount up to a prolonged and distributed, albeit far less traumatic, victory? And aren't our rule-merchants playing into Bin Laden's dead hands by their futile displays of stable-door-shutting?

The only thing I would add is that he should not blame just Twitter. There is plenty of sniggering frivolity in the newspaper coverage too.