It’s almost verboten in our society to speak of profiling, much less engage in it. Profiling is not Politically Correct, you know. And yet, that’s exactly what we need to be doing where airline safety is concerned. It’s what we should have started doing immediately after 9/11.
Muslim extremists from the Middle East have sworn to kill us. And yet, even knowing this, we insist on being politically correct and carefully not profiling people who match that description at our airports. Instead, we either search and inconvenience everyone equally, or search randomly, regardless of who “random” might end up being — being especially careful not to pay undue attention to Middle Eastern Muslims; we wouldn’t want to offend anyone.
What a bunch of BS. Concentrate on the most likely people! That’s the obvious, logical thing to do. Profiling? Damn straight. And yes, if 60-something Caucasian grandmothers from Oklahoma had threatened to blow up American airplanes, I’d expect to be detained, questioned, and searched every time I went to an airport.
This isn’t a war between nations. It’s not a “war on terror.” It’s not a war of religions. It’s down and dirty police work. Locally, nationally, internationally. We have a partial description of the suspects. We know how they like to operate. Why would we not focus on people who match that description!?
We are in complete agreement. And I’m an old bleeding heart lib, albeit with some libertarian leanings.
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I claim no labels, since my views vary widely depending on the subject. But I try to think logically most of the time, and this idea of not profiling terrorists is dangerously stupid, IMHO.
Sadly, there is no place for logic in our society. It’s all politically correct- so as not to hurt someone’s FUCKING feelings. No, common sense and logic went out the window forever and a day ago. How are we ever going to get back to that? Are we ever going to get back? It’s so rihdonkulous, I just have to throw up my arms and laugh at this point. Profiling, puh-lease!
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Hurt feelings are a small price to pay when trying to stop terrorists. If we have to hurt a few feelings to stop some killers and save some lives, so be it.
The thing is, the people who would be doing the profiling can’t tell a Latino from an Arab from an Italian. That’s why I’m against it. I know too many people who were born here or actually fled to the U.S. because of terrorism who then got detained and harassed.
Last night I watched the movie “Inside Man.” There is a great scene in which the cops call a Sikh an Arab, and later when they are questioning him, he gives them a lot of grief about his turban. They try to calm him down because they know he’s about to sue the department.
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You may not be able to tell Arabs from Nigerians from Italians (until you check their papers), but you can tell a young man from a child or an old woman. It’s just dumb for TSA to spend time questioning, say, an elderly Caucasian woman or a child while a twenty-something Arab-looking man boards the plane unchecked. Narrow the search! Don’t waste resources stopping people who obviously aren’t suspects.