jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Uh, I don't think it's on the kids. It's on the airlines.

headscarf = terrorist in their eyes. where did they learn that?

Oh please, like if you didn't overhear a bunch of Muslims talking about the optimal place to sit on a plane for safety reasons you won't pee your pants.

see, i actually, you know, KNOW muslims...so no, I wouldn't. Singling them out is WRONG. Period. Simply pathetic we fall into this crap.

Well, you're a better man than I am since you apparently trust and love everyone, and I'm glad that everything is so black and white for you. Me, I'm up for a little extra vigilance.

Tim Kaine picked to head DNC.

I thought this was weird until I remembered he's lame-duckified by Virginia's dumbass term limits law. Still a bit of a surprising pick, just because Kaine never struck me as a real sharp-elbowed partisan. But he's Obama's guy, so I would guess they're both enthused about it.

you must be constantly scared living in jersey, 500,000 potential terrorists, over 6% of the population. keep that phone ready

I mean really. My roommate's name is Laith and he's from Jordan. He's a brown person. I'm not an angry, scared racist. I just think that there should be a certain amount of common sense involved in these things. Muslims are more likely to perpetrate terrorist attacks than your average white dude, black guy, or Mexican. It's not being racist or bigoted or whatnot. It's a fact. Are you telling me when you get on a plane you don't give the Middle Eastern looking guy with a beard an extra look or two?

Now, the airline effed up because these people were clearly not up to no good. I don't think there's any defending what they pulled. I just don't think we need to get on the case of the little girls for being examples of institutionalized racism.

I bet the kids were wearing mickey mouse ears. could've mistaken them for fuses.

Extend profiling further into all forms of life and watch people go apesh. I don't see how we can profile people in airports/planes.

jerseyhoya wrote:Well, you're a better man than I am since you apparently trust and love everyone, and I'm glad that everything is so black and white for you. Me, I'm up for a little extra vigilance.

BOOOO!!!!!

I don't even agree with the premise that a muslim american is any more likely to commit a terrorist attack than any other type of american. Where is the evidence for that? Oklahoma City was a white guy. Atlanta olympics? White. Abortion clinics? White. Where is the evidence that a muslim american is more likely than any other type of american? This is the type of thinking that led Japanese americans into prison during WWII.

Muslims worldwide are punching way above their weight in the "Blowing shit up" games.

I don't get this Muslim American thing you keep pushing. Muslims of Middle Eastern descent are sometimes American citizens. They're sometimes not, but still here legally. Other times, I imagine, they're here illegally, but have legal enough looking ID cards. In all cases, I'm not sure how you would judge that they are American, and therefore less likely to blow something up than a white American who believes in God, if you are at an airport near them.

I'm not suggesting wholesale, let's cavity search everyone who isn't an Aryan treatment at the airport. I just don't see how it is racist to pay a special bit of attention to people who are higher threat risks.

well that's profiling, so you are for profiling. I'm against it, just as I'm against blacks being pulled over just because they're black and driving a nice car. It's the same thing, IMO. This is a very slippery slope.


Should we keep militia looking guys from entering or parking near public buildings?

Should we keep Catholics from entering abortion clinics?

If you do one, then I think you need to do the others.

Oh, to answer your question about the american thing, American citizens are afforded rights in this country -- innocent until proven guilty, protection against search and seizure, etc. During WWII, Japanese americans were put into camps because they were japanese and weren't trusted. Most people consider that act a national disgrace, but I can only assume you would be OK with it because they happened to have some characteristics in common with our enemy at the time.

I bet you guys wouldn't duck to dodge a bullet because it's against the law to fire a gun at you.

"Mr. Pacino, describe the man who mugged and beat your mother."
"Who said it was a man?"
"Okay, describe the woman who beat and mugged your mother."
"I didn't say it was a woman either, dammit man, can you NOT PROFILE for once in your jackbooted life? You already admitted your bias against men by suggesting it was a man in the first place!"
"Well, sir, she was beaten quite severely - very few women could put that kind of beating on a person..."
"THE FEW ARE WHO WE ARE HERE TO PROTECT!!!!"
"You want to protect the person who beat your mother?"
"NO, I want to protect all of the people you will certainly harass in the name of finding the person who beat my mother."
::Stares in disbelief:: "Mr Pacino, did you see the person who beat your mother?"
"Yes."
"What will you tell me about that person? It is customary to attempt to capture people who beat and mug other people's mothers and bring them to justice..."
::Thinks:: Rolls eyes and mouths the word "justice"
"A biped... No, scratch that - there are those people in Iceland that walk on all fours, I can't have you starting an oppressive campaign against them over m mother ... a .... WELL DAMMIT WHY CAN'T YOU DEAL WITH THIS WITHOUT PROFILING YOU BASTARDS!?!?!"
"Sir, should I arrest you for accessory?"
"Here we go again..."

VoxOrion wrote:I bet you guys wouldn't duck to dodge a bullet because it's against the law to fire a gun at you.
....

"What will you tell me about that person? It is customary to attempt to capture people who beat and mug other people's mothers and bring them to justice..."
::Thinks:: Rolls eyes and mouths the word "justice"
"A biped... No, scratch that - there are those people in Iceland that walk on all fours, I can't have you starting an oppressive campaign against them over m mother ... a .... WELL DAMMIT WHY CAN'T YOU DEAL WITH THIS WITHOUT PROFILING YOU BASTARDS!?!?!"
"Sir, should I arrest you for accessory?"
"Here we go again..."

I realise it's been done for comic effect, but there's a world of difference between an investigating probable suspects on the basis of eyewitnesses and evidence from a crime scene after a crime has occurred and taking action against someone on the basis of something else that kids have said they heard the people saying. We only accord the police and security services the kind of authority to ask those kind of questions, and in some cases take preventative actions before the fact if their suspicions have a reasonable grounding.

The more you let independent commercial entities (or individuals) start taking decisions to act on the basis of their suspicions, the more you run the risk of someone making a really bad mistake that you then have to sanction as acceptable. and the more that happens, the more the targeted community become convinced that the rest of the country really *is* set against them. At the very best you run the risk of them not being prepared to talk to you, so forcing you to employ cruder intelligence-gathering methods. At the worst, you will contribute to growing numbers at your local terrorist group's roll call.

When I was a kid growing up, I treated with deep suspicion anyone with a northern irish accent because I hadn't yet worked out the subtleties of the war across the border. It was pretty dumb and it must have afforded both my parents many a laugh. Although my da never seemed to go into the north in depth, which might have sorted out the dumb notions in my head sooner, he never thought to encourage it by acting on my suspicions.

VoxOrion wrote:I bet you guys wouldn't duck to dodge a bullet because it's against the law to fire a gun at you.

"Mr. Pacino, describe the man who mugged and beat your mother."
"Who said it was a man?"
"Okay, describe the woman who beat and mugged your mother."
"I didn't say it was a woman either, dammit man, can you NOT PROFILE for once in your jackbooted life? You already admitted your bias against men by suggesting it was a man in the first place!"
"Well, sir, she was beaten quite severely - very few women could put that kind of beating on a person..."
"THE FEW ARE WHO WE ARE HERE TO PROTECT!!!!"
"You want to protect the person who beat your mother?"
"NO, I want to protect all of the people you will certainly harass in the name of finding the person who beat my mother."
::Stares in disbelief:: "Mr Pacino, did you see the person who beat your mother?"
"Yes."
"What will you tell me about that person? It is customary to attempt to capture people who beat and mug other people's mothers and bring them to justice..."
::Thinks:: Rolls eyes and mouths the word "justice"
"A biped... No, scratch that - there are those people in Iceland that walk on all fours, I can't have you starting an oppressive campaign against them over m mother ... a .... WELL DAMMIT WHY CAN'T YOU DEAL WITH THIS WITHOUT PROFILING YOU BASTARDS!?!?!"
"Sir, should I arrest you for accessory?"
"Here we go again..."

your response leaves much to be desired. i wonder how long it took you to dream that up.

wizlah, what the hell would you know about terrorism?

I think the point is that if terrorists want to kill you, they're going to do so regardless of your diligence. That is, unless they're the Detroit Lions of terrorism or something. So there's really no point in living in fear of every brown person. Besides, they've probably moved on past the airplane and train bombings and are now focusing on destroying the electrical grid and/or the internet

Woody wrote:I think the point is that if terrorists want to kill you, they're going to do so regardless of your diligence. That is, unless they're the Detroit Lions of terrorism or something. So there's really no point in living in fear of every brown person. Besides, they've probably moved on past the airplane and train bombings and are now focusing on destroying the electrical grid and/or the internet

Good point. There's a school of thought that all the airport security measures are much more to give the sense to the flying public that government is doing something, anything, than to provide an actual measure of security.

Otherwise, I think that "profiling" on balance probably does considerably more harm than good; certainly if you're an observant American Muslim or foreigner who's devout but not an Islamist, you're going to be more pissed off and alienated after being singled out in line for no good cause than you were before.

pacino wrote:
wizlah, what the hell would you know about terrorism?

No more than anyone else. Mind, I have met a few ex-terrorists, and what's more, it was when I was really young, so I can pretty much predict every last thought that their sick twisted fuck brains are capable of.

jerseyhoya wrote:Richardson withdraws from Commerce, due to an investigation going on back in New Mexico.

Being in charge is fun, huh?

Beats the alternative.