Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Profiling

Liberals are upset that proposed security measures for people boarding flights in the Middle East will subject them to ‘profiling’. In other words, these policies could victimize Middle Eastern populations by making them the objects of racism.

One-hundred percent of airplane-related terrorist acts have originated in the Middle East. Yet applying more-stringent security measures there and no where else is racist. Is that correct?

Presumably, the answer is to apply our boundless financial and physical resources equally throughout the globe, if only to avoid the appearance of profiling. Heighten our presence in al Qaeda hot spots like New Zealand, Mongolia and Switzerland.

Okay. Got it. And yes, I’d like fries with that.

If a woman has her purse ripped from her shoulder by a male of a certain appearance, is she sexist or racist if she holds her purse a little tighter when approached by individuals matching the description of the thief, or is she a sentient human being applying the knowledge of experience?

If a store clerk apprehends half-a-dozen people for shoplifting, is he biased if he watches people matching their description more-closely, or is he applying what he has learned through past events?

Terrorism and war are ugly. They are humanity at its worst. Life's sad constant. But to suggest we're racist in our pursuit of a threat that originates in a specific part of the world amongst a specific population is insane.

And in 1944, I suppose these same critics would have pursued Nazis in Bangladesh.

Please. Spare me.

There’s enough genuine racism in the world. We don't need to manufacture it.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting. My significant other was always scrutinized extra closely by airport security when he was flying out of Jordan toward any vacation spot simply because he was a single male leaving the Middle East with a one-way ticket (he left it open ended because he would be there over a month). Should he have been upset because they were discriminating against single men? Or possibly he knew that single men are usually who carry out terrorist plots and therefore didn't care.

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  2. I think he was aware of the reasons for it, which perhaps made it bearable.

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