To ensure we Americans never offend anyone --- particularly fanatics intent on killing us - airport screeners will not be allowed to profile people. They will continue random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, Secret Service agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal Of Honor winning former Governors. Let's pause a moment and take the following test: In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by: (a) Olga Corbett (b) Sitting Bull (c) Arnold Schwartzeneger (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by: (a) Lost Norwegians (b) Elvis (c) A tour bus full of 80-year-old women (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by: (a) John Dillinger (b) The King of Sweden (c) The Boy Scouts (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by: (a) A pizza delivery boy (b) Pee Wee Herman (c) Geraldo Rivera making up for a slow news day (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked, and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard by: (a) The Smurfs (b) Davy Jones (c) The Little Mermaid (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a U.S. Navy diver was murdered by: (a) Captain Kid (b) Charles Lindberg (c) Mother Teresa (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by: (a) Scooby Doo (b) The Tooth Fairy (c) Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid who had a few sticks of dynamite left over from the train job. (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by: (a) Richard Simmons (b) Grandma Moses (c) Michael Jordan (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by: (a) Mr. Rogers (b) Hillary, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems (c) The World Wrestling Federation to promote its next villain: "Mustapha the Merciless" (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked and destroyed and thousands of people were killed by: (a) Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd (b) The Supreme Court of Florida (c) Mr. Bean (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against: (a) Enron (b) The Lutheran Church (c) The NFL (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by: (a) Bonny and Clyde (b) Captain Kangaroo (c) Billy Graham (d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40. Hmmm . . . nope, no patterns anywhere to justify profiling that I can see!
The only people who want to profile are the ones that are affected by this. Until they are blowing up **** in every city, us spineless americans will not allow us to profile.
i agree...i think our thoughts on this matter will change when and if (hopefully never) terrorist activity becomes more frequent in this country.
Here here. There's no need for profiling in this nation - based on the Constitution, all men are created equal and are innocent until proven guilty. This isn't a case of martial law; regular citizens and upstanding members of our society cannot and should not be deprived of their civil liberties in the hopes of weeding out a few bad apples. For one, we have better, more intelligent ways to weed out the terrorists in our soceity; at least we do now after September 11th. Profiling is a very racist idea, imo, and I'm glad they should not be allowed to profile people. (not like it won't happen anyway )
Let's pause a moment and take the following test: You know, I don't particularly have a problem with race-based profiling -- we do it all the time. If a white man robbed a convenience store in a minority neighborhood, police are going to look for suspicious white men in the area. No big deal. I do have a problem if the police saw "white man" and then assume he's guilty. I do have a problem if we start denying people their rights or freedom only based on this profiling. (kicking someone off an airplane simply because they looked Arab) I don't see why it should be different when dealing with terrorism. But this "test" is both ludicrous. Of course if you list all the things extremist Muslims have done and say "is there a pattern?", you'll find one. Exclude things that don't fit (Oklahoma City, for example) and patterns form very easily. I could very easily come up with a list of horrendous crimes committed by any given race or background and say we should profile that group. For example, there were a number of black church burnings in previous years by white men. Should every white man who visits a black church then be considered a likely criminal? I don't see the difference.
So if there is an oriental guy with red hair wanted as a rape suspect, we should just stop <b>everybody</b> with red hair? Don't waste your education....
I hardley think they were Muslims, they were Arabs pretending to be Muslims. On a side note the Iran hostage thing started out from commoners seiging the Emabassy and the government saw this as a chance to show us that Iran didn't want relations with the US. The odd thing was that a week before the Hostage Crisis, Kohmeni(sp?) sent some people to get the commoners when the seiged the Embassy only a few days before. Just think of it as the KKK surrounding and then running into a black family's house then the president, who wants to end relations with Black's, uses this as an oppertuinity to show Blacks they're not welcome. Well, niether is acceptable. Was anyone killed during this event? If not I don't think it's as bad as the others.
I don't think those men visited that church. They just drove around it looking for a place to locate a bomb. Granted it is a tough question, but when other people's lives are at stake (such as flying commercially) and the airline has a serious liability issue.... what do you want them to do? Again, you don't profile based on isolated crimes. This event was a 4-part event tagged with boasting of more of the same to come.
I say Profile away baby. We are not talking about being arrested, just singled out and searched. If you have nothing to hide, it shouldn't really bother you. I have been searched getting on a plane, and it did not bother me, why should it bother someone else? I think this is another case of over reacting. Just because you are searched does not mean your violated. Sheesh !! DaDakota
There was more than one church bombing though. Would you have been in favor after the second one? What's the magic giddyup number to allow for profile? Or do they need to change skin color or religions? The difference is that a crime has already been committed. You've got a good description of someone that's committed the crime. You're not pulling over Asians (not Oriental, but you don't care about offending people) with red hair because you believe they're more likely to commit crimes. Duh.
But that's not profiling. That's a random search, and the vast majority of people, myself included (it's happened to me), don't mind that.
I think that we should profile beef products...how much wrong have they done in the world already? Can't you see a clear-cut pattern? What about the children? In hopes that we can come to an agreement to profile, and then expel, all beef products, rimmy
Just 11 more examples to go and your argument will make sense. And if you don't think extremist groups in America have been targeted and monitored closely by the law-enforcement community, you're not paying attention.
Did I say that? No. Do I need 11 more examples? How about one white Christian murdering 6 million people? Or is the number of crimes that's important here? How about the thousands of lynchings that's taken place? How about three white men terrorizing a black man then ripping his head off? How about the church bombings in the South? Why didn't we search every white male to make sure he wasn't stockpiling weapons and having sex with 13 year old kids before killing them? Plus, one of those examples didn't involve Americans, and one of them wasn't necessarily targeted solely at Americans. Do I need nine more examples now?
yeah...i don't know if anyone has noticed or not...but we're kinda in a war here...and part of that war is the defense of civilians who are being targeted by the enemy. courts have made it clear for generations that in a time of war, these things don't receive the strict scrutiny they might otherwise.
Just because the courts say it's ok, doesn't mean it should be ok. If so, you'd be a pro-choicer against the Pledge Max.
1st paragraph: Everytime i hear the NOTHING TO HIDE Cliche I bristle. Scary. to Inconvience a SPECIFIC PERSON and let everyone else off is annoying. . to do it CONSTANTLY is infringement. DaDakota: When it is YOU and ONLY YOU that is searched EVERYTIME then it becomes an issue Rocket River
