i would hardly call freaking out over an "arab looking" guy going to take a piss and listeing to music RATIONAL behavior.
To fear it happening is irrational? That's silly. You act as if fear is an unhealthy or inherently irrational emotion. It isn't. There is nothing irrational about fearing a terrorist incident. It has happened. It will most likely happen again. The odds are that these were not the last terrorist incidents. You can just keep repeating your mantra that its irrational but how can it be when it has happened, the same people say they will do it again, and the whole world recognizes it is a serious threat by increasing their efforts to stop it? You seem to be on a lonely island in thinking it is an irrational fear. That one terrorist wasn't middle eastern doesn't change the history of middle eastern men hijacking planes, and that goes back at least thirty years, not just to 9/11. You're just arbitrarily separating fear from the situation. Fear is the emotion that keeps you alert and aware. No, fear might cause you to act irrationally - as might any other emotion. It doesn't inherently cause you to act irrationally. That is your problem. Ask someone who's been in combat if they were afraid and they'll tell you that to not have fear is to be crazy. Fear does not inherently impair your judgement and can just as easily enhance it. You can pretend it equates to irrationality, but it doesn't. And your totalistic view of fear is oversimplistic at best.
Fear caused by incidents that people are in is one thing. That is the case in combat, car accident etc. To be afraid before an incident happens and increase that fear based on someone's ethnicity is irrational. Fear is one of the causes of people's minds playing tricks on them. To expect another terrorist incident isn't irrational. To fear it all the time, or specifically everytime when flying with a persont from the middle east is irrational. There will be driving accidents, and break-ins in the future too. They will happen with more frequency than future terror attacks. But it is irrational to loose sleep regularly because you fear a break in. It is irrational to drive tense and jumpy because you fear an auto accident, though both will surely happen again and will in fact happen every single day.
There certainly are people of anglo and African decent who have tried to blow up planes. Richard Reid the shoe bomber, and the Lybians who blew up more than one plain are examples of this. Whether you call it racism or not doesn't matter. If it is a fear based decision based in part because of a man's ethnicity then it is racism whether you want to call it that or not. You are already defending racism against middle easterners because a distinct minority have blown up planes in years past. My issues are when people think it is ok to fear and treat one ethnicity differently based on the actions of a tiny minority of that ethnicity.
i don't think that there is any irrationality with the fear of being hijacked. the fear is still ever present in our conscience since 9/11 and is only natural. however, the problem is not merely being fearful. no one is saying u should totally cease your fear when you see a middle eastern person on the airplane. b the problem is actually acting and resorting to physical violence based solely on this fear. this can be considered irrational.
"Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true." - Swayze (Point Break) WWSD?
Hey man, I don't think it's even fear necessarily. But if you see a middle eastern person or someone who chants islamic sounding quotes....and they behave in a suspicious manner - then it's only logical that you act in some form or fashion (not violently of course). Better safe then sorry....just being wise. Why take a chance? You only got one life ya know...
you are right - it's ignorance first of all, the guy wasnt doing any islamic chants or behaving suspiciously. he was tan, listening to music and going to the bathroom. secondly, acting violently is exactly what the fake cop did. so are you saying that when you see suspicious activity you should act, but not violently? if that is the case what is your point again? you? highly unlikely.
From now on, everyone should wear a name tag, one could always find ancestors, relatives, or people in same race, religion, background, did terrible things to other people before. Everyone should be alerted. Better safe than sorry. Everyone has to have deepest history digged out, presented clearly in that huge name card. So people around you can pick what's more scary to them, a formal serial killer, a close friend of a rapist, a grand children of war criminal, a former soldier of one infantry who killed bunch of civilians as collateral demage, or the same race of someone blew up 2 buildings, or whatever else. Better safe than sorry. It's all justified, because you have all the studies to support any kind of profiling. People make friends among same interest, for instance blowing up buildings; violence could be somehow in the gene, or kids from violent family have more chance to be violent when they grow up; criminals have more chance to repeat their past crimes etc etc. Therefore, each piece of "dirty" history can be found from you or people somehow related to you, the general public has to be aware of that and be ready to take action to stop every suspicious move from anyone. Better safe than sorry. After all, didn't they have that interesting experiement to prove that any random 2 person in the world can be linked together with NO MORE than 6 different people? So, we are all 6 person connection away from OBL, including that stupid jerk who headlocked that architect. I fly all the time, and I live in New York now. The things I worry about whenever I go to an airport is whether the plane will be on time; whether the security check will delay the flight; whether I will be seated beside a very annoying person; whether my bags will be ok etc etc. It never came across my mind that my plane might be hijacked. Given the current tight security, how realistic is it comparing to a mid-air collision due to human errors? I ask around, colleagues, friends, in those big cities, especially in NYC, NONE of them is worried about hijacking. If they worry about someone listening to ipod on a plane, should they worry about the same thing on subway, where the security is a lot looser? If they do so, I guesss everyoen should just commit suicide to save that fearful miserable life. What a joke you got bunch of Internet tough guys to defend such cowardish action from some maniac. What does the full-alert mentality help? A bi-polar person was shot from the back moving away from the plane. Bunch of "Arab" looking or Mid-Easterns were attacked on the plane or denied flight. Did I miss anything?
I think law enforcement should be allowed to investigate people based on however they wish to. Race is an attribute, just like the clothes you wear, how you maintain your appearance, and so on. Things like inflection of one's voice, one's stress level, body mannerism all go into play here. My only point is we don't know what happened on that flight...and it appears to me we have one group that's saying.... "Hey - we don't know what happened" and another group that's "No way, he's a racist, I'm 100% sure, and if you don't think so, then you are defending racism!!!! NO room for doubt!" This kind of absolutism is what gets us into trouble in the first place. People love to judge prematurely. This happened with the Olympic bomber, and with the Jon Benet suspect. Jump to conclusions....it's a typical liberal strategy and they love to play the race card at any opportunity.
I agree with you. I also know there are a lots of dudes driving cars out there that caused accidents and killed people. The next time I see one driving a car and comes suspiciously close to me, like in the next lane, I'm taking him out ... wait, how am I going to do that non vilolently ... Should I shout at him or what ? Darn, what to do!? I only got one life ... how do I get these dudes away from me ?
If you see a car swerving around what do you think? Hmmm - might be a drunk driver...so what do you do - you try to avoid him. You keep your distance. Now, the same rule applies if you see someone doing something suspicious on a plane. You inform the crew....and have the guy checked out. Now, we don't know what suspicious activities this guy on the plane was engaging in....but clearly it was enough to worry quite a few passengers. So lets give them the benefit of the doubt until enough info is out - that's all I am saying.
man, you are slow. as the article stated and i have repeated several times, fake cop did inform the crew. they checked out mr. stein, cleared him and told fake cop to go back to his seat. it was after he was told that mr. stein had been cleared that fake cop attacked him. "He went into my pocket and took out my passport and my iPod. All the other passengers were looking concerned." Eventually, cabin crew explained that the captain had run a security check on Mr Stein after being alerted by the policeman and that this had cleared him. The passenger had been asked to go back to his seat before he had restrained Mr Stein. When the plane arrived in New York, Mr Stein was met by apologetic police officers who offered to fast-track him out of the airport. Mr Stein said: "The other passengers looked and me and said, 'What did you do?' It was so humiliating. The fact is he [the police officer] was told I was OK and should have left me alone. The airline had a duty of care. I've got to travel to the US soon, but I'm paying an extra £500 to travel in business class." yes we do. why dont we go by what the american airlines told mr. stein were his "suspicious activities"? and who are these "quite a few passengers" you speak of? "He has since been told by airline staff he was targeted because he was using an iPod, had used the toilet when he got on the plane and that his tan made him appear "Arab"."
1 passenger is not quite a few. I am not above looking into suspicious activities. Being from the middle east is not a suspicious activity. The fact that it was treated as such by one individual and is being defended by others is what we should be concerned with, and yes it is racist even if the intent is not to oppress or keep that person down.
So what if it turned out that the guy did indeed pose a threat? Would it be racist then? Yes - right? I mean, if his race was the ONLY thing that arose suspicion, then yeah, it was racist. But if there was other things involved, then no. Was the fake-cop being ridiculous - maybe, maybe not. I don't think there's enough facts out....first of all, we need to hear the "fake-cop's" side of the story.
He knows that. The guy is kinda psycho-obsessed with me for some reason and keeps replying to where-ever I post, with a lot of name-calling and so forth...so I just put him on ignore but he still keeps going.
