Open Thread (12/30/2009)

Happy New Year to IP posters and readers. Hope you had time to enjoy the beautiful Blue Moon.

Pattsi Petrie

On January 2nd, 2010 at 05:45 PM, JohnBoy said:

Profile all Muslim air passengers. We need a policy of either double checking muslim flyers or refuse to allow muslims on flights. Not as odd as it seems.....911 terrorist, shoe bomber and Xmas flyer...all muslims. Common demominator here, is that all terrorist attacks on airplanes are by muslims...not chinese, mexican or polish. Why waste $$$ doing searches of Polish women in wheelchairs? If this policy were in effect,...lotta people would be alive today.

The next time someone tells me that racism and bigotry are dead, and people are just being too PC and over-sensitive... I'm going to remind them of this comment by JohnBoy.  It boggles the mind.

-----
This last post conclusively proves that Arvid is in fact Laurel Prussing. Sad. - Anonymous on 2009-06-22 @ 9:30am

Profile all Muslim air passengers. We need a policy of either double checking muslim flyers or refuse to allow muslims on flights.

And how do you expect to *identify* these Muslim passengers, you bigoted twit?

Common demominator here, is that all terrorist attacks on airplanes are by muslims...not chinese, mexican or polish.

This may come as a shock to you, but Muslim is not a race. You can not identify a Muslim by looking at him. Unless you and Ann Coulter have jointly invented a Magic Muslim Detector, anyway.

"You can not identify a Muslim by looking at him. Unless you and Ann Coulter have jointly invented a Magic Muslim Detector, anyway."

Historically groups deemed a 'threat to society' were identified through required paperwork, clothing, etc... even if some physical human features were also used, additional official identifiers were used to help ensure others didn't slip through. Even avoiding Godwin's Law (which perhaps shouldn't be avoided here) examples of such additional identifiers have been common in history whether those identifiers were introduced for the sole purpose of addressing threats (e.g. communist nations) or existed prior to crackdowns and were just used for that purpose later (e.g. Rwanda). Again avoiding Godwin's Law, the historical use of identifiers for Jews predates Nazi practices by centuries for discrimination or "hightened security."

But even in situations where physical characteristics were the primary basis for addressing a group threat against society, the use of other official paperwork was often used to aid in addressing that threat (e.g. Japanese-Americans in WWII). Of course few people want to be associated with any of these awful things and for good reason... it might reflect badly on them. As is usually the case, their motivations are easily rationalized as good things, protecting society from internal or external threats, and there are plenty of commonly accepted tactics that are similarly justified so the accusations of malicious intent seem unfounded. In a society that holds ideals of inalienable rights and limiting the authority of government to infringe upon those rights, one would hope more people would address any potential policies/powers along with their potential abuse, in both the short and long term.

I'd hope that most people looking at the history of what JohnBoy is proposing would see that any potential benefits are shockingly outweighed by the potential for abuse, both now and by future authorities wielding that power. If it is reasonable to consider the possible slippery slopes from empowering the government on managing the health care system hitting the point where what we eat, consume, do, etc could be regulated as a 'compelling state interest' to keep health care costs down, it should be more than reasonable to consider what empowering the government to identify/register members of a religious group for targetted and discriminatory policies to keep them from 'threatening society' might lead to and/or what potential abuse may be made possible by doing so.

It's not just some bleeding heart concern that puts some naive sympathies ahead of the safety of our society, but rather a concern for the historical implications of naively assuming that we can threaten some fundamental liberties for temporary security without consequence.

<Godwin's Law>But then again perhaps addressing 'The Muslim Question' is more important than any of those silly concerns of bleeding heart liberals who lack the resolve to do what it takes to keep the Fatherland Homeland safe from its enemies! How bad could things really get going down this road of good intentions? Right?</Godwin's Law> In the mean time I'm going to go check with my neurologist to make sure I can't end up in a persistant vegetative state from years of face-palms.

--

Glock21 Op/Ed

It's not just it's horrifically wrong and against the principles of a decent society--look at the examples you give, Glock--it's never been effective in the history of the world.

Besides the fact that they got demolished in the war, does anyone believe that Germany going genocidal on its own and other countries' citizens actually improved it?

Did locking up our own hardworking citizens and giving their land to less successful white farmers actually make our country better or even safer?

Did it help Rwanda to provide such artificial discriminatory paperwork and act on it?

I think you are touching on it to some degree in your post, but it's worth stating directly: of course, the moral cost of genocidal policy is horrific, but it's also just bad state building.

El Al does not just blindly racially profile, they grill ALL passengers.  They can do this because they have FAR FAR less traffic than ANY US hub or airline, and they also have passengers without many other options to reach their destination so they're willing to put up with a lot.

But absolutely, yes, they will grill your white haired Polish grandma.  They also have way more intense baggage screening.

Meanwhile, if you forbade all "Middle Eastern muslims" from flying, you would not have stopped the attempted bombing on 12/25 - the guy was a dark black Nigerian with fine English.

Asking why he was not on more strict lists, given that his own relative had turned him in on suspicion that he had become religiously born-again fanatical, might be more productive.

The question of profiling is an interesting one. Part of the problem is that when it comes up in the US, it's pretty much ALWAYS coupled with a "well, I want THOSE people to get the serious grilling, but I want myself and MY in-group to be given a pass, because of course we won't do anything and anyway I don't want to be put through inconveniences."   There are demands for first-class to be exempted, or grandma to be exempted, or don't full-body scan kids (due to fears of pedophiles watching, if you can believe that hilarity) etc etc ETC. 

So it just makes for easy recipes to follow.  Reverse pickpocket someone's bag, buy someone off, kidnap someone's relatives and threaten to kill them, or simply use any number of racially/culturally varied converts to your cause.  First class tickets are trivial to get.

The problem akibare is that all airplane bombings are coming from one specific group of people. I flew EL AL some years ago and yes there was scrutiny, but it seemed much more intense for muslims. I did not see hightened scrutiny of older women,etc. I would suppose a passport name might be a tipoff to increased profiling. Mohammed,etc... I don't see this as racist at all, ...just learning from history. Sorry but  if I'm boarding a plane from AMMAN, to NYC....and there are only middle eastern young men on it....I'm not getting on.

• Richard Reid, the shoe bomber: Half British/half Jamacan. Not Middle Eastern

• Jose Padilla: Puerto Rican. Not Middle Eastern

• Umar Abdulmutallab: Nigerian. Not Middle Eastern

• John Walker Lindh: Good ol' white boy. Not Middle Eastern

Come to think of it, has there even been an attempting bombing by a Middle Eastern Muslim since 9/11?

Shorter JohnBoy: Strip search anyone that's not white.

xian suggested: Name one time in where it was actually productive to profile and destroy civil liberties of one group for the security  of the whole.

How would determine whether or not the profiling increased overall security?

JohnBoy suggested:   Profile all Muslim air passengers.

Does this mean that all passewngers must disclose their religion ?

Michael Fuerst       

My drawings, paintings and photos are on display at Springer Center (NW corner of Randolph and Church in Champaign) through Monday Jan 4   9am-9pm      I can  give a  personally guided tour by appointment between 11am and 7pm.
For exhibit flyer,  http://www.ArtComesFuerst.com (Hours in this flyer are incorrect)
For additional preview,  http://www.artcomesfuerst.com/Photos_of_My_Art/index.htm
  and http://the217.com/events/view/2009/12/12/11317

 

Can I just predict that we're going to be seeing a lot more of this racist twaddle in the future? The profiling idea is already getting heavy play on FOX News.

The first people to smuggle bombs onto commercial airplanes were not terrorists. In the fifties and sixties bombs brought down commercial aircraft in a homicide and a suicide both to collect on insurance policies on one of the passengers. In those cases both of the perpetrators were native born American Christians 9-11 was not a bombing plot but a hijack plot.

The fact is that commercial air travel cannot be made 100% secure. The security screening systems in use at most airports would not have detected the Christmas Bomber's device. Even the virtual strip search systems being slowly deployed would not have been 100% sure of detecting the packet of PETN sewn into the crotch of the bomber's underwear. Would an operator have recognized the explosive? Perhaps but perhaps not.

A 100% secure air transport system is impossible to achieve.

Three Score and Ten Plus One

Keith Hays

thought to ponder:

what is going to happen when someone attempts to blow up a commuter train in NY/Boston/DC?

Here's what I think. Maybe we should waterboard everyone with a Muslim sounding name before he's allowed to get onto an American plane, just to make sure he's not a secret terrorist. I mean, if we're going to start taking away civil liberties for bigoted reasons, and suspending laws against torture, why not go all the way?

Why only Muslim-sounding names?  If you're gonna be *really* thorough, how about anyone with an "a", "h", or "l" anywhere in their name?

How about anyone with any one of the letters

     a b c d g h i j k l m n o p q v w x y z

in their surname? :-)

THAT'S the spirit!

I don't have any good answers.  But I know that spending billions to create an illusion of security based on what happened last time is awfully wasteful.

Cosign.  The whole thing is pretty ridiculous at this point.  We live in a free society and that freedom has costs.  Unfortunately, people who want to blow up airplanes probably can blow up airplanes whether they are on the plane or on the street with at rocket-propelled grenade.  There is no way to avoid it without creating the kind of society that restricts freedoms too much (imo).

I haven't flown out of CMI in a year or two.  How is the security over there?

Honestly security at CMI is not that bad, mainly because it's a tiny airport so there aren't that many people in line.

I've been flagged for the extra screening at the gate though randomly(?) a bunch of times, and I had to laugh at that - I'd never left the sight of main security, only inside the secure area before boarding a total of 5 minutes (like I said, it's a small airport, and I didn't even go to the bathroom) but the same guy had to search my backpack AGAIN there on the other side of the room. Even he was laughing about it.

The longest time I had was when I politely let two older women in front of me, while I was already running a bit late.  Turns out they were pretty much bionic women at that point between all the metal hips and the knees and the prosthetics and the goodness only knows what else, security had the wand turned up quite high, they were pretty much giving years' worth of medical histories there, I had to finally ask the second security guy who was just kinda sitting around if he'd hurry up and screen me so I could make my plane.

O'Hare, on the other hand, is a different story just because of the crowds.  Coming back from Japan, you have to go through security at O'Hare. You go through immigration in the international terminal (where they do not let you use cellphones or cameras or anything, no you absolutely CANNOT!!!!! take pictures of the "Welcome to the United States of America" sign, NO) and then get your luggage from a carrousel, walk it across a room to re-check it in, and then go through security again in the main domestic terminal (you start from outside security like all the rest of the people who just showed up from outside the airport).

My main annoyance with TSA is that every airport has slightly different rules, and while that might be fine or even planned, the TSA employees only work at the one airport so sometimes they are not very understanding about travellers being confused at the system, those travellers thinking they'll do what they did at the airport they travelled from only to find out that no, that's wrong!!! or whatever.  Case in point - shoes. Some airports insist you take off ALL shoes, other airports will scream at people who take off "obviously no metal" white sneakers, because "you're holding up the line!!!!!" etc.   The sign, of course, just says "remove your shoes."

Ditto belts. Some places are happy to let you through and then just wand if the belt goes off, other people will yell at you to take the belt off, obviously you know it comes off!!!! but you were just yelled at for taking it off and holding up the line at the airport you were at yesterday, so wtf?

...   how long would it take before peace loving Middle Easterners did something to stop radical muslims from interfering with air travel. Let these people deal with their own so the rest of us can not be victims.

Most Muslims and Middle Easterners do not feel any responsibility to and kinship with radical Muslims.

Under your scenario, what would you expect peace loving Middle Easterners to to stop radical Muslims ?

Michael Fuerst       

"The quote was from a comercial airline pilot,  Mark Schwartz. Enjoyed your interest and question, however you forgot the namecalling add/on. Thanks...."

Okay. Appeals to authority are logical fallacies so the fact it came from a pilot is fairly irrelevant to the more pressing fact that your average Muslim in the world has no connection to the militant fundies any more than your average Christian has any connection to the remnants of the Ku Klux Klan. The victim mentality whining rings pretty hollow in this discussion. You made extremely blatant remarks against middle easterners and muslims in general to promote discrimination, basing them on blanket (and very inaccurate) claims and are getting passive aggressive at someone suggesting racism or bigotry is involved? I can only imagine someone getting huffy about someone "namecalling" them as an antisemite or a racist after making the same blanket accusations about jews or blacks. <sarcasm>How dare they!</sarcasm>

--

Glock21 Op/Ed

Under your scenario, what would you expect peace loving Middle Easterners to to stop radical Muslims ?

Well, that depends. What have you done to stop radical abortion clinic bombers?

Except your "connection" is so overly broad as to include all muslims in your discriminatory policy proposals and your downright bigoted remarks. It's not like you left any room for subtlety here. They were also all human, might of all liked pie, hated Britney Spears, etc. The commonality that is important was their connection to a particular ideology of extremism but instead you want to apply your admitted hysterical view of Islam against a billion people who have no more connection to these extremists than your average Christian has to the Ku Klux Klan. But you don't care. You have an irrational fear and dislike of Muslims and you've made that quite clear.

Airlines have to worry about all sorts of threats, which over the years has included extremists and dangerous loons of pretty much every race and religion. I'm sure security forces of south Asia would get a laugh at your assumption that Hindus aren't ever a concern in this regard. I suppose the Japanese can stop bothering with airport security too! You're just seething with ethnocentrism and xenophobia and appear dead set and determined to play dumb to justify staying that way. What a waste of an otherwise functional mind.

I'd "lighten up" about all of the hysterical yahoos coming out of the woodwork to repeat some of the worst mistakes in history, but for some reason the revulsion compels me to speak out before they include me in their insanely broad definition of what constitutes a threat to society. When history looks back on this period and at the downright mindboggling rationalizations for bigotry, I intend to be on the side that spoke up against it. If I were you I'd be horribly embarrassed.

[insert disappointed head shaking here]

--

Glock21 Op/Ed

xian... good point

--

Glock21 Op/Ed

Your begining tosound like a spokeman for HAMAS.......

Thanks KEVIN.....appreciate the support.