Setanta wrote:Baldimo wrote:USS Cole
US Embassies
World Trade Towers 93 and 01
Pentagon
London bombings
Bali bombings
All of terrorist's attacks have been committed by Muslims extremists who happen to be young Arabic men.
Leaving aside your idiotic contention about what "the left" fears for the drivel that it is, your argument here is specious. Profiling takes place in this country. The United States embassies which were attacked were in Africa, the
Cole was in the harbor at Aden, on the Arabian penninsula, you have disingenuously separated the Pentagon from the World Trade Center in the September 11th attacks, which were a set-piece operation, and about which i have already observed that profiling would not have stopped the terrorists, the London bombings were in, guess where? London! The Bali bombings were also elsewhere in the world, and the bombers happen not to have been Arabs, nor even "Arabic" looking. Another fine example of your inabilitity to present a cogent argument because of your addiction to slurring "the left" and deploying arguments from hysteria.
Your blindness is staggering. What do all of these events have in common? Muslims performed them all. Take off your PC blinders and look at terrorism for what it is, Extreme Muslims who want to kill people. That cannot be denied!
What can be denied is that your drivel has anything to do with the topic of this thread.
Setanta wrote:What can be denied is that your drivel has anything to do with the topic of this thread.
You can call it what you wish, drivel or logic your still trapped in your bubble of political correctness and wish to only point fingers at those you disagree with.
Keep staring at the shiny object and don't look away. Keep focused and don't loose site of the shiny object.
To my knowledge, "correctness" is not a word, or rather, it's a neologism created by the clueless who want to label others. You have no idea what my opinion is on the subject of terrorism by Muslims, but you may an assinine assumption because it suits your hate-filled rants about "the left." You are the one who is hypnotized, you're completely caught up in right-wingnut propaganda. I have excellent evidence that you will lie if necessary to attempt to make your silly points. I have absolutely no respect for anything you post, so rant away, and make all the nasty remarks and use all of the witless emoticons you wish, it won't change the fact that you are, typically, attempting to twitst a thread to provide yourself the opportunity to spew your partisan hatred at others.
San Jose International Airport has been christened "Norman Minetta International". It's retarded, and I mean that literally in that I've seen them single out severely retarded people for third degree searches while letting the towel heads walk right through.
F--k that.
Minetta should be in Guatanamo.
When did this all or nothing mentality become dominant in the national psyche?
If a compromise is satisfactory for 80% of the population and 10% doesn't care one way or the other, it is unacceptable because 10% don't like it.
If a policy helps Citizens C through Z, it is condemned because Citizens A and B don't benefit.
If profiling won't catch the handful of home grown, unpredictable, and essentially invisible psychotic nuts that roam our nations highways and byways, then it shouldn't be used to focus on those who are most likely to be Islamic terrorists bent on commiting massive death and destruction.
There was a time when common sense trumped fuzzy politically correct policy. I think the author of the piece that started the thread was trying to communicate that.
Foxfyre wrote:When did this all or nothing mentality become dominant in the national psyche?
If a compromise is satisfactory for 80% of the population and 10% doesn't care one way or the other, it is unacceptable because 10% don't like it.
If a policy helps Citizens C through Z, it is condemned because Citizens A and B don't benefit.
If profiling won't catch the handful of home grown, unpredictable, and essentially invisible psychotic nuts that roam our nations highways and byways, then it shouldn't be used to focus on those who are most likely to be Islamic terrorists bent on commiting massive death and destruction.
There was a time when common sense trumped fuzzy politically correct policy. I think the author of the piece that started the thread was trying to communicate that.
Great post Fox
My faith is renewed now that a participant has made the point that common sense SHOULD trump fuzzy logic everytime.
cjhsa wrote:San Jose International Airport has been christened "Norman Minetta International". It's retarded, and I mean that literally in that I've seen them single out severely retarded people for third degree searches while letting the towel heads walk right through.
F--k that.
Minetta should be in Guatanamo.
Thanks for bringing this bit of news to our attention cjhsa..........Minetta is a great embarrassment to the Bush administration. Rove really screwed up when he didn't force Minetta to submit his resignation after the election.
The scuttlebutt was that Minetta was to be the second (and last) member of the cabinet/administration to be fired, but he got a reprieve when he was hospitalized and underwent surgery for a staph infection. Even President Bush who is generally immune to dictates of polls and such couldn't fire an old geezer who was in critical condition in the hospital.
Word is that Minetta's deputy is actually running things. If Minetta lasts to 2008, he'll probably be kept on a short leash I think. He is a holdover from the Clinton administration and a Democrat to boot. Bush should have known better.
On Monday, NPR broadcast an interview with University of Toledo law professor David Harris who contends that racial profiling actually diminishes the effectiveness of finding terrorists.
He holds that behavior is a better indicator of terrorist activities than racial profiling. He cites the example of Israel in which racial profiling became counter productive in thwarting terrorist bombings. Once the Israeli authorities started racially profiling young, arab-looking men, the terrorists turned to using women for their bombings. After the Israelis started profiling arab-looking women, the terrorists began using Hasidic Jewish-looking perpetrators for their bombings.
Racial Profiling: A Cost-Benefit Analysis
I wonder if they retooled the profiling program to target old white grandmothers and retarded people? Maybe they then sold their ideas to the TSA?
Makes sense, InfraBlue. Would you agree that the profiles in use would have to evolve along with the threat.
I fit a profile, by the way. I set of metal detectors. When I do, off come the shoes and out comes the wand. I tell them it's my left shoulder, so they request I take off my shoes and belt. Failing the test again, they check my billfold. Tests positive for the spare car key. I tell them again - it's my left shoulder. They ask if I have metal snaps on my shorts. Finally, they check the shoulder, and BINGO. They find it. Now they want me to stretch both arms over my head. I can't do that, so I reach real high with my right arm, and they pat me down, and finally let me pass.
I do not complain. If ever I don't set off a metal detector, then I'm going to complain to management.
Everything I've read of the Israeli system that runs everybody through the system but gives significant extra scrutiny to high risk types (racial profiling actually) is that nobody is getting through to commit mayhem on airplanes, etc. That they do not have the manpower to police all the busses and open markets as well in no way negates the effectiveness of the systems they do use.
roger wrote:Makes sense, InfraBlue. Would you agree that the profiles in use would have to evolve along with the threat.
I fit a profile, by the way. I set of metal detectors. When I do, off come the shoes and out comes the wand. I tell them it's my left shoulder, so they request I take off my shoes and belt. Failing the test again, they check my billfold. Tests positive for the spare car key. I tell them again - it's my left shoulder. They ask if I have metal snaps on my shorts. Finally, they check the shoulder, and BINGO. They find it. Now they want me to stretch both arms over my head. I can't do that, so I reach real high with my right arm, and they pat me down, and finally let me pass.
I do not complain. If ever I don't set off a metal detector, then I'm going to complain to management.
I fit a profile as well. Whenever I sit in a restaurant I am approached and asked if I wouldn't mind translating for some Spanish-speaking customers. I tell them that I would love to but I don't speak Spanish. They look at me funny and I tell them I'm Italian and they shrug their shoulders and walk away.
Roger,
Given Harris' thesis, the cat and mouse game that would become of profiling would get to the point where every racial/ethnic type would be profiled down to the white grandmother-looking ones, because the terrorists would eventually find a way to employ these types for their bombings. Evolving profiles would be futile.
Given your and Baldimo's examples, profiling for metal and language isn't very effective.
Profiling for simple appearance is ludicrous as well. As Kicky pointed out, they'd go after him every time.
Baldimo wrote:old europe wrote:Baldimo wrote:Why are those on the left afraid to admit that those wanting to kill people in mass are Arabic men who practice Islam?
I think you have mistaken the topic. The question is not: is the majority of all potential mass murderers worldwide of Arabic Islam-praciticing ethnicity (something I doubt, to be honest). The question is: would profiling
help to identify potential terrorists, or would it merely
help potential terrorists?
It would help identify them. When the profile changes to include people who haven't been involved with terrorism before then we change the profile. Frisking grandma and grandpa and young children is a waste of time. We know who is doing this so target them.
When people start looking for a serial killer who do they look at first? Middle aged white men. Why? Because they are the biggest culprits of serial killings.
Do the police just stop there and start questioning every middle aged white man they see? Do they always limit their search to middle aged white men? If they do it is not that surprising that a lot of crimes remain unsolved.
Grandma could be hiding a weapon under her weapon because of her sympathies for terrorist. If she goes through a medal detector and it goes off it is only prudent to search her.
I don't look middle eastern and I have had my bags searched and it didn't bother me any. I have brown hair and green eyes and a fair complexion plus I am a 41 year old grandmother with grown daughters and a sunday school teacher so I wouldn't fit a profiling description. But lets just say that I had terrorist sympathies (something foxfrye I assume already suspects) and I had a weapon in my pocket ready to use once I boarded the train. I would just sail through because I don't fit any terrorist profile.
(ego/vanity forced me to add the 41 year old bit before the grandmother :wink: )
Naw, I don't think you're a terrorist, Revel. I just think you sometimes hold the terrorists in higher esteem than those attempting to deal with them.
And I think it is ludicrous for airport security to give you the same scrutiny they would give a middle eastern looking guy even if that guy turned out to be Spanish or Italian or otherwise could possibly resemble a middle eastern looking guy.
Searching luggage by the way is not profiling.
Foxfyre wrote:And I think it is ludicrous for airport security to give you the same scrutiny they would give a middle eastern looking guy even if that guy turned out to be Spanish or Italian or otherwise could possibly resemble a middle eastern looking guy.
That's were you disagree e.g. with Israeli security. If you board an El-Al flight,
everybody gets checked the same way, whether he's a middle eastern looking young guy or Scandinavian 70 year old fisherman. Result: not one single incident in over 30 years!
Foxfyre wrote:Naw, I don't think you're a terrorist, Revel. I just think you sometimes hold the terrorists in higher esteem than those attempting to deal with them.
This sort of egregious and contemptuous, and thoroughly unwarranted assumption about those with whom you disagree is both characteristic of the shallow-thinking right-wingers, and the reason you are so often shown little respect in debate. If you predicate your response to others upon a set of slurs, you should never complain that others speak ill of you--yet you constantly whine that you are the subject of personal attacks. Small wonder . . .
