Victimhood
 

Is this code or something? Don't get it.

Victimhood
 

2.

Victimhood
 

I agreed that racial profiling is appropriate, with certain rule of reason limitations. In response, you posted a cartoon that intimated that I was opposed. The only reason I could divine for it was that I had argued for an exception, and I used an example of a turboprop commuter flight.

I'll admit, a lot of distance between the dots.

Victimhood
 

I have trouble saying I am flat-out against it. On the other hand, I find the concept very disturbing and I wonder if we aren't losing more than we are gaining. What's more, I recognize that it's very easy for me, as a white, middle-aged male to not be as threatened as those who would suffer most from racial profiling becoming accepted as a law-enforcement tool.

Disgusting
 

Hmmm. Sounds like racial profiling to me.

Victimhood
 

How about everybody gets checked, period? Or they have to sit in the back of the plane.

Victimhood
 

I disagree. I hate the fact that I can't say I'm absolutely opposed to it, but I have no doubt in my mind that it's wrong.

Victimhood
 

You want to have to get to the airport four hours early for a flight? You really think eighty year old women from Des Moines need to be thoroughly checked?

Victimhood
 

Actually, the whole point of racial profiling is to use knee-jerk reaction as opposed to reason. It's easier to target a whole ethnic/religious/racial/national/group than it is to use discretion and reasoning to isolate those most likely to represent a risk.

And actually, the more I read what people have to say, the more I become opposed to it. I guess my answer is yes, after all. I do oppose racial profiling. If we are going to search ten year old Arab boys and girls, then we should search Georgia Cracker grandmas.

Thanks folks, for helping me regain some pride in being an American.

Victimhood
 

What if the eighty year old woman from Des Moines is Muslim whose father and mother emigrated from Lebanon?

Victimhood
 

I think it's a waste of time, energy, and resources to concentrate on my friend Maddie, who was born in Egypt, moved here and became an American citizen twenty years ago, pays taxes, votes, contributes to the economy, is gay, drinks alcohol, eats pork and genuinely is afraid of islamo facists. Probably moreso than most people on this board, because they hate him more than they hate you.

But if making Maddie go through more rigorous screening makes you feel safer, I'm sure he won't mind.

Victimhood
 

I'm pretty sure SHP and Spanky would agreed that an Arab with a note of reference from a white person could get a pass on the screening.

Victimhood
 

To paraphrase Otter, it's a damn shame "when a few bad apples ruin a good time for us all"

Victimhood
 

So if there are hundred people entering onto a plane and six are males from Lebanon with their six wives who are wearing headscarf’s and the other eighty eight are all Caucasian Christians from Midwest - , who gets the extra search - should it be random?

Give me a break. Of course those twelve people from Lebanon may hate Islamofascists more than I do. They may even have had relatives killed by Islamofascists. But that is beside the point.

The point is probabilities. The odds that the Midwesterners are terrorists is probably one in one hundred million and the odds of the Lebanese being terrorists are one in one hundred thousand. The safety of travelers is increased when you accept that those are how the statistics work and you don't sit in denial of them.

What do you think the odds are of the next terrorist attack on an airliner being done by a person who is not a male of Middle Eastern descent? Doesn't it makes sense to keep searching all males of Middle Eastern descent. Yes you will give extra searches to a lot of innocent people, but you will be a lot safer.

Victimhood
 

Its a waste of time seraching 99.99% of the people who go through the process. But until the screeners can read minds they have to work with the resources that they have. To not use racial profiling is not using the resources that they have.