I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view

I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view

maybe he needs to stand in that line to which he refers.

As the poster above implied when he talked about his Filipina girlfriend, it can be VERY difficult to distinguish people of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent from other similar-appearing people with completely different ethnic origins. Case in point:

I sing with a group which tours from time to time. In 1988, well before 9/11, well before even the FIRST Iraq war, but after Munich and Lockerbie and other hijacking incidents. We toured Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Italy. To get from Yugoslavia to Italy proper, we sailed across the Adriatic on an Italian ferry ship. We crossed from Yugoslavia into Italy at Trieste, Italy, then across the Adriatic from there.

We were all on a bus. The tour coordinator seated at the front of the bus had a manifest with all our names, and we had just passed our passports to her as we pulled into Trieste.

The Trieste port authorities boarded the bus, glanced at the manifest, which stated that we were a touring choir, where we had been and where we had sung, and where we were going to in Italy (Venice, va bene!) They also just glanced us all over. They spotted Arnold, one of our singers, and of Mexican heritage although a U.S. citizen whose family had also been in the U.S. for several generations. We also had two other members of Mexican descent with Hispanic names, but Arnold was the only “swarthy” member of our group. (Also a member was black but they didn’t care about him.)

They pulled Arnold off the bus, despite the fact that his last name was Hispanic, NOT Arabic, NOT southern Asian of any stripe. But just because he was “swarthy”. They questioned him for some time, and finally let him back on the bus, and waved us through. No one else on the bus was pulled off or questioned in any way. And how much more harmless can you get than a touring choir, for God’s sake?

I was really steamed for Arnold’s sake and said so to him. He just shrugged it off. He was obviously used to being hassled, as in DWB, “driving while brown”. But this attention to him wasted our time and that of the port authorities.

I also remind you that one of the suicide attacks against airlines in the 80s (I believe the Lockerbie incident), the suicide bomber was an IRISH woman enamored of an Arabic man, who smuggled the explosives on board in her vagina. So Peter King’s “profiling” wouldn’t have picked her up, would it?

To the person who suggested the “bacon test”, the trouble with that idea is that Orthodox, Conservative, Hassidic Jews, etc., also don’t eat pork products. Not to mention vegetarians regardless of religious belief or lack thereof.

Profiles of behavior have been developed. Much more sensible to apply those, to require secure cargo containers, etc., then to engage in useless profiling simply based upon one’s presumptive ethnicity.

racial & religious profiling – despite being illegal – is like giving a terrorist a roadmap to defeating any security procedure.

we already know they have many recruits who don’t fit the profile.

if you want good security, you apply the same procedure to ALL people.

The US Constitution is in tatters. The US government sanctions torture. The US government wiretaps without warrants and tracks our phone calls.

Are we supposed to get upset by racial profiling at airports? We can direct our energies to more pressing matters.

The term political correctness is treated like it’s a neutral term, although it’s really mostly a way of disparaging ideas. I mean, people hardly ever identify themselves as “politically correct” except to put themselves down. No, “politically correct” is almost always a reaction; it’s a put down, it’s what OTHER people are.

When you hear a politician say the words political correctness, it’s shorthand for “this is how an oversensitive elite who are out of the mainstream are attacking our sensible thinking, but sensible people like you and me know otherwise” A politician claiming to stand up to political correctness is establishing a group for his listeners to be threatened by, and identifying himself with “normal people” (the listeners).

Conversely, self proclaimed “politically INcorrect” folks use the term as if they’re being irreverent, or have an outrageous minority opinion and are being really brave for voicing it. Now, in some cases, they actually are being bold for going against a popularly held but unsustantiated opinion, but very often it’s a way of disparaging the people who they know will disagree with them, by implying they’re extremists or cowards for not standing up to the elite. Calling something PC very often is a way of introducing a stupid, unenlightened idea, like Rep. King’s, and saying that everybody who disagrees is doing it because they’re chicken.

While I can see that what you’re saying has merit, I have to disagree with it. Why? Because what you said gives credence to the idea that the Constitution somehow “gives” us these rights.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. And one more for good measure – wrong!

The Constitution merely acknowledges that these rights are given to us – and every human being – by default. Whether or not a persons particular government acknowledges it – and notwithstanding the peoples acceptance of a lack thereof.

But I’ll say it again. The Constitution doesn’t “give” us a damn thing. It proclaims to the world that we stand as a people who refuse to settle for anything less than complete government acknowledgment our freedoms. The fact that we allow the government to take them away now is a shameful reminder of how abhorrently weak the people of this nation are.

If that does not sicken you, I beg you to find another country to occupy.

I feel better now. I’m going to go hunt down a funamentalist and start an argument.

You are right.

Oh wait.

I guess they’re afraid to profile LEGITIMATE threats, because they NEED another attack to maintain their unproven argument that they’re BETTER(?) at keeping us safe. BULLSHIT.

Hey, why not simply add bomb-proof cargo boxes?

Oh yea, that might ACTUALLY be effective, and not likely to create the sense of fear so necessary to control the weak minded among us.

JUST LIKE HITLER DID to his people!