Profiling III...The Elaboration

Okay, for those of you who haven't been paying attention, the running conversation has been about racial profiling. The reason why this has taken up multiple posts? Well, my buddy Justin, who is usually very sympathetic with my rants, has been making some decent counterpoints that have caused me to further explain my bleeding-heart-liberal tirade. Sure, I could just post follow-up comments, but I don't think everyone reads those, and I think these are some good points to cover in the main blog.

I think the main issue here is that I'm not making my point clearly enough, so it's easily misunderstood. There have been places in my two previous posts where people might think I'm saying that we should totally ignore the fact that militant Islamic groups have committed more severe and simply more terrorist attacks than any other ethnic group in recent history. Well, I'm not saying that at all. Like I said in my last post, I don't think we should be cowed by the PC police either. To treat somebody differently from anyone else because you fear public retribution from the politically-correct watchdogs is reverse racism, and it's not any better than just plain old racism. I do, however, feel a lot of sympathy for the innocent people that have to deal with all the backlash generated by the actions of the crazed members of their ethnic group.

Look, I'm not saying that we should just let Mamoud, Fahid, and Ahmed walk through the beeping metal detector unmolested while we strip search Grandma, John, and Jim-Bob; that's foolish. But I am saying that the exact reverse of that is racist and equally foolish. Islamic terror groups have sent out pleas for sympathetic westerners to join them and help carry out attacks because they know this kind of behavior is going on. So, if I hear one more well-to-do white man bitching about being held up an extra hour or two at the airport while we ensure, not only his safety, but the safety of everyone else on his flight, I'm going to punch him in the face! I am not a criminal. I will gladly let security check my luggage and me before I get on an "airborne missile, complete with a human payload and a thousand pounds of jet fuel" (isn't "airborne" implied in "missile"?).

And yes, while some sort of x-ray device that everyone walked through like in Total Recall would help, people can get pretty inventive when they have a goal in mind. I'm sure a resourceful terrorist group could figure out how to carry out an attack with very little carry-on accoutrements. A sort of "MacGyver Jihad" if you will. I think the only effective technological tool would be a device that can sense resolved malintent. Or perhaps we can station some Care Bears in airports to vanquish the hate from terrorist hearts.

If only we lived in a fantasy world...