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You Have Been 'Randomly' Selected?
dpbsmith asks: "One thing I've noticed is that the people who are told by the TSA that they have been 'randomly' selected for baggage inspection have a tendency not to believe it. I know one couple whose wife has been 'randomly' selected four times, while the husband never has been. The wife believes that it is because each of those times, she was traveling by herself, without checked baggage, (whereas she has never been inspected when traveling with her husband with checked baggage). In 'Uncommon Carriers', John McPhee accompanied a truck driver to write about the experience, and bought a trucker's cap to blend in. He says 'I would pay for my freedom at the Seattle-Tacoma airport when, with a one-way ticket bought the previous day, I would arrive to check in my baggage.' His baggage was 'randomly' selected for inspection, and later he was 'once again "randomly selected" for a shoes-off, belt-rolled, head-to-toe frisk.' So, what about it? Is the TSA simply flat-out lying when they tell you that you have been 'randomly selected?'" The better question to ask is: "Are random searches effective in keeping everyone safe?"
Hmm let's see, there are hundreds of thousands of arabic muslims that hate us and have joined terrorists organizations and ummmm...well 1 white guy from the US that was just on that tape, plus Timothy McVey if you really consider that terrorism. So with a white, american businessman and an arabic, non-US citizen standing next to each other, it's a more fair, safe, and effective to just flip a coin and let that decide which one gets searched. If that's racism then I'm Bill Gates...and I'm not.
As for innocent Arabs that constantly get stopped at our airports I say, **** happens and they should just live with it.If a guy matching my description robbed a store and ran towards an airport that I was in, I'd be disappointed if the police DIDN'T stop me and question me and I wouldn't start whine about them being racist against blond haired, 5'11" people or whatever. If a computer programmer in my town was suspected of stealing a computer, I wouldn't have a problem with them coming to question or search me just because I'm one too. If someone in any group that you belong to does something bad that makes people suspect you of something then it's not racism, it's life, deal with it.
now stop reading and go play Dance Dance Revolution!
> However, the same cannot be said of religion.
Indeed, Christians have a very long history of atrocities, conquest, genocide, repression,
and the list goes on. Even the US President talked about a crusade after the 9/11 atrocity.
> How a person behaves is strongly influenced by their culture. Unfortunately, in many parts of
> the world, intolerant and short-sighted religious beliefs are a significant contributor to
> culture.
Indeed! Many would include USA.
This profiling reminds me more of racism than anything.
Indeed, Christians have a very long history of atrocities, conquest, genocide, repression, and the list goes on.
Inconsequiential to anything going on today. I'd suggest "Christians" have learned their lessons over time. Sure, there's probably been bad stuff perperated by "christians" in the name of Christianity in the 20th century but I think it's rare.
The followers of Islam, on the other hand, have learned nothing about the progression of society over time. In fact, their stated goal is to return to their glory days of the 12th and 13th century.
I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
Don't let muslims fly. There problem solved. There are plenty of buses, trains, and boats going to places. If they must travel they can take one of those. There profiling problem solved.
Since an overwhelming majority of terrorist acts are caused by muslims keeping them out of the air makes perfect since. I read where one jewish airline is doing just this. The number of terrorist incidents are now at zero for them.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
"What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us...
This is - IMHO - means violent retribution against anyone involved, their friends, their families, their countries, their religious centers, etc. ( Remember the couple of sentences in The Usual Suspects about the history of Kaiser Soze? I don't recall exactly, but it was something like: "...he killed their friends, he killed their families, he killed people who owed them money..." )
After the 9/11 attacks, we only clobbered the Taliban. Since it was clearly an Islamic oriented attack, backed by numerous Muslims in a handful of countries, we should have nuked Medina ( the second most important Muslim city ), followed by an announcement that if something like that were to happen again, Mecca ( the most important city ) would be next.
For those of us who like to consider ourselves civilized, this may seem a bit shocking. But it works. The people who are part of that culture know this. The crowning example is Assad, the ruler of Syria, and the city of Hama.
Hama was the third largest city in Syria, and was the Syrian headquarters to a Islamist movement called the Muslim Brotherhood which sought to overthow Assad. In the 70's they killed several hundred people in car bomb attacks, and in 1980 tried to assasinate Assad. In 1982 Assad had finally had enough. He ordered the army to surround the city, and then to begin shelling it. Tanks, and poison gas were used also. After two weeks, the death toll was between 20 and 40,000 people.
That was 24 years ago, and the Brotherhood has not made another serious attempt to interfere with the government of Syria. Assad is still in charge.
He is not a good man, and I do not admire him, but I give him credit for one thing: he knows what works in his culture.
Like the Germans, French and Spanish did. That worked out really well for them, didn't it?
Protip: when trying to make a point about appeasement, try to pick events where people were appeasing and then were attacked anyway, rather than cases where they were attacked and then chose to withdraw their forces from the middle east due to the attack.
In the meantime, when you're done killing all the Muslims to make sure that none of them can kill us, get to work on Republicans and NRA members like Timothy McVeigh, in case they try again. While you're at it, better gas some Christians too, just to be on the safe side.
When you're the only person left on the planet, you better kill yourself, just in case you attempt suicide.
Typical USofA attitude.. There are two countries on the planet, USA and the rest. See, that's what's getting you in trouble.
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.