When will it stop?

There are daily incidents like this. It won't stop. Once a group is demonized, it is always demonized. There are many people who are still paranoid about communism after the 1950s demonizations, despite that we import a huge proportion of our manufactured goods from a nation (China) that is nominally "communist" (albeit more a hybrid of capitalism and totalitarianism).

The regular folks working at TSA have bought the koolaid that "all Muslims are terrorists", as have those in other branches of law enforcement at local, state and federal levels, and the media have as much as reinforced the paranoia.

They tried to blame them for Oklahoma City: The media was spouting "middle eastern terrorists" right from the get go, then Tim McVeigh got himself arrested and spoiled the party. Without McVeigh, anyone could have gotten fingered for that one.

Problem, reaction, solution. Cui Bono? Correct answer is politically incorrect. One guess?

The real question is: When will it begin? . These people were not racially profiled. They were overheard talking about airport security. And yes, that--along their obviously muslim appearance and dress--added up to a misunderstanding. Can you blame the passengers? Did the FBI do something wrong? If you saw a group of muslims talking about airport security on your plane, you wouldn't report it immediately?

Of course, we should be taking appearance into consideration. Young muslim men should be paid more attention to, because that's who attacked us (unless you're sammi jo, that is...then it was a Bush conspiracy).

Talking about the safest place to sit on a plane does not equal "talking about airport security", and a muslim family does not equal "young muslim men."

So, yes, they were profiled, since their sole indiscretion was "being muslim."

So what you really want to say is that being muslim is sufficiently suspicious enough to warrant being pulled off an airplane and refused another flight, even after the FBI clears you, which is a fucking bit more than a "misunderstanding."

This kind of causal shifting of terms is exactly where the problem lies; a reasonable response to the threat of terrorism in a nominally free society requires more, not less, precision. It's the same kind of self-defeating logic that turns everyone that would oppose our foreign entanglements into "terrorists."

Allowing Muslim folks to get herded about every time some random asshole gets spooked doesn't make air travel safer. It's as simple as that. The only way this makes sense is if you figure the rights of Muslim people are trumped by the need to assuage the fear of any given group of "normal Americans." This is antithetical to the entire idea of normative civil liberties and equality under the law, which of course makes it attractive to the kind of self professed patriots who despise those things.

If "assuaging fear" is the standard, then we could reasonably deny young black men entry into places of business, if it makes the nice white lady nervous. You, SDW, could of course cite the incidence of violent crime among young black men, and sagely observe that therefore throwing a black family out of Target because they were overheard talking about a robbery would in no way constitute racial profiling, because it's not profiling if the people being scrutinized can fairly be described as collectively bad.

I guess its illegal for muslim people to talk about airport security? Here's a solution for SDW2001, "Mr. Authoritarianism Appeaser": Let's arrest all muslim men anyway: they must at some point or other have thoughts about airport security. Those terrorist thoughts must go through these peoples' heads all the time. You know, all these thousands of Al Qaida sleeper cells that the Bush Administration was terrorizing us, er.... informing the American people about back in 2001 and 2002. Those evil guys who were waiting for the go ahead from the Bearded One In The Cave® to do all those nefarious bombings in malls, theaters and sports stadiums which the media kept terrorizing us about, er.... um... informing us about. Them Muzzies probably talk about airport security in their homes as well. That means they must be planning terrorist attacks, surely. Isn't that what muslim men do? Jihad! Martyr! Hijack! Bomb! How about we just round up every muslim person and send them to KBR's "immigration emergency camps"? They can talk about airport security there without endangering anyone to their hearts' content and provide a pool of slave labor so we don't have to import so much stuff from our Communist buddies in China.....


Prove it! I don't know who attacked us. I have never accused the "Bush Administration" of doing it, so don't keep misrepresenting me, SDW2001. However, I have wondered why they refused to investigate for 441 days, and then with great reluctance and uncooperation. Then, the so-called 9/11 Commission (charged with "investigating") was deliberately "nobbled" by its executive director Philip Zelikow, according to the two Commission co-chairs Kean and Hamilton, who said the Commission was "set up to fail". Just one of 100s of things that the Administration did (or did not do) that are utterly uncharacteristic of a government's expected reaction in the wake of a genuine attack on our country.




Actually, Saddam Hussein did it. Thats what Cheney keeps saying. And that's what the troops in Iraq were told...

Yeah SDW, Flying While Muslim is the new Driving While Black.

I love that the air marshal acted like "Where's the safest part of a plane?" is equivalent to "Where should a stash this ticking suitcase?" Honestly, who in the fuck would be worried about safety when they were planning on dying on that very plane?

A lack of intelligence and just plain ignorance are destroying this country. Not just because of cases like this, but more importantly the average American seems to not care one bit about understanding. And by understanding I mean any and all subjects, not just this particular one.

I bet stuff like this used to happen to suspicious Irish-looking whites when the IRA was bombing ... Seriously, there's no vast right-wing conspiracy. Even so, the world isn't perfect and no honest person should expect it to be. Things like this will happen. Guess what? There are greater injustices to worry about.

I bet they would if they were carrying on about airline security while on a plane departing from Reagan National in DC. Also, in the world of math (probability) Timothy McVeigh is what we call an outlier. The universe is largely understood by probability, in fact. Simply put, you can go all around the world and I guarantee you'll be hard pressed to find many white guys hiding in rural areas, torturing prisoners, burning houses of worship, and declaring jihad on the great satan. Yet we can read the news every day and find dozens of new examples of islamic extremists doing just these things.

Our brains are great at instinctively understanding probability and also noticing things that don't fit into their surroundings. Generalization is inevitable, and its something we have to live with. Moreover, generalization is obviously a trait that has evolved for a long time and has been important to our survival as a race, evidenced by the fact that we're so damn good at it.

You also have to consider the specific situation. Muslims get on US flights all the time, and this kind of thing happens only like once every three years. This family flew out of washington dc, which is pretty much the second or third most sought after target in the world for terrorism, and they were almost certainly not being discreet about their beliefs (they were going to a religious conference). Yes, there's freedom of expression, but they failed the common sense test. It's also in a person's right to be able to walk through certain parts of San Francisco with anti-gay posters or to walk through certain parts of LA with white pride posters. It is not, however, advisable to do either. In the past, people who didn't get this ended up as dog meat and would never have the chance to pass on their common-sense-free genes. Now, though, we have this complete inversion of sensibility. Maybe it's divine justice. Maybe the secular west deserves to suffer from terrorism until it finally regains a shred of common sense.

I don't even know where to begin with spliney...

I don't know if it is the largely irrelevant turn to statistics which he gets wrong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesti..._United_States) or perhaps his blaming the victim for being too obvious in their appearance as muslims (religious tolerance be damned), or perhaps by his justification of his entire position on free speech by a combined hypothetical eugenics solution to some unspoken something.

wow, spliney... you really outdid the local buffoonery...

How come wondering aloud where the safest place is to sit on a plane keeps turning into carrying on about airport security?

Stupidity. Plain old willfully negligent stupidity. They weren't born that way, it's self inflicted.

Man awarded $240,000 in T-shirt incident.

Good. Lord.

But it's not yet April 1. Almost not believable. In the U.S of A. post 9/11. Could we be returning towards a semblance of sanity, or is this a freak event in the seemingly inexorable gallop towards dystopia?

When I saw this story, I almost choked on my coffee. Then tears rolled down my face. A tiny little victory for freedom and civilization. A happy little sparkle in an ocean of sadness and evil. A slap on the wrists for the neocons, indeed.

Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
Homeland Security Subcommittee Hearing
On The DHS Fiscal Year 2009 Budget
March 4, 2008

Do you live in a Constitution-Free Zone?



THIS was never meant to be a government handbook.