If this was “Great Debates” I would provide a cite. It isn’t. People learn more when they do their own homework.
It’s not like the information is Top Secret or anything.
Oh, sure, it’s possible - it’s also possible that that was an insinuation that I am some sort of racist, or even that j_kat him/herself believe white boys aren’t a threat. Either one of which I find offensive, quite frankly.
Um…It’s the Pit?
Seriously - this is the forum for ranting, raving, screaming, and frothing at the mouth.
And I didn’t “choose not to answer” - I answered the question. Maybe you didn’t like my answer(s), but I answered nontheless.
McVeigh was white. Johnny Walker was white. If International Terror thinks it can get better odds by sending Caucasian or Caucasian-looking people into the US, it’ll do just that. Hell, skin bleaching and minor surgery isn’t even an obstacle. If they think they can put a bomb over us by getting their operatives to resemble crippled Jewish men, they’ll do that.
Going by looks isn’t a rational way of doing things.
The defender always always always has the harder time of things. Thinking there are easy answers is stupid.
I dont’ think so. GD is not the only place where you need to back up your words. You made the claim, so back it up. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you were asked for a cite, and you should have been prepared to provide one. If the info is as easy to find as you say, you should have no problem, but the burden is on you, not j_kat.
It’s only an insinuation if you decide to take it as such - I can’t speak for anyone else, of course, but all I saw was a simple question, at which you basically exploded.
No sir, you did not answer the question. If
answers any question, I’m a three-toed sloth from Nigeria. All you did was take huge offense at a question and answered nothing.
Now, did you want to prove your point, or did you just want to be another screaming lunatic?
[By the way, “because it’s the Pit” is a cop-out excuse. You can do better.]
[quote]
[ul][li]Males were almost 9 times more likely than females to commit murder in 1999 [/li][li]Both male and female offenders are more likely to target male victims than female victims [/li][li]The offending rates for females have declined since the early 1980’s while those for males peaked in the early 1990’s and have fallen considerably since then [/ul][/li]
There’s more at the Bureau of Justice Statistics..
Random searches are just window dressing. It’s makes those who are easily soothed feel better. It won’t catch any terrorists-- not even those suspected as terrorists, detained in other countries for suspected terrorism with fuses in their sneakers.
Thanks, dan. You are correct, and also a paragon of virtue.
Now, to clear things up (after a fashion):
I had a different definition of ethnicity than this other, more aggressive guy. Something similar to number 2 here:
but without the ‘heathen’ part. Now I know better.
This kind of changes the part about the crime statistic, but now that I know never to ask someone about what they just said except in GD, I am sufficiently re-educated.
Okay that just about wraps it up. Wait: why would someone say “Jumpin’ Jiminy Crickets” and then use the word fuck in the next sentence? That’s a question for the “Christian glurge/adult jokes” thread though I guess. Yeah. All squared away, now.
Why? Because you say so? Because someone is too lazy to look it up themselves? If I was making some whacked-out extraordinary claim I could see this, but I wasn’t.
Yes. Because I found the question offensive Maybe YOU didn’t find it so, but I did.
Is it hard typing with just three digits on each paw?
Yes.
To reiterate - “random” searches are stupid. If you want to find something make the search as efficient as possible. By definition, random isn’t efficient.
Profiling by skin color is stupid because of the natural range of skin colors and the ability to modify it somewhat.
However, terrorists, hijackers, and other bad guys do have tend to have certain characteristics in common:
They’re usually male
They’re usually in a certain age range
In addition, we are in a conflict with certain groups that also have common characteristics, among them:
They’re some flavor of Muslim
They’re either from or have spent some signficant time abroad.
Therefore, it does make sense to scrutinize every male of a certain age range, with extra attention to those who are Muslim and foriegn. I happen to think that even the average Arab has some understanding that we were attacked by people who happened to look and sound like him, so pardon us if you’re innocent, but for our own safety and peace of mind we’d like to be sure - please step aside and let us look in your luggage. If you’re looking for a red-headed rapist you don’t confine your questions to brunettes. But while you’re questioning the red-head about rape, you don’t neglect the possibility you might run across a blond burgler. Which is why a white guy with the name “Mohammed” or who has spent a year studying in Kuwait should expect a little scrutiny as well.
Yes, women have been Bad Guys, too - but much less often, and usually because the men have been successfully targeted for searches - the Palestinian suicide bombers being an example. The women only got involved after the Isrealis had some success in spotting and stopping the men. In the Moscow/Chechen affair, there were women but they were the minority of the offenders, and they were (supposedly) war widows, meaning they had personal revenge motives above and beyond that of many other Chechen women.
I think that a more targeted search, with the occassional random pull-out-of-line, would be more effective than our current, politically-correct “oh, we musn’t offend anyone” approach.
I also think there’s an over-reliance on technology to solve the problem. The just-buy-a-bigger-x-ray-machine approach. And if the machine DOES detect something? What then? Search by a human being. How about we just save some bucks and have all the luggage searched by hand in the first place? Spend the money on people for a change - god knows, there’s an unemployment problem right now - instead of gizmos.
The best computerized/mechanized system will only detect what it’s programmed to detect. People, however, will recongize an anomaly that’s NOT anticipated.
After all, the Sept 11 crowd did NOT have a criminal record anywhere. They broke no laws prior to Sept 11. They didn’t fit the standard profile - but there WERE people who noticed something odd in Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota. They were, however, ignored, except in the case of Mossasui in Minnesota. If more attention had been paid to the “hey, there’s something WRONG here” feeling then history might have unfolded differently. And it’s people who spotted that, not a computer program or a random search,.
Because I am weird, and because I do not swear by the name of any god unless I mean it. Therefore, you might hear me say “Jumping Jiminy Crickets!” but you won’t hear “Jesus H. Christ!”
Maybe by now you might be concluding that I am not the typical white-bread suburban-raised American. In which case you’d be correct.
When at University in Scotland, I travelled back to NI about 12 times a year (at holidays and suchlike). During my time I was singled out for searches and made to sign Prevention of Terrorism forms (giving reasons for travel, personal information etc…) approx. 20 times in 5 years.
On ALL occasions I was stopped, it was a day (well, week) in which I hadn’t bothered to shave and was generally dressed in my student chic. (OK, like a scruffy git).
So the guys at the airport decided that terrorists must be scruffy and uncouth, and they’d be the ones carrying the bombs and guns. Great profiling strategy!
All the while I was being held, filling in forms and being subjected to searches, all the real terrorists just breezed by with their Saville Row suits and leather attaché cases.
You bet your ass it is. I keep having to bakcspace.
I knew you had a point, Broomstick, and I had an inkling it was a darn good one, but it just seems to me that it’s better to make the point clearly than to not to. Thanks for clarifying. [For me, it’s not that ranting and raving is bad, but when you’re trying to make a point, it clouds the effect that your point would have on people - and, sadly, it often (but not always) leads directly to personal attacks.]