:rolleyes:
McVeigh is usually brought up in the context of domestic terrorism, homeland security, etc. When talking about domestic issues, and US “homeland” security, the United States borders are hardly “arbitrary lines.”
You’re quite correct, of course, in the context of terrorists attacks on American soil (although the '93 WTC attack fizzled, it was an attempt to do a lot more damage than was done, maybe it should count too). Not speaking for the OP, I’m not even sure if I agree with him (that McVeigh is a moot point), but I think he’s saying that overall, worldwide, one terrorist attack by a white American is an aberration compared with the number of terrorist attacks made by Muslim extremists, and on that point he’s right.
Well, yeah, I’ll agree with that. But how often is McVeigh brought up when non-domestic terrorism is being discussed?
Okay, you know what? I’m fucking sick of this.
What the fuck does “the exception that proves the rule” mean?
Every time I hear it, it’s used to justify facts that are in direct felching opposition to whatever statement has just been made. “Most terrorists are Muslim bombers- Tim McVeigh is the exception that proves the rule.”
To quote P. J. O’Rourke, “What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck?”
Is this some sort of logical law? That any statement of truth cannot be true unless exactly one exception can be found to ‘prove’ it? Or that, given any statement A, any statement which completely coprophilingly contradicts statement A therefore proves statement A?
The closest one can come to “the exception that proves the rule” is to state an exception which therefore reinforces what the original rule was. “Parking permitted here on Saturday” reinforces (and helps prove the existence of) the rule “Parking not permitted here.”
Saying “Terrorists are Muslims” and then “Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist” is statement and proof only in some counter-fucking Bizzarro world where Diogenes talks about how much he loves the Bush Administration, Liberal posts about his support for the glorious Communist rebellion, and elucidator makes insightful, fact-laden posts that are dull and dreary in form are verbiage.
“form and verbiage.” Fuck.
Sure, I remember during the 70’s and 80’s when all those flag waving American terrorist hijacked planes, threw crippled old men overboard into the sea, murdered members of the Israel olympic team in Munich, and of course we’ve had all those suicide bombings in Idaho. Don’t forget all those things being down by Swedes, Welshman, Japanese, and Canadians.
It makes sense to focus some of our scrutiny on people who come from Muslim nations like Saudi-Arabia. It’s silly to pretend otherwise. Just like we should keep track of people who might be likely to use violence against gay bars or abortion clinics.
Marc
But then most of the attacks by muslim extremists by a very large number have not happened on American soil. Why should we worry?
It means that a statistical abberation implies a statistical norm; e.g., if 1% of of terrorists are American, then 99% are not.
“That exception is the only or one of the only exceptions brought up as a counter example to contradict a proposition, therefore the proposition is usually true because there number of counter examples is small.”
Or something like that. I think. I don’t like expression either.
So we would be better served by sticking to known extremist groups than by harassing every arab we see boarding a train or every person we see leaving a church.
Umm… But McVeigh is often brought up to support exactly what you’re arguing here; that Arabs shouldn’t be the only people that should be scrutinized.
My understanding of the aphorism “The exception that proves the rule” is that a change in the definition of ‘prove’ has resulted in a misunderstanding:
An archaic meaning of ‘prove’ is ‘test’ (e.g., missle proving grounds). So the original meaning of the aphorism was that an exception called the rule into question (without, I suppose, necessarily showing it to be false). But the modern meaning of ‘prove’ makes the aphorism sound like it’s saying an exception verifies a rule.
Cecil’s column: What’s the meaning of the expression, “That’s the exception that proves the rule?”
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_201.html
I like my interpretation of it better than I like Cecil’s, although he touched on mine (talking about induction) with his quasi-concession at the end of his article.
Tim McVeigh is the exception that proves the rule. And he proves the rule wrong. That’s why he’s still relevent to any debate on terrorism.
The 70’s? I don’t know about the Swedes, Welshmen and Canadians, but I sure do know about Japanese, Irish, Germans, French, Spanish, Italians, etc… It was the era of leftist extremism. People were worried about the Rote Armee Fraktion, the IRA, the Brigate Rosso way more than about muslim extremism.
A related reason for bringing him up is the “you can’t tell who’s going to commit terrorism” argument in that even if you posit that Muslim men of certain ages are most likely to commit terrorism, you can’t necessarily identify them at a glance. Here’s a photo gallery… Check out the poor Brazilian guy, Jean Charles de Menezes, who got killed for being “Muslim-looking” and running from plainclothes cops in the subway recently. How about John Walker Lindh (aka "the American Taliban) who was fighting in Afghanistan and trained with al-Qaeda? He’s a white boy born and raised in California. (Yes, he’s got quite the beard there, but the 911 hijackers were pretty clean shaven. Lindh didn’t have to try to hide among Americans in his situation.) How about Jose Padilla, a former gang member from Chicago who converted to Islam, and was reportedly scoping sites around Chicago for al-Qaeda bombing? Richard Reid, aka “the shoe bomber,” had a (white) English mother and Jamaican father.
There are more female suicide bombers now as well, including the Chechen women who took down those two planes, and the female terrorists who helped raid a school and hold/kill hostages.
Go ahead and screen on the basis of “looks ‘Muslim’, male, young to early middle age,” but these examples show that this isn’t reliable. We need random screening as well.
Hmm, I would have thought you would have liked this part:
If only we had better intelligence that could link individuals to such groups. It’s silly for authorities to treat a 52 year old woman from the midwest exactly the same as a 25 year old man from Saudi Arabia. Of the two the man from Arabia is more likely to pose a threat.
Marc
I agree. And I don’t want anyone bringing up the Unabomber, the Olympic bomber, and the Anthrax guys either! How the heck are we going to be able to racially profile when there are 200 million white folk walking around?