Why I can never vote Republican ever again

I was watching Fox News this morning, and they were talking about racial profiling for terrorists. One of the interviewees was advocating profiling Muslims to improve the yield of security measures. For a while, it was a very reasonable discussion. Arguments about slippery slopes and non-Arabic Muslims, echoing of Manzanar and Japanese internment camps, versus efficiency and efficacy of our current national security model.

Then, one of the interviewees said by far the dumbest thing anyone has ever said in the history of the spoken word, since caveman first grunted to another caveman. I'm paraphrasing: Look at Israel. They are surrounded by Muslim nations, and they have used profiling very successfully to manage threats to their security. They should be our model for how to deal with terrorism.

So, here are as many problems with that statement as I can come up with in 10 minutes: (1) Israel still has terrorist attacks on a nearly daily basis. (2) Profiling is easy when you profile everyone. They are SURROUNDED by Muslims. It's not like they're picking a couple people out. (3) You can't profile the fastest growing religion in the world. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. There have been Filipino Islamic terrorists for decades. And what about Chechnya? They're fucking WHITE. How are you gonna profile WHITE? (4) Do we really want to use Israel as a model for Middle East relations? Really? Because they get along with their neighbors sooooo well. (5) Profiling will only enrage more people. Has profiling blacks done anything except piss off a lot of black people? I guess it also makes white people feel better. (6) Israel is a model for terrible security decisions. They continually aggravate and irritate, rather than try to address the root causes of terrorism.

Okay, that's all I can do in ten minutes. I really should learn to keep flipping past Fox News.

1 comment:

Ben said...

Watching Fox and thinking you're informed is like reading Biology for Dummies and thinking you've got a medical education.