The [Security] Problem at the Airports

[Typhoon1244]

This is so good, I thought it needed to live on it's own thread...

From Bill Maher's When You Ride ALONE, You Ride With bin Laden:
...Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has insisted that we must heed the lessons of the 40s Japanese internment in not resorting to racial or ethnic profiling in our airports. When asked on 60 Minutes whether a 70-year-old woman from Vero Beach would receive the same level of scrutiny as a Muslim young man from Jersey City, he replied, "I would hope so," proving that the first casualty of war is common sense. "Passengers should find all the evidence of equal inspection reassuring," Mineta said.

Reassuring? It's reassuring to know that the people guarding our jugular have decided on a policy of suspending human judgement? Actually, having robots and nitwits check everyone equally is a sure recipe for disaster. It's a mindless, exploitable system of window dressing and posturing; it's procedure-bound automatons following proscribed guidelines by rote. It's randomness when we need focus. It's heads up asses instead of heads up.

Somewhere along the line we became this oversensetive victim culture where it is assumed that no one is ever supposed to get physically or emotionally hurt. We can't approach or question anyone about anything for fear of hurting their feelings, making them self-conscious, and ultimately becoming the defendant in their discrimination lawsuit. Remember, we're not talking about beating young Middle Eastern men with rubber hoses or placing Arab American families into internment camps. We're asking them to perhaps endure a few extra questions at the baggage check-in line so that we can all get back to the days when the most life-threatening thing on a plane was the Chicken Kiev.

We've been brainwashed into believing that it's a sin to discriminate. But discrimination doesn't mean racism; it means telling unlike things apart. Iowa grandpas and nine-year-old girls from Ohio are simply not looking to visit "a painful chastisement upon the Western infidels." "Profiling," like "discrimination," has become a bad word, even though all police work is based on it, as it must be. If we stopped calling it profiling and started calling it "proactive intelligence screening" or "high-alert detecting," people would be saying, "Well, it's about time."

Now I know what somebody's going to say. "This is the guy who called our service-men and -women 'cowards!'" No, he didn't...but even if he did, they fired the host of a show called Politically Incorrect for saying something politically incorrect? And then to top it off, Ari Fleischer told us "Americans need to watch what they say...?"

Where is that written in the Constitution?

(Go get a copy of When You Ride ALONE.... Trust me, you'll like it, even you conservatives.)

 

[chawbein]

That is the first thing I have ever heard (or read) by Bill Maher that makes even the least bit of sense.

The arguement is too logical though. Liberals can't use logic, it would make them question their whole belief system. They have to "feel good" about it. Too Bad.

 

[ifly4food]

It's extremely disheartening to see our once great society continue to sink to the level of politically correct, talk about your feelings weenies we have become.

What would Roosevelt think of this security plan?

 

[chawbein]

I think Roosevelt would've stood his crippled ass up and mooned the whole congress while at the same time locking up every muslim in the country.

Roosevelt was the closest thing the U.S. of A has had to a dictator. We are still trying to undo the damage he did to our govt.

 

[flywithastick]

It's extremely disheartening to see our once great society continue to sink to the level of politically correct, talk about your feelings weenies we have become.

Political correctness is the *greatest threat* to this country today. I really believe, if allowed to continue at present reates of escallation, political correctness will tear this country apart within 20 yrs.

 

[mar]

Hey! I like chicken kiev!

Maher cracks me up. Another Maher-ism that I really appreciate is: "Why does everyone have to do everything?" (With respect to gay kids in the Boy Scouts--or was it atheist kids in the Boy Scouts? I can't remember.)

At any rate, flying on an airliner is a privilege and not a right.

Not only that but, as unreasonable as it seems, we as Americans of any color or creed have lost certain freedoms as the price for certain securities--or protections. The Patriot Act is a supreme example.

Profiling is a useful tool of law enforcement but sometimes it's abused when the authorities are looking for a specific suspect and they use a "profile" as a shortcut to find their guy--any guy.

In the airport terminal the "security" guys are rarely looking for someone specific (if they are, I'm sure the feds are right there with them).

Believe it or not I'm trying to make a point and the point is:

Leave grandma alone in the wheelchair and strip search the goofy looking guy with the wild hair and crazy glint in his crooked eyes and a fuse hanging out of his shoe.

Liberals don't like profiling in law enforcement because it's been abused. That doesn't mean it's not a useful technique.

The current technique is useless and I think any rational person, liberal or conservative, can see that.

Thanks for listening.

 

[flywithastick]

Re: Hey! I like chicken kiev!

Liberals don't like profiling in law enforcement because it's been abused. That doesn't mean it's not a useful technique.

I believe you're right when talking about the philosophically consistent leftists of the '60s. Todays pop culture, leftist utopians seem to be more concerned about hurting someone's feelings. It's all about "how they feel", hence the label feel-good liberal.

my 2¢

 

[mar]

"Mama don't let them drop the bomb..."

Apologies to Roger Waters.

I agree with you Flywithastick, it's a dangerous world out there and we're bound to get hurt every now and then.

But as my dad used to tell me, "Suffering builds character."

I think it's been a long time since Americans have really suffered so now whenever we get our little feathers in a ruffle we scream, THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

Sometimes life can be a little outrageous. So what?

"Get over yourself"

Who said that? Oh yeah. Bill Maher.

 

[flywithastick]

Yea, I think Maher got shafted. I'm pretty conservative and I didn't see a whole lot wrong with what he said. I support his right to speak his mind wholeheartedly.

 

[Timebuilder]

As my Hindu friends might say, Holy Cow!

I think I too have just seen the first Bill Maher words with which I agree. And Typhoon and Mar and I are on the same page.

Wow.

they fired the host of a show called Politically Incorrect for saying something politically incorrect? And then to top it off, Ari Fleischer told us "Americans need to watch what they say...?"

I think Bill was fired for showing what most folks in broadcasting would consider a monumental lack of judgement.

When Ari Fleischer, or anyone else suggests that we should "watch what we say", it is a harkening back to the familiar phrase out of WWII: "loose lips sink ships".

This phrase does not always have a tie to espionage, but is an encouragement to show some better judgement than Mr. Maher showed with his comments. As an experiment, try sharing the positive attributes of Osama Bin Laden with the security personnell before boarding your next flight. Hint: don't get a hotel reservation that you can't cancel at your destination.

This judgement which should have been obivous to Mr. Maher is akin to knowing when a full search is necessary at an airport. It would require sensible thought, and the ability to correctly discriminate, an ability which is necessary for life itself.

 

[Salty Dog]

All part of the continued wussification of America.

Sad - and WRONG!

 

[Typhoon1244]

I don't know where you all got the idea Maher is a hard-core liberal...unless it's the whole drug legalization thing, but he makes some valid points about that, too. America's government should be spending more time and money trying to defend us from outside aggression, and less time and money trying to defend us from ourselves (marijuana use, assisted suicide, etc.). One of the "war posters" in his book is a double image. On the bottom is shows Dr. Kevorkian tending to an elderly man who has decided to call it quits. The top shows an American 767 an instant away from soaring into the World Trade Center. The poster reads, "Which suicide are you worried about?"

From Bill Maher's When you ride ALONE...
Why are decent citizens still being jailed for smoking the wrong plant, easing the suffering of the terminally ill, or accepting cash for sex instead of the customary dinner and drinks?

A very liberal point of view, but the larger theme of Maher's book is this: if the "War on Terrorism" is indeed a war, let's start treating it like one!

You don't win a war by arguing about affirmative action and term limits. You don't even win it by sticking Old Glory on your car. (Another poster: "Put a flag on your car...it's literally the least you can do. Empty gestures don't win wars!")

If we're going to treat this struggle like a war and win it, we're going to have to make sacrifices...just like our grandparents did during the early forties. Some of our basic freedoms may be curtailed. We may have to park our gas-guzzling SUV's.

Maher points out John Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon in ten years. We did it, with time to spare. He suggests that if a president who actually had so gonads challenged us to end our dependence on Middle Eastern oil in ten years, we could probably do that, too...but it might actually take some hard work, and Americans don't like that anymore.

One thing is for sure, though; we won't beat bin Laden by making ourselves feel good!

 

[Typhoon1244]

By the way, just so you know, I didn't like Bill Maher until I read this book. Give it a try!