Buffed, of course Prohibition was an abomination and it stamped out one of our rights for a couple of decades. That's the point; you can't let reactionism into government or we lose parts of our freedoms. If you don't protect the rights of the least and worst of us, the rights of the rest are forfeit. Sounds trite, yeah, but I watched the news tonight about some poor 50-60 yr. old Sikh Indian-American who was badly beaten. Crowd broke quite a few bones in his face and he still can't see properly. Jeez, they thought he was apparently some supporter of Osama because he wore a turban. Nice job of profiling there; wrong nationality, wrong religion, but certainly racism at it's finest!

off course racism which results in injury or death is bad. in the case of terrorism it is evident that the vast majority of them are of arab decent. what is wrong about the government looking into their backgrounds a little deeper than normal? or taking some precautions about letting arabs in the country. of course not every arab is a terrorist but most terrorist are arab (the ones that we are fighting now). at some point to security of the masses must out way some of the rights of arabs entering the country. this is the type of "racism" , if that is what you want to call it, that i agree with.

I understand that you are trying to suggest caution. Personally, I believe that the terrorists are thinking ahead of the curve on this one and will not try to enter the country legally in the future. We have large, minimally protected borders to our north and south plus a heck of a lot of beaches on both coasts. We might do more good watching the fishermen on the St. Lawrence River as they maneuver back and forth from Canada or take a closer look at the Mexicans that routinely head across the Rio Grande after dark. If I was a terrorist, I would not care about proper credentials, just about getting ashore.

BLAH blah blah, Don't fly in a plane if you don't like it..............I guess you forgot what happened in Sept of 2001.........

here is what happens when cowards are afraid to fight a war...............
French Military Victories

It is unfair but its what happens when something like what happened on Sept 11th happens. I dont care if a group of Middle East men fly across the country to teach preschoolers and participate in peace rallys...people are going to be paranoid with a group of middle eastern men on the plane, especially if they are walking around, in and out of the bathroom with bags etc etc. People never forget. Get bit by two pitbulls and all of a sudden you have reservations, suspicions and are paranoid around pitbulls. Sucks but its human nature to a certain extent.

I'm black and I'm as paranoid sometimes in the hoods of my own city around my own people as I am around a bunch of rednecks in the area where I reside.


Funny true story: back in 86 a friend and I went to the drive in to see 'dusk till dawn' features (movies showing all night) that was showing in a small town on the outskirts of Columbus OH. We get there and the drive in is 100 percent white trash and in the middle of the movie 48 Hours a bunch of rednecks yell out "kill the nigg**s!!" A suddenly a few
rednecks with no shirts on started looking our way. We got the hell out of there!! LOL well then we stopped at a gas station in downtown Columbus and a bunch of brothas pulled up next to us and pulled out a pistol wanting our cash. Very bad night indeed!! Scary then but funny now. You're never safe!

so are you saying racism is a good thing?

damn white people...

ah!, in that case thats protect the world and kill ll middle eastern people to prevent terrorism, kill ll black people to prevent drugs, kill all white people to prevent murders, kill all Asians to prevent people like Attila from seeing day, and while we are at it, thats just drop a few hundred hydrogen bombs randomly around the world (it wont matter, at that much if the bombs and radiation don't kill you, the nuclear will block the sun and kill everything

problem solved!@!@!!!!!

now thats look at a more reasonable approach, JUST FIRE THE DAMN CIA!, AND NSA ANS FBI!, they are nothing more then power hungry bullies who could have prevented a few airplanes from killing a few thousand


face it, bush and people like osama are one in the same, just different sides to the same face, same can be said to almost every government official (at least in the US, i don't know about else wear to much) ...... in my opinion the entire US government and military as well as "police" should face charges of human rights violations, those that done nothings should walk free (the reason why i put police as well as military in there is because all they do is what you ask them to, its rather sad that people blindly do what others say, its the cause for a lot of the worlds problems), people in the high military and government positions of the US tend to be very corrupt and should all be removed, and the constitution rewritten to prevent such hideous people from controlling others so harshly

anyone that would kill Innocent people for any reason should pay for it

and when you think of it, the US is a terrorist organization of its own, governments are afraid that the US will use there nuclear weapons (like they already did), and it spreads fear across people by running airplanes over peoples homes dropping bombs on insolent people

Ummmm.....SclYro, I take it that you're not living in the USA, or planning to leave it soon? Hopefully, you do live in a country where opionions like yours can be freely expressed. For those of us who do live in the faulty ol' USA, we have those elections (one's coming up soon) where dissatisfied voters can try and change things. Personally, I would not like to spend any more money dropping bombs for the near future either.... or giving portions of my income to areas overseas where we are despised. Not sure which has cost me more, but neither seems to be working at the moment.

Racial profiling has its roots in natural instinct, pure and simple. Let's travel back in time to the dinosaurs, and let's pretend you're a cool, chillin' Brontosaurus. While you're out munching on some trees, you see a Tyranosaurus Rex come eat your friend Joe. You think to yourself, "Holy cow! What a mean T-Rex! I ought to stay away from him". The next day, you're munching again, and a different T-Rex pops out and eats your friend Ralph. Again, you think, "Holy cow! Another mean T-Rex! Put him on the list to avoid". Repeat the previous sequence ad nauseum. How many of your friends need to be eaten before you stay far away from anything that even remotely looks like a T-Rex? Or are you going to sit there and say, "Well, I bet there's a nice T-Rex somewhere in the world. So, I have to approach every T-Rex as if he were my long lost buddy Joe, until he proves he's mean" What's the result of the latter choice: your luck runs out and you get eaten.

As another example, assume there are a rash of car thefts in the parking garages around your workplace. Let's say one or two cars get stolen every few days in the same garage. So, are you going to park in that garage because "today they won't steal a car" or that "there's just as much chance the thieves will hit one of the other garages"? And if you do park in the garage and your car is stolen, are you going to whine and complain to security that they should have had more security guards in that parking garage because it was "obvious" it was a prime target? And exactly how would changing the number of guards present be any different than increased observation on a group of people that have historically shown themselves more likely to commit an illegal act?

Statistics are the only data we have to gain insight into what is happenning and who is doing it. I will support any sort of increased observation based on race, gender, height, hair color, finger length, or any other metric if it can be shown there appears to a relationship between that trait and some sort of crime. To ignore that information is just plain stupid. The relationship might not be a true cause-and-effect, but it serves as the best indicator we have until we can discover a better/more accurate metric relating to the cause of the crime or behavior.

Did you even think about those statements before you wrote them? You're proposing the exact same thing you were trying to disprove with sarcasm about bombing the world. Yeah, let's just get rid of all forms of law, order, and enforcement of laws, because there can't be any honest or trustworthy individuals within any of those organizations. Let's just revert to a state of anarchy. I'm sure everyone will agree to live in an idealistic state of bliss because no more evil will exist in the world since the evils of enforced rules and behavior are eliminated.

If you dont like racial profiling I have two words for you, Shoe Polish. If your White and the police are looking for a white guy you can slap on some brown polish and instant race adjustment or if your an arab guy you can slap on some white and whammo! your a white dude but you should probably shave and slap on some Twisted Sister tattoos.


p.s. This is just to cool down the flames that are building

Dark_Helmet: i guess me wasn't really making the point overly clear.., to be honest i hardly even remember writing those words (i have a pretty short term memory for some things... strangely enough i can "remember" things pretty well if i try)

anyways, rereading that i would have to assume it meant that the cia, fbi, nsa ... etc are all pretty much doing the same job, if all those military and government agency's would just collapse into 1 organization for each purpose (one to get intel, one to arrest people . etc .etc) then there wouldn't be competition like there is now among parts of the US government to do everything them selfs

as for the next sentence you quoted theres been repeated instances of top officials breaking human rights violations, the military is usually the tool to do it, but practices among other organizations like the police also abuse civil rights when it best suits them

I'm not saying that they are all bad, but like racial profiling, its best to be cautious around them (from where i was i learned it best to be cautious of everything), as they all go thru the same training .... this is normally the same as profiling by any terms

i think demographic thingy is the more technical term..... were a person was raised can effect on them and how they live (after all, people need to survive, so they learn to from where they come) people learn by experience, and thats just life, i don't think racial profiling is wrong, as most races are still separate from one another on some continents/country's

I don't believe collapsing all of the agencies into one would be the answer. Having a single agency that handles espionage (CIA), federal investigation and law enforcement (FBI), and "national security" (NSA) would create a single entity with far more power than the three individually. To prevent potential abuse of power, you need to separate and limit the abilities of each agency. That's the underlying architecture of the US's government: checks and balances; there is no single entity with the power to create laws and enforce them.

If there is competition between those branches, I'm not aware of it. If I were the head of one of those agencies, and another one was stepping onto my turf, I guarantee you I would raise the alarm for two reasons:

1. If the other agency successfully acquires that ability (which was previously my agency's responsibility), my agency is put at risk of getting trimmed. My job (and all of those below me) are at risk of being pruned. Nobody likes being unemployed

2. It violates the separation of roles I mentioned above, and gets one step closer to forming a super-enforcement organization that could much more easily abuse its power. People, in general, don't like to lose power. So if someone tries to take some of it away, there tends to be a large stink raised.

I don't know where racial profiling began or what its name was originally. I would venture a guess though, that a politician or a news agency coined the term "racial profiling" for its shock value. Anytime race is brought into a discussion it automatically triggers intense emotions and tends to make people see the issue as one way or another; right or wrong; black or white. Politicians use the shock terms to rally people behind "a cause" and make a name for themselves. News agencies do it to increase readership; nobody cares unless the news is shocking. It's hard to garner interest if you use a term like "demographics" or "criminal statistics".

He, I'll share you my experience. I was born in Pakistan and have Pakistani parents but I have lived in The Netherlands nearly all my life.
When ever we go somewhere with a plane, somehow we are always the ones to be singled out at security controls. It's subconscious discrimination and I don't like it.
To suggest to especially check middle eastern men after a security warning is, by definition racism. Thats because you are treating people differently according to which race they happen to belong.
If there has been issued a security warning, check every one more not just the guy who happens to be of middle eastern origin.
Oh and Dark_Helmet, I hoped that after 65 million years of evolution, things might have changed a bit. Racial profiling happens and every one is guilty of it, probebly including me. But it's wrong and it should most definity not be institutionalized.

That last remark about deodorant is kind of racist/stereotypish, you might want to consider rephrasing it a little please.

Actually I thought the whole post was racist and stereotypical.