One thing that saddens me about the TSA security controversy is that we’re missing a great opportunity. Sure, the insanity of patting down three-year-old, blonde-haired lasses and octogenarian grandmothers with prosthetics has caused a great backlash, as more and more people are realizing that our government’s common-sense-blind approach is born of a deadly allegiance to political correctness. In fact, I’ve even heard a few usually very careful pundits float the idea that we should think about profiling Muslims. Unfortunately, though, they invariably drop the ball in the debate.
The problem is that they don’t believe they occupy the moral high ground. Instilled with the idea that advocating “racial profiling” (a propaganda term) amounts to bigotry, they generally back down as soon as someone looks askance at their suggestion. This is especially frustrating to me because I’ve long been promulgating an airtight argument that, not only refutes the racial-profiling propaganda, but also illustrates why the moral high ground actually belongs to our side. So I’ll present the argument again in the hope that it will now receive a better reception. Here it is:
Actually, what is discriminatory is to not profile Muslims. Why? Well, consider that group-specific profiling is nothing unusual; for instance, law enforcement looks more suspiciously upon men and young people because those groups commit an inordinate amount of crime. Yet do we hear complaints of “sex profiling” or “age profiling”? Of course not, as we know that such practices are just common sense. But if this standard can be applied to men and youth, it’s only fair and just to apply the exact same standard to all other groups that commit an inordinate amount of a given crime. And when we refuse to do so — when we say that certain groups must receive a special dispensation from life’s realities because they enjoy privileged status — that is where the real discrimination lies. That is what’s unfair. That is a travesty of justice.
Now, contrary to popular belief, fellow politics wonks and pundits, no one has to pay me royalties when using the above. There’s no truth to that rumor whatsoever. In all seriousness, though, the argument isn’t the greatest thing since Aristotle; it’s just common sense. And this is why the fact that it’s so uncommon is so distressing. Because the argument does have one great flaw: It only works when used.
Of course, if we want to deepen understanding of profiling further, we could point out that there’s no such thing as “racial profiling.” Rather, there are only two types of profiling:
Good profiling and bad profiling.
You see, profiling is simply a method by which law enforcement can determine the probability that an individual has committed a crime or has criminal intent. And when making this determination, good profiling considers many different factors, such as dress, behavior, the car being driven, tattoos that might be displayed, sex, age, race and ethnicity. Whatever the details, however, good profiling is practiced in accordance with sound criminological science. And what happens when we refuse to consider certain factors in deference to political correctness, social concerns or “feelings”?
It becomes bad profiling.
It becomes unfair.
It becomes a mockery.
It becomes the TSA.
Conclusion: When rooting out terrorists, profiling Muslims is the right thing to do.
It is the moral thing to do.
It is the only thing to do.
And what if CAIR and other Islamist sympathizers are offended? Too bad. Did moral men or youths ever complain about the profiling of their group? For that matter, do we hear shouts of “racial profiling” when whites are targeted (e.g., when they cruise inner-city neighborhoods in nice cars, they are often suspected of wanting to buy drugs)? There’s only one set that should take exception to the fair and equitable application of criminological science: criminals. As for me, I have no problem with my group being profiled as long as the same standard is applied to all other higher-crime-incidence groups. And if CAIR will not say the same, they arouse suspicion and deserve more scrutiny themselves.
Now, at this point, the critics are often left with just one argument. They like to say that profiling is a waste of time because if we target a certain group, the terrorists will simply use members of a different group in their operations. Okay, now, how is this supposed to work? Do telemarketers call people and say (cue the professional infomercial voice), “Hello, sir, how would you like to sacrifice your life for the jihadist cause today? We’re prepared to offer you a trip straight to Paradise where you’ll be met by 72 voluptuous virgins! But respond now because this offer expires December 14th.”?
The critics have it exactly backwards. It’s virtually impossible to convince a normal person to kill himself to destroy others (unless, that is, you can first convince him to convert to Islam); it’s very easy to convince a person who is willing to kill himself to destroy others to do so in a different way. So the truth is that if we focus on methods, the terrorists will just change their methods. (As to this, it has just been discovered that Al Qaeda hopes to surgically implant bombs in terrorists.) Methods don’t have a will; people do. Methods don’t reject agendas; people do. Conclusion? It’s a waste of time to focus solely on methods. We must focus on people.
Yes, on people, in just the way we do when the higher-crime-incidence group is men, youths or whites. Of course — and those on the left who believe the Constitution is malleable ought to love this — a profile is a living, breathing thing. It’s not set in stone. If the facts on the ground change — if, let’s say, massive numbers of alabaster-skinned, Christian Norwegians become suicide bombers — the profile will change. As of now, however, those willing to sacrifice themselves to blow up an airplane are 100 percent of the time Muslim and 99 percent of the time non-white. That’s called a strong correlation. That’s called the world’s most specific profile. It’s called something you ignore at your own peril.
So this is how you win the profiling debate. Memorize the block-quoted argument in the third paragraph — verbatim if necessary. Then, don’t just use it; shout it from the mountaintops. Hang it around the left’s neck. You must be just as vocal and zealous about spreading the Truth as the destroyers of civilization are about spreading lies. And it shouldn’t be difficult. Unlike liberals, you’re not asking for special treatment, just equal treatment. And unlike CAIR and its enablers, you’re not asking for TSA dhimmitude for infidels, just a little fidelity from your government.
This article was first published at American Thinker.
© 2010 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved
Thank you Mr. duke for this article. It is by far one of my favorites. Thank you for giving me ammunition to fight the leftist "political correctness" bull hockey that I am subjected to today. It has been far too long that I have been called a bigot because I oppose the Islam faith. I have my own reasons and they are rational ones. You are exactly correct in your analysis that the government has no common sense. What they lack in that department, they pay up in spades in ignorance and sheer stupidity. This is a very good rebuttal and I will take this to heart. Keep on fighting the good fight Mr. Duke and have a merry Christmas! :)
Posted by: A high school student | December 13, 2010 at 05:08 PM
I wish to expand on the following comment from Selwyn's poignant article:
"And if CAIR will not say the same, they arouse suspicion and deserve more scrutiny themselves."
CAIR deserves a great deal of scrutiny and for a lot of reasons. I recommend reading "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America" by P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry. Gaubatz' son infiltrated CAIR and obtained scores of documents linking CAIR to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas as well as their intents to abuse our courts to bring about Sharia in America.
I also recommend to Selwyn's readers to visit www.actforamerica.org and subscribe to their online publication and to donate.
Another valuable source is Robert Spencer's www.jihadwatch.com. It's worse than you think.
Lastly, Family Security Matters is at the cutting edge of fearless reporting on radical Islam. You may find critical articles by such stalwarts as Andrew McCarthy and Eric Stacklebeck in their archives.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
Posted by: Philip France | December 13, 2010 at 09:55 PM
Unfortunatley this article has all the failings of the ill informed. This is MY industry, where you should be railing against the dangerous backskatter screening regimes of rapiscan you think you can replace it with racial profiling.
Let's face it, my passport does not state may religion (or more accurately lack thereof), yet one of the most dangerous jihardists in my country is a sandy haired pale skinned mother of 5 previously known as Debbie.
The Israeli version of profiling (NOT racial/religious but BEHAVIOURAL) is a more accurate but hard to sustain in a country of your size with low education standards.
Think through the practicalities and your amazing strengths, Americans have amazing data managing ability so who has been to Syria, or Saudhi or Pakhistan recently? Who is travelling with no checked baggage and no obvious reason for doing so. As mentioned in selwyns piece I would probably pay more attention to males in their 20's but not exclusively.
Finally, look at the physical, we need to reduce queueing at security becuase that's a danger spot for crowd detonation, we need to review the new technologies like bag drop very carefully because they seperate identity from flight data, in any decent sized airport their are up to 10,000 people with aviation security passes who are seldom checked, bring in random full screening for staff like me.
I know it's cute to play
the stupid
security card but take a few mins to think it thru. Even at a basic level most people could work out that you can do more damage to a city and it's people by destroying the sirport that a single plane.Posted by: yoyo | December 13, 2010 at 11:45 PM
What Mr.Duke is saying Mr.Yoyo, is that "profiling" in this sense is not the "politically correct" incorrect term. I may be hearing your argument wrong, but the Mr. Duke's profiling is based on behavior. It is logical to assume that people that are associated with an ethnic group or religion would share similar behavior. I am not saying that everyone in a particular group acts exactly the same. It is logical however to see that people are influenced by the group that they associate themselves with by a majority of factors (these factors are commonly known, but I will not go into them because I tend to ramble). Therefore If a particular ethnic group or religious institution exhibits a particular kind of behavior, the people associated with the group will likely (but not always) exhibit the same type of behavior. Thus, if a culture is famous or notorious because due to common values or actions that they carry out on a daily basis, a person from that culture would follow in a similar manner. I do have a quick question for you? Is part of your blog cut out becuase the last few sentences are hard to make out. If you could clarify I would appreciate it. Have a merry Christmas to all and wish me luck on my finals. :)
Posted by: A high school student | December 14, 2010 at 12:50 PM
High School Student, yoyo is a very confused woman who used to post here regularly. She also just proved Mr. Duke's point. She says in her post 'I would probably pay more attention to males in their 20's' but then seems to have a problem paying more attention to Muslims. What a maroon.
Posted by: John | December 14, 2010 at 01:10 PM
John and high school student, point one as i may not have made clear there is no easy way to identify who is a muslim from the information given at time of ticket purchase or when going through the various security steps at the terminal, point 2, due to the new checkin processes ticket purchase is seperated from identity, anyone can fly doemstically as anyone else - so that doesn't get you any where, point 3 look at what we do know (and here I partially agree with selwyn) we do know that most terrorists are young males not grandmas, however as israeli security and many other successful testing regimes have shown there are more significant markers that COULD be profiled. For example: are they making a long trip without baggage? have they recently been to one of the hot spot countries (for internat. travellers only? do they look fidgetty or glazed? etc etc
Skillful use of security makes us all safer, careless and clumsy security not only makes us more at risk EG by big queues at screening points and takes away our civil liberties and costs us all a huge amount.
Posted by: yoyo | December 14, 2010 at 08:51 PM
Finally for highschool student, i have a little trouble posting cleanly here because I can only see the right half of the text comment box, I presume it's some glitch with your site, my server or the browser I use. I apologise if it is hard to read.
PS John thinks all people who have somewhat different political beliefs to his own are therefore suffering from both cognitive failure and a lack of good will and good faith. I'm not sure how christian that idea is but there you have it.
Posted by: yoyo | December 14, 2010 at 08:56 PM
I have often been adverserial with Yoyo but she makes some valid points with regard to cargo security and airport security where screening takes place. This reinforces Selwyn's points in his article: there is good profiling and there is bad profiling. No one, on either side of this argument thus far has disputed that profiling is absolutely necessary. My suggestion is to demonize the combination of the words "racial/ethnic" and "profiling".
To simplify, the TSA mistake is that they profile things rather than people. Explosives, guns, any weapon for that matter are harmless inanitmate objects absent human motive to do harm. Yoyo made a correct observational statement to this affect. We need to study, and profile, behavioral traits (such as booking long flights with little or no luggage).
Additionally, we must also single out Moslems (both men and women) for unique scrutiny. You heard me right. It will be then that we can stimulate the wrath of the overwhelmingly peaceful Moslems (by having them endure humiliating scrutiny) to turn on and expose their radical bretheren. It is my beliefe that the peaceful Moslems fear their radical bretheren worse than we (the non-Moslems) do. Let's provoke their outrage by strip-searching them based on the overwhelming fact that ALL modern terrorists are Moslem.
Case closed. Problem solved. Allahu Akbar.
Posted by: Philip France | December 14, 2010 at 11:11 PM
One of the gravest mistakes we can make, is to assume terrorist are stupid. Everytime I hear a news commentator, cspan governmental conference, or any other outlet..spouting off what we do to detect terrorist, I cringe. Of course we should scrutinize "things", as well as behavior. Should we let them know what we are doing? Hell no. The Israelli methods depends highly on expertise, training, and skill of the examiner. There is no question in their minds as to the loyalty, devotion, and love of country of their examiners. For us it is a different story. It only takes one loyal, devout Muslim to "wake up" to the fact that, as an examiner, he is "scrutinizing" one of his own. Would he or she, on a personally bad day, for whatever reason..look the other way, or feel nothing, or see nothing. Rewards in paradise may be "greater" for him, than the one carrying the surgically implanted device, or the vaginally or anal placed explosive substance. The Israellis connect the dots, see relations, and are not "blinded" by consideration of politically correct "hockey crap". How many surveys have been done of "possible extremist" within a radial distance of some of our key centers or military bases? How many coastal motels and hotels have been queried as to numbers of "possible extremist" registered or screened staying there...or even owned. "Common sense" would dictate to me that only "criminals", a favorite Holder term for a terrorists...would have to worry about being scrutinized from whatever method. It is not the loss of liberty or civil rights we should be concerned about, but the allowance of whatever resonable and technical method used to detect someone who might cause the deaths of many, or even one. I have a hard time believing a method of detecting a terrorist would in any way, threaten our liberty or civil rights on a general basis. I can guarantee you, they threaten criminals and possible terrorist.
Posted by: jbailey | December 16, 2010 at 07:25 AM
Islam isn't a race so profiling Moslems isn't racial profiling.
Posted by: Babe Huggett | December 16, 2010 at 10:39 AM
It's also impossible to profile for unless you decide to look at "arabic" style dress. Many ultra orthodox Jewish women wear scarfs, coptic chritians frequently dress in the long white pajama style gear (sorry i have forgoten how to spell this item), Indonesian Muslims dress the same way as Indonesian Christians etc etc. As I'm now walking over to yet another terminal maybe you can enlighten me on how i pick someone's religious faith based on their appearance? My husband has a beard but is a total atheist should he be profiles as a muslim?
I just hate taking my stilletos off - thank you Richard Reid NOT. Gee very muslim name that one wasn't it?
Posted by: yoyo | December 16, 2010 at 11:39 PM
The Israelis have a remarkable record for airport security in spite of the fact that they are surrounded by fanatics that want them all dead. How do they do it? Pscyhological profiling. It CAN be done and it MUST be done. No more liberal excuses.
Posted by: Philip France | December 17, 2010 at 08:11 PM