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Ninth Circle of Hell - Profiling and DiscernmentReader comment on item: Why the Japanese Internment Still Matters Submitted by Diane Alden (United States), Dec 29, 2004 at 15:11 Comments: In Dante's Inferno the 9th Circle of Hell is reserved to for those who betray their countrymen, family, comrades or nation without just cause. It is reserved for those who betray what is good and replace it with evil because they have given evil qualities which make it preferable to their vision of an imperfect reality. Regarding profiling (discernment) based on ethnicity, religion, culture, et al: common sense measures must include such activity. Arguments that profiling is racist, xenophobic, cruel and inhuman is fine when you are comfy and safe in your cottage, office or ivory tower. However, in the REAL world profiling is a sensible alternative to destroying freedom en masse or including everyone in a weird security dragnet regardless of age, infirmity or likelihood of being a terrorist or bomb thrower. Most radicals, terrorists, anarchists, etc. have been of a certain age - usually male below 35 and that is across ethnic identity lines and across the span of time. In the early 20th century, anarchists bomb throwers who killed hundreds in New York City were not 80 year old women or men. For the most part they were younger men usually of Eastern European or Meditteranean origin caught up in the ideological transformation of that era - by and large anarchists or Marxists of some kind. As in the past, modern mass killers, by and large, have been younger men under 40. In the last 50 years most of them have been of Middle Eastern or Islamic extremist malcontents. If common sense and discernment and wisdom ever took hold in the United States, it would tell us: lets start profiling that age and sex demographic as a first step!!! The other sensible thing would be to move onto which particular identity group has had a larger share of killing innocents in the past - common sense dictates that as part of a process of self protection. If I am walking a dark street in Atlanta I will not be looking to get mugged by a Finn from Helsinki - its possible but not PROBABLE. Political correctness and a kind of insane egalitarian outlook which uses absolutely NO common sense or discernment or wisdom has turned formerly sensible American people into brain dead ideologues. Utopians who are trying to fit evil into their nonsensical philosophical view of human nature and make it policy. Add a suicidal blindness towards cultural differences among peoples and those who believe in certain ideologies or follow certain offshoots of religion - whether it is Jim Jones or bin Laden - knowing who is MOST likely to committ certain atrocities is vital to our survival and continued freedom in this nation. Common sense forces us to ask how anyone in t heir right minds with any intelligence can take the pc brigade seriously? They create "preferred minorities" while destroying the freedoms of the vast majority of people. That does not mean we can't make sure that government or the authorities do not go overboard in profiling. But in a free society based on Judeo-Christian concepts such discernment is a given or should be. If we use common sense and discernment incidents of misuse or abuse of profiling will be limited. Profiling does not mean we chain people up and throw them into a pit of lions or roast them on a spit. For the present we have to use sensible measures for self protection while giving up as FEW rights as citizens as possible. That means walking a fine line but it is a line which eventually we will be forced to walk. Particularly when a bomb thrower kills enough Americans to stiffle the politically correct crowd and forces even more draconian measures on all of us. The sensible alternative to disrobing white haired grannies with knitting needles or what I witnessed recently at the Atlanta airport as a buxom red haired southern girl with a metal pin in her ankle was being felt up, had her luggage searched made to feel like a red headed step child: even while young male Middle Easterners were waved through. Enough already. Part of the problem with the entire security system is that we are not willing to do what must be done within the bounds of common sense and humane treatment of everyone in the US. Nonetheless, I am convinced it will take another 911 before we do what must be done to secure this nation from obvious enemies and/or troublemakers and those who can not or will not fit into the larger society. Meanwhile thanks to many on the left and economic RIGHT, we will continue to FAIL to: reform the corrupt bought and paid for visa system; we will wait until disaster strikes to reform the refugee and immigration system; we will continue turn a blind eye and refuse to secure the borders in any meaninful way; and most of all thanks to special interest lobbies -- we will fail to dump the notion of "preferred minorities." How unconstititional is that concept??? It is incongruous and hypocritical to place the rights of some identity groups over those of the rest of us - it is also unconstitutional on its face --- regardless of what silly leftist courts say. What is missing from current policy and attitude is common sense. The larger American public GETS IT. But politicos, special interest groups including some religious or professional social welfare groups, immigration lawyers, foundation funded ethnic priviledge entities like La Raza or CAIR -- do NOT get it. The failure of common sense is strong among the pc blind, deaf and dumb lobby and it will result in killing more Americans and innocents. The pc brigade killed off common sense long ago. When it was murdered -- I am not quite sure. Probably when the left convinced the rest of us that they did want our values shoved down their throats and that all cultural or ethnic groups were at the same phase of development or they must be coddled and condescended to as a leftist version of the "white man's burden." How racist is that?? How stupid is that??? It will be interesting to see that one world fits all utopian trying to live in a theocratic Islamic society. Their pipe dreams about the failures of Western civilization would be drowned by their own blood as they watch their freedom and ours washing out to sea in the great tsunami of cultural, philosophical, religious, and social reality. Regards Diane Alden Carrollton, Georgia Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". << Previous Comment Next Comment >> Reader comments (188) on this item
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