Rules for being a good American Muslim
Friday, 2 January, 2009 by Tobias Ziegler
72 Responses
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So what?
The fact that you don’t see a problem in that story says a lot about you and nothing about the story.
I’m betting, Iain, if it had been, say, a Christian family on a flight somewhere in the Middle East, your response wouldn’t have been “So what?” You’d be up in arms about it.
I just think that a title and a hyper linking to a CNN piece is a rather vague and pointless way to write a blog post.
The essence of the story is that an airline has exercised its right to choose who it will allow on its planes, we have no independent verification of exactly what was said by the would be passengers in question so we don’t know if their conversion was as innocuous as they claim. maybe what they said was misheard or misreported you just cant assume that their version is either true or definitive.
You clearly assume that any fear of another Jihadist outrage is unreasonable but I bet that you would think differently if you had to be on the look out for such threats every time. you went to work.
I just empathise more with the airline workers than you do.
Your argument is valid, Iain – but only if you ignore half of the story as it was reported and if you believe shopkeepers should be able to put a sign on their door saying, “No coloured people allowed.”
Which half of the story would that be Tobias?
However had someone gone into a crowded theatre and suggested that a fire might happen would the owner of that theatre not be prudent to decline to allow them to patronise their establishment even though no fir had actually been present?
The situation here is essentially the same.
Your argument only hold IF what this group of people actually said was as innocuous as you claim, There is no proof that it was entirely innocent.
There have been incidents here in Australia where idiots have made jokes about bombs and Jihad on domestic planes for some strange reason those individuals were refused further service by the airline would you claim that those idiots should not be refused a place on the plane too?
Iain, I am really in a quandary about how to deal with you. I don’t know whether you try to bait people with obviously flawed reasoning to generate debate or whether this is honestly the way you think.
I’m too wrung out to bang my head against a brick wall many times at the moment, so here are some very quick answers to your questions:
The half that contradicts your reasoning, of course.
No, the owner would be a fool.
“Joking” about, say, having a bomb in your bag, is completely different from discussing where it is safest to sit on a plane. Surely you can see that?
If they were old Christian women Iain Hall would have been all over the story. I also just read a good one about a man who was forced to cover up Arabic writing on his shirt being paid $300,000 compensation. Won’t be seeing that on AWH or other pernicious blogs soon.
Tobias
I have always made it very clear that I LOVE and argument and that I comment at blogs like yours for fun but I am also arguing in a reasonable manner. But if may argument is so flawed why are you so unable to succinctly demolish it? Your suggesting that I am being racist is unreasonable.
Yes fine, but what part of the article contradicts my reasoning?
You want to suggest here (as far as I can tell) that fearing a group of Muslims travelling to a religious conference is unreasonable and that being moved to exclude that group of people from travelling on a company’s aircraft is likewise unreasonable, in fact even accessing their risk on the basis of their religion is unreasonable in your terms Am I right so far on your point of view regarding this matter?
I accept that what was said may well have been entirely innocent but as somebody who will never fly it would be very easy for me to do so. but if the treat of death fat the hands of religious nutters is apart of may daily work experience I doubt that I would be as willing to give any passengers acting suspiciously the benefit of the doubt I understand why they would err on the side of caution. lives are at stake here, unlike your “no coloureds” counter argument which is just pointless prejudice personified.
You do know that in the cases where fires have occurred in theatres that most causalities have been people being crushed to death in the panic?
And surely you can see my point about us as commentators on this mattert can not be certain what actually went down on that plane on that day, we have no recordings of what was said no footage of the passenger compartment, nothing but the claims of the group denied passage on the aircraft. Now given the propensity of individuals to sue in the US those passengers have a great incentive to be less than frank about exactly what they may have said and more importantly how they may have said it. Tobias you make the error of assuming that because these people are aggrieved Muslims that they MUST be telling the truth and you do so with no proof at all.
John Surname
You continue your obsession with my blog don’t you John?
When it comes to the fashion choices that people make I tend to think that Tee shirts with slogans in any language are a crime against aesthetic good sense and should be discouraged at every opportunity.
Your suggesting that I am being racist is unreasonable.
Not really.
Iain, it seems that your scepticism and suspicion of people’s accounts only crops up when Muslims are claiming they are innocent of wrong-doing. Your insistence that there is insufficient proof to take this family’s account at face value – despite the fact that an investigation cleared them (and the airline has subsequently offered them a refund and said they could fly with them in future) reminds me of your recent claims that you still think there’s something fishy about Mohamed Haneef (which a year-long AFP investigation and an independent inquiry must have somehow overlooked). Based on those observations, I’m perfectly comfortable with the reasonableness of my suggestion.
You have my position right. If you want to suggest to me that ethnic profiling is a valid risk management strategy for airlines then you’ll want to read up on the base rate fallacy and figure out how you are going to deal with it – the number of false positives with such an incredibly rare event would be, in my opinion, unacceptably high.
What on earth does that have to do with anything? More specifically, what does that have to do with your original analogy?
Surname’s comment about the compensation case brings a question to mind, Iain. Would you consider it reasonable for the people who were removed from the plane to bring a lawsuit against the airline for civil rights violations? Given that you seem to insist that they need to prove their story, I would hope you’ll be open to allowing them their day in court.
Iain’s argument: They’re Muslims so they must be lying. Even the airline is no longer defending the actions of its employees, yet Iain will solely based on the fact they’re Muslims.
Imagine the outrage if a Christian was removed from an Emirates flight because he asked where the safest seat was, or was forced to remove a shirt because it had a picture of Jesus. The right-wing blogosphere would shit itself with happiness.
Tobias
Actually Tobias if you take the time to peruse my achieve I am sure that you will find plenty of times when i have expressed scepticism about the problem veracity of evidence about all kinds of issues and my concern is by no means confined to utterances by Muslims
Firstly i am glad that my summation of your position is correct but I see no problem at all with “ethnic profiling” for risk management. It is going to happen informally anyway and as for false positives .so what? in the worse case scenario a few individuals may be temporarily inconvenienced where as “false negatives” could see many thousands dead. As with all rights issues it is never a simple dichotomy. Give an alternative way to screen for potential suicide bombers / Jihadist hijackers and I will be happy to listen.
Well I sought to show that the threat comes not only from the potential arsonist but also the idiot who thinks that it funny or insignificant to pretend that there is a fire, just as you seem to think it is an act of no consequence.
Well that is a matter for the jurisdiction within which the indecent is alleged to have occurred and how grieved they may have felt But I would fell that it would be unreasonable for them to seek punitive damages against the airline. So in a nutshell, modest compensation is fine in my book but judgements like the one that gave the fellow 300K for being asked to cover up an Arabic slogan is OTT.
John Surname
No John my argument is far more general: anyone who has a public dispute with , for example an airline, is going to spin their account of the incident to show themselves in the best light be they Christians, Hindus Muslims or even flesh light enthusiasts like yourself. when it comes to the law it is no surprise that the courts seek more than one account of the events in question in their quest for the objective truth.
Well as my feeling is that all Tee shirts that turn people into mobile billboards are equally abhorrent, no matter what it is that they are promoting I would have some sympathy for “Emirates” doing as you suggest in your hypothetical but really you are entirely mistaken in your belief that all conservative bloggers would be outraged or that they would “shit themselves with happiness”. Don’t forget that it was latte sippers like yourself who were defending the Muslims who were calling for the death of Danish cartoonists…
I didn’t, I wrote on my old blog at my time about their despicable actions. Frankly, I don’t see what that has to do with this issue.
Of course they would shit themselves with happiness Iain – it would constitute more proof that white Christians are maligned, which is a more and more frequent theme of AWH’s. The more things like this happen, the more it reinforces the idea that it’s them against the world. It’s only a matter of time now until MK goes postal – if his Mum would let him buy a gun. As for KG, he doesn’t have the balls.
John
“It’s only a matter of time now until MK goes postal”
WTF does that mean?
Prove that you denounced the “anti Cartoonist” Muslims. because I don’t believe you.
It is relevant BTW because those on the left like yourself have default position that basicly says that anyone who criticises or questions any aggrieved Muslim must be either an Islamophobe, a racist or both.
No, of course you don’t believe me because it contradicts your theories of what “Leftards” are supposed to believe.
No Iain, we don’t have any default positions for anything. You give us default positions and then refuse to believe us when we don’t agree with those “default positions”.
Don’t worry, we don’t question that you’re an Islamophobe – we already know you are.
“WTF does that mean? ”
going postal means going on a killing spree, coined after american postal workers who seemed to go killing in large numbers
was MK the one who had the rant about gay islam nazi’s a week or so back? or was that kg
Give an alternative way to screen for potential suicide bombers / Jihadist hijackers and I will be happy to listen.
I’m given to understand that you don’t fly, Iain. If you did, you’d know that it’s impossible to get anything onto a plane that could conceivably be used as a weapon. Even scary eeevil jihadis would have trouble hijacking a plane with their bare hands.
You are joking aren’t You Jason?
Do you realize just how many household or seemingly innocuous items can be used to lethal effect on an airplane? Or how easy it would be to down a plane in flight? Especially if someone was really determined to earn those virgins in paradise.
Think of Richard Reid , and the liquid explosives plot in the UK. think about the laces in your running shoes or even a knotted necktie, a box of matches and some over proof vodka, the list is endless.
Or are you going to try to tell me that airport security is impervious?
No Iain, I’m not joking. Are you?
Look back over your post. Have you noticed that most of the dangers you nominate are hypothetical, and exist nowhere outside your imagination? The others you ask me to consider are failed plots. And incidentally, would “racial profiling” have stopped Richard Reid??
I put it to you that your fears are irrational. Further, you need to understand that eating McDonalds or driving a car that doesn’t feature modern safety equipment are, objectively, far greater health risks to you personally than any terrorist, let alone a blameless family on holiday.
Racial profiling is not only ineffective and inefficient, it *is* necessarily, inherently racist. You can’t argue for it and claim not to be racially prejudiced. Can’t you see that?
My point was that current airport security measures work, and in Australia their record is perfect.
For whatever reason, you seem to have deep anxieties about people who look, speak and worship differently to you. I imagine there’s no fixing this in your case, but you can’t expect the rest of us to run the world on the basis of your groundless fears.
I’ll finish with a question, Iain. Have you ever been in the vicinity when a terrorist attack occurs? I have. So why is it that I can live my life without succumbing to childish fears, and you can’t?
Jason
Until someone thought of concealing explosives in running shoes that methodology was unimagined by airport security and “hypothetical” now everyone who flies has to take their shoes off so that they can be scanned, likewise the liquid explosives idea was unimagined and now there are restrictions on what you can take onto a plane. The fact is that any method of hijacking (or just sabotaging) a plane is hypothetical until someone succeeds in using it.
Really? and just how much understanding of engineering do you actually have Jason? Because from where I stand I don’t think you have any understanding at all of just how vulnerable every aircraft is to catastrophic failure every time it takes to the air. Do you know, for instance, what caused that Concorde to explode on take off in Paris? It was a piece of metal less than twelve inches long on the runway.
The dark brilliance of the 9/11 attacks was that until that day in September no one had imagined that an aircraft full of fuel was essentially a large bomb with wings. The only limit on the creation of another air disaster is the imagination of those who would wish to cause it and you are right that a family on holiday is no risk to anyone but terrorists pretending to be a family on holiday most certainly would be, and one day someone may not be able to notice the difference.
Can’t you see that airport security are not stupid and that no matter what the PC advocates like yourself say the inescapable fact is that although all Muslims are certainly not terrorists (something that I very grateful for BTW) the vast majority of suicide bombers certainly are followers of Islam? To ignore this simple fact would just be stupid and and would put peoples lives at risk. I don’t think that this is about prejudice at all it is about giving those that we charge with keeping the flying public safe a bit more of a chance to actually succeed in doing their job.
And my point is that for that to continue to be so they have to remain vigilant but airport security know that no screening regime is perfect and one day someone will try something that none of them have imagined and the price will be truly terrible.
Nothing could be further from the truth Jason I have friends of all faiths and ethnicities and I am delighted by the diversity of humanity, not frightened by it. however neither am I stupid enough to think that every individual is an example of benign intentions.
Well maybe you think that having had your “brush with death” that statistically you are rather safer than anyone else. But you make the mistake of assuming that because I talk about the hypothetical risks of terrorists on aircraft (or elsewhere) that I am excessively fearful of such things happening to me or my family (especially because of my attitude to aviation in general). But you would be wrong. I don’t fly for several reasons but first among them is that I do not need to, there is no where in the world that I want to go where, travelling in an aeroplane would be required. Any concerns that I have about the safety of the technology come a very poor second to that simple fact.
I wouldn’t mind if those crack airport security staff paid a little less attention to tweezers and nail files and a little more on say, loaded pistols, handcuffs and batons.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/policeman-wearing-gun-breaches-airport-security/2008/07/02/1214950851356.html
But hey, he was in uniform, that’s OK isn’t it?
There is risk in being strapped inside a metal cylendar, 30000 feet in the air, completely surrounded by highly flamable liquid, travelling at extrordinary speed.
Jason,
The Australian airport security record is indeed perfect, at stopping tweezers, nail files, belts, shoes, ear rings, mobile phones, studded clothing, a packet of cigarettes, lighters, necklaces, batteries, those small jiggly head toys, prams and wheelchairs… pretty much anything that is metal, apart from a loaded Glock pistol with 30 rounds of ammunition. And a baton. And some handcuffs.
In terms of loaded Glock pistols, batons and handcuffs being allowed onto the plane, as hand luggage, I would suggest that the Australian Airport security systems record is, say, not so hot.
Sorry to burst your bubble there.
It is clear that the only solution for air travel, is for everyone to be completely naked, searched inside and out, noting the Jokers escape plan in the Dark Knight, where he implanted a bomb inside a hapless criminal, which worked perfectly I might add! How did he test that?. Happy travellers are to be anethetised and chained to the floor, or in little pods, Fifth Element style. I also suggest that, for babies, you sedate them and pop them in little pods out on the wings, like the bombs on fighter planes. No more crying out there kids, bombs away! No need for a reclining seat for the discerning businessman either, alcohol and inflight meal, you’ll get all the sleep you need, while you are unconscious and being fed intravenously. Apart from the pilot. He or she can maintain consciousness. But only at take off and landing. Then its back to the land of nod for you sunshine.
Do we need the pilot? Could we just sling shot the plane into the air and catch it in, like, a giant net? If we padded the plane it would be OK wouldn’t it. Like the mars rover landing.
Safety is the new holy. To be safe is to be devine. To be unsafe, to accept risk, is unholy.
RF – the safety record is poor, you say. I must have missed a hijacking somewhere along the line. Oh but I get it. Like Iain, you’re proposing to conduct an argument on the basis of things that haven’t happened.
Iain – god, where to start?
What does a “follower of Islam” look like Iain? Indonesian? Turkish? Bosnian? Kenyan? Pakistani? English? Like David Hicks? Like Cat Stevens? You’re putative racial profiling is going to have to cast a pretty wide net.
What you really mean, I suspect, is Arabs. You have a problem with Arabs. This is something for you to work on, or not, but don’t expect the rest of us not to characterise it as racism. That’s what it is. And don’t expect the rest of us to make air travel practically impossible because you and/or your mates have a problem with Arabs.
Iain, we could be hit by a meteorite tomorrow, but it’s vanishingly unlikely. Here are some actual statistics on international causes of death and a breakdown of transport accidents in the US and the likelihood of dying in one. You and I are most likely to die from coronary heart disease. (Visits to Maccs won’t help there.) And while your lifetime odds of dying in a car accident are about 1 in 244, your odds of dying in an air or space accident are 1 in 4975. Your odds of being killed by terrorists are almost too small to measure. If you’re really worried about dying in transit, I’d stop driving.
This is convoluted. But you seem to be admitting that airport security works, and that the “threats” you nominate don’t, in fact, exist outside your imagination.
You still haven’t given me anything like a rational basis for your fears. I look forward to your next attempt. In the meantime, I’d remind you that there has never been a hijacking or major commercial airline crash in this country, and all this has been accomplished without racist screening.
By the way, if you want to read a sensible conservative approach to this, check out Van Onselen in the Oz today. He (not me) characterises arguments like yours as “bigoted”.
Jason
What a stupid question Jason and given it’s rhetorical nature an answer is unnecessary.
I have no problems with Arabs Per se, none at all, but I am a realist and I am not going to pretend that there have been a number of terrorists who are of Arabic extraction, the 9/11 hijackers spring to mind. What you and the rest of the PC brigade want to do is predicate all airport security idea that every air traveller is equally likely to be a terrorist. Given an unlimited security budgets every traveller can be most thoroughly screened and considered but expect the cost of your tickets to increase exponentially as a result and expect also that the process of getting clearance to board to take a great deal longer as little old Christian ladies are given full body cavity searches.
In response to my asking you to tell me what you understand about engineering you sprout statistics? I think that your answer proves that you know squat about engineering (thinks about the old adage about , lies , damned lies, and statistics). I am not talking about how likely anything is here, that is not the issue . The issue is what is possible and if a small piece of aluminium (about the size of a school ruler) can cause a supersonic aircraft to turn into a blazing fireball it should tell you something
For any security system to “work” it has to prevent 100% of attempts to thwart it. The fact that people still succeed in importing drugs through the airports suggest that they are not batting the necessary 100% It is only a matter of time before we are reading about the the next plot or if we are unlucky the next atrocity.
But we are not, in the light of Tobias’s post, just considering this country the post addresses events in the United States where they have had quite a few successfully attempts to hijack aircraft and more than their share of disasters as well. Given the volume of people who travel by air there I am sure that if they followed your lead and pretended that no ethnicity is more likely than any other to produce Jihadists then the death toll could be horrendous.
Well he is wrong and so are you.
Finally! I knew he was going to pull out the idiotic “little old Christian lady” argument eventually. Sometimes I forget that elderly Christians are above all regular people, and especially dirty Arab Muslims.
Actually, the majority of terrorism in the US is perpetrated by Christians.
How many Arabs have tried to hi-jack planes since 9/11, Iain? But hey, why don’t we not allow flights to any race that has either tried to hijack or blow up a plane.
Not that it matters anyway, you’ve all but stated that your problem is with Arab Muslims, merely because of what a small handful did 7 long years ago.
Addendeum: You have to watch out for those Catholic priests especially.
“A Catholic priest drove his car into the Northern Illinois Health Clinic after learning that the FDA had approved the drug RU-486. He pulled out an ax before being shot at by a security guard. “
John Surname
I’ll let you into a little secret John: When you try for the snappy sarcastic comeback you really should make sure that you don’t make the mistake of failing to proof read your words before hitting the submit button. The sentence above does not make any sense at all.
You are obsessed with abortion clinics aren’t you? Pardon me while I channel Keri
“show me the numbers”
It never ceases to amuse me when you cite Wikipedia because it is never that reliable and in any case your link provides no breakdown at all of just who has been doing the hijacking.
You really are disconnected from reality aren’t you John? I specificity said the opposite to your claim here in my previous comment.
It makes perfect sense to me. Check your settings.
He did – follow the link and you’ll find a list of terrorist attacks committed in the United States by Christians fundamentalists.
At least one study has shown it is equivalent in accuracy to Encyclopaedia Britannica – given that it is also free and online, it’s an appropriate and accessible source to use in online debate. What evidence do you have to contradict claims that it is reliable?
And as for your claim that it doesn’t indicate who was hijacking, here are some of the groups it lists – and whose compatriots we might consider banning from flights: “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine”; “Japanese Red Army”; “Kashmir Separatists”; “six [Filipino] students”; “Croatian separatists”; “A Sri Lankan”; etc.
And then, as always, you said “but” and started contradicting yourself.
Is there a causal relationship between being Arab and being a terrorist?
Nope.
read it again Tobias
What the fuck are you on, Iain?
It makes perfect sense. What part of it don’t you understand?
Explain why Bron
BTW I can appreciate what his intention may have been because I know how Surname argues but look closely at the sentence and then tell me that it is a well constructed sentence that actually has a logical narative.
I don’t have to explain anything, Iain. The sentence is fine.
Get off the weed, dude.
Bron
you won’t back up your argument because You can’t.
Iain,
Bron doesn’t need to “back up” anything. The sentence reads fine.
It’s hilarious that someone who mangles the English language on a daily basis is now arguing that John Surname’s sentence doesn’t make sense — when it does.
OK
I’ll spell it out for you lot as you seem to all be in that Egyptian river, denial.
Just how does the phrase in bold above relate in terms of the narrative here, to the one that precedes it? Quite simply it does not have any meaningful relationship at all. and I defy you to prove otherwise. Without being meaningfully related to the rest of the sentence the second phrase renders the whole sentence unintelligible.
a primary school child could see that so why can’t you?
Ignore Iain’s nonsensical attack on my wording – of course it makes perfect sense. One of Iain’s tactics when he’s out of his depth is to bait you into debating the semantics of English instead of the issue at hand. It’s funny because Iain is borderline illiterate.
Understand that, Iain? Your English is “very burnt bad.”
Iain, if you don’t believe the wikiepdia link, you’re always free to Google information on abortion clinic bombings yourself.
You are a disgraceful excuse for a human being. I can’t believe you said that.
And here we have Iain’s other tactic – playing the man. Instead of disputing my statement that Christians also commit terrorist acts, he accuses me of being obsessed with abortion clincs – not a subject I ever recall mentioning. I assume you’re obsessed with homosexual anal sex, Iain? Because you keep mentioning it.
Yet another Iain tactic – Wikipedia contains information that disputes Iain’s “truths”, so instead of debating the message he debates the messenger.
Jase,
“…it’s impossible to get anything onto a plane that could conceivably be used as a weapon.”
A loaded pistol could be used as a weapon. In fact, it is actually classed, marketed and used primarily as such. It could also be used as a cocktail stirrer or a paper weight, or perhaps a fashionable belt adornment.
I do recognise that there have been no hijackings, but that was not and is not the point. “…current airport security measures” does not equal “no hijackings”.
Security measures are measures that are taken to ensure the security of the aircraft is maintained. Those measures are not perfect. If they were perfect, no pistols would have been allowed in the aircraft.
This entire blog is about measures taken, or measures that could be taken, to prevent the hijacking of an aircraft. To make the assumption that security measures are watertight in order to negate the requirement for consideration in regards to alternative measures is inadequate to accurately appreciate the situation. It is, as you say, making decisions based on things which are not happening.
I would suggest that the airlines know that their security measures are not an effective defence against hijackings.
In addition to the fact that there are documented, broadcast breaches, which, coincidently provide a proven method to get a pistol onto a plane (by impersonating a police officer), the airport security measures are made irrelevant as they are declared. This means you can look them up, study them, and make your plan to hijack a plane knowing exactly what you can and can’t get into a plane.
The solution to this is to have them made secret and apply them in an indiscriminate and devastating manner, in order for them not to be anticipated. But this would and could never happen in Australia, so we are at an impass.
This is an indication of Australia’s missappreciation of how to deal with terrorism, which is deely rooted in the complete missunderstanding of the threat and a complete inability to appreciate the fundamental differences in cultures, which extend beyond food and language, to martial arts and how asymetric forces operate.
Asymetric warfare is based on anonymity, infiltration, avoidance of direct contact and deception. Conventional warefare, which we do, is based on anticipation, procedure, identification and the laws of armed conflict. There is a fundamental dislocation between the two.
Might I suggest that the best way to avoid having your planes hijacked is to not participate in illegal wars of occupation by a Christan Army in a Muslim land.
Besides, I’m not even sure if terrorism knows we’re fighting it? Has anyone informed terrorism. When is terrorism going to surrender anyway?
John
Try to deflect attention from my criticism as much as you like. I challenge you to prove that your sentence is clear or makes sense because it is a very sloppy piece of composition, and you know it.
Yawn!! even my “burnt” English is better than yours on this occasion because I don’t present a sentence with a non sequitur second clause in it. Try rewording it with with a couple of different conjunctions and your meaning may become clearer.
And you have the cheek to deny that you are obsessed with abortion clinic bombings when you cite them to me?
I meant it in this sense you fool. Save your indignation for something that requires it because my suggestion that we invoke the spirit of Keri as she is always telling me to produce the numbers certainly does not warrant it in anyway at all.
You linked to it
What evidence do you have to contradict claims that it is reliable?
Should I add up the personal attacks you make against me in the last comment, before or after responding to the point above?
While Wikipedia does have some value it is rather sad that you want to invest it with such authority,after all even I have edited it on occasion.
I know of an encyclopedia with an even higher rate of accuracy than Wikipedia and Britianica combined.
What a rubbish argument. I cite abortion clinic bombings, so I am “obsessed” with abortion clincs? Are you serious? Yes, Iain, I wholly deny I am obsessed with abortion clinics(!). My God.
I challenge you to make me. Then I challenge you to shut the hell up.
All this is getting away from the fact that, yes, anyone can be a terrorist, so there is no point in racially profiling people who stand out. When you have Catholic priests wielding firearms outside abortion clinics, anything is possible. I would expect the airlines to put everyone under equal scrutiny.
“Save your indignation for something that requires it because my suggestion that we invoke the spirit of Keri”
Can we save all the invoking of my spirit and channelling for when I’m actually dead, Iain?
More personal attacks John? citing that page and a dummy spit? points to me on this one I think.
You know what , in the best of all possible worlds I would agree with you, anyone could be a terrorist, but in this world, where realism rules, airport security would be unworkable on such a broad brush approach. As a non flyer that is nothing to me but next time you seek to fly and have to wait hours to get on the plane think again about your “political correctness” nonsense. Because this is an instance where you can’t have cheap and easy air travel and your high principles enacted.
No disrespect meant Keri
” points to me on this one I think.”
No Iain, I just prefer not to get bogged down in your deliberate attempts to muddy the debate.
“airport security would be unworkable on such a broad brush approach. ”
So they should more suspicious of Muslims based on the 9/11 attacks? If we’re going to go on who has attempted to hijack the most planes, maybe they should be tailing Indians and Pakistanis instead. Besides the 9/11 attacks, there has only been one hijacking on US soil in 23 years, that one by a disgruntled employee. Are we not going to allow disgruntled employees to fly now?
It’s not political correctness, it’s statistics. I know the likelihood of my plane being hi-jacked by murderous Muslims is incredibly low. Statistically, my plane is more likely to get hi-jacked by an Asian or a European. Racially profiling Muslims as being most likely to hijack planes is nothing more than reactionary hogwash. Would you not let Indians on a flight because they want the safest seat? Of course you would, but statistically, they would be more likely to hijack the plane than an Arab.
John
One of the fundamental things about debate is that the first person who looses it and resorts to personal attacks on their interlocutor has actually lost the debate.
Whenever we go head to head on any issue you seem utterly incapable of arguing without liberally throwing insults and snide remarks into the mix. Now I am prepared to treat you fairly and argue on just the substantive matters when we meet on the web, would you care to likewise make a commitment to civility and good manners?
When you write incoherent sentences and I make note of it in a comment I suggest that you in future take the opportunity to honestly consider my criticism, rephrase what you have said and accept that my criticism is made in good faith and it is not just facile point scoring.
I don’t fly and my only visits to airports have been to collect or deliver other travellers but frankly when you see the cattle call that is a prerequisite for air travel you would have to wonder why anyone would put themselves through such experiences. When you realise that security services have so many people to consider and they have a number of issues to address in terms of interdicting both terrorists and drug smugglers no one would dispute that passenger behaviour is the first thing that they will be considering and there are lots of other intangibles that will come into any decision that may see any particular person questioned or considered suspicious. have you ever watched the show on 7 “border security” I think it is called? It gives a pretty good idea of just how security goes about its business and on the whole the people in authority are polite but firm and they strive for procedural fairness. My whole stand is basted upon the notion that such people are doing an important job in difficult circumstances and they don’t need rather stupid political correctness making their job any harder.
The thing about statistics is that they can be made to give just about any result that you desire depending on the parameters that you choose. In any case as I have suggested earlier a persons ethnicity is , and most certainly should only ever be a small part of the process of risk accessment carried out by airport security. That an airline may get it wrong and treat some one with undue suspicion on the odd occasion is regrettable but we live in dangerous times and I think that this sort error should not raise your ire any more than submitting your shopping bags to inspection as you leave a supermarket does.
Finally It is about time that you stopped dragging out the Dramatica hate page every time I am getting the better of you in debate. In correspondence Tobias suggests that your citation of it has some relevance because we were discussing the veracity of on-line references. I think that its relevance is confined to showing just what can happen when spiteful people who carry on a vendetta against an individual ( like Moi) can create and maintain a page that is all about smearing someone by half truths and misrepresentation. You claim that the contents of that page are all “true” but we both know that such claims are bullshit. Need I remind you of how you were hoisted on your own petard over at Andrew Bartlett’s blog over your repeated selective quoting of my opinion of domestic violence (exactly as you do on the Dramatica page) and you pulled the same stunt there and in the end had to concede that my version of events was in fact correct?
Another example of the stupidity of the page is its continuing to insist that my local MHR is the woman who stood for the Labor party when in fact Peter Dutton retained his seat at the last election. That is very much the measure of the page you so delight in citing, frankly if it can’t get the uncontentious details right what does it say about the rest of the content?
Iain
First, are you roasting a turkey? If so, remember that the breast and hindquarters cook at different rates.
Second, you just don’t get it do you? I know in advance that this is pointless, but let me spell it out.
(a) As John points out quite clearly, not all hijackers are Muslims. (Red herrings about Wikipedia do not change this glaring, demonstrable, historical fact.)
(b) Not all muslims are Arabs. Muslims come from, among other places, Indonesia, China, Pakistan (and India), Bosnia, Turkey, Chechnya, the United Kingdom and Australia. There is no necessary attachment of that faith with any particular ethnicity, country of origin or shade of complexion.
SUBCLAUSE to (b) – It should hardly need saying, but not all Muslims are interested in hijacking planes.
THEREFORE
(c) Attempting to screen for “muslim” hijackers on the basis of Arab ethnicity fails on two counts. It will not capture all Muslims, and even if it could, it would not capture all (or even most) hijackers.
Your mad scheme for racial profiling is useless. Of course, its not only useless, it’s entirely based on racial prejudice, a prejudice that you’ve richly demonstrated time and again that you cannot defend.
You know something Iain? I think I am more of conservative than you. Why? Because I actually value and wish to preserve the character of our liberal democracy. Whereas you are willing to trash its fundamental freedoms – like equal rights for all citizens, freedom of religion – on the basis of fears that are clearly incoherent. There are other words for what you are, but none of them is “Conservative”.
I feel a bit sorry for you sometimes, Iain. You live in one of the safest and most pleasant spots in one of the safest and most pleasant countries in the world. And yet, you’ve allowed a few cynical journalists to convince you that you ought to be jumping at shadows. I don’t think that us pointing this out to you is going to change that, but I do wish you’d stop being so frightened of the world, for your own sake.
Anyhow, once again, you can’t expect the rest of us to run the world according to fears that we don’t share, and can barely understand.
Just a quick note about the Encyclopedia Dramatica issue. As Iain notes, I refused to remove the link because in the context of a discussion about the reliability of sources, I don’t believe it was inappropriate. But I also don’t want that link and its contents to become the focus of this thread.
John Surname has provided a link to a third-party site; Iain has had an opportunity to give his opinion on that link. From this point, I’d appreciate it if we can bring the discussion back to the topic(s) at hand, as Jason has just done. Any more discussion about historical events and the accuracy of other web sites can be carried on elsewhere. Cheers.
You really know how to chair a meeting, Tobes.
Jason
Sigh…
Knowing the limits of my orthography I proof read and spell-check my words very carefully, so I missed one, no biggie at all. heck I will even concede the wit of your retort. However I suggest that you consider that your own failure to correctly capitalise the word Muslim is a far greater sin than my stray letter “t”.
As you wish Jason I have all day to refute your arguments
I do not claim that they are but the difference is that John wants to suggest that no Muslim should ever be suspected of being a Jihadist because most of then are not terrorists
When have I ever contradicted this? I have been writing about Islam for years and I am very well aware of the diversity of both the faith and it’s followers. In fact I am, if you can pardon the pun, very religious, about making the distinction between the Jihadists and the Islamic laity.
Show me anywhere that I have claimed that they are
The fact of the matter is that I have repeatedly made it clear that I understand and agree with this truth.
But get back to the original incident and it has absolutely no relationship to your straw man argument here, and what you actually have is a group of passengers who frightened the air crew on a plane. Now I have no idea if their fears were justified by the actions of the passengers or not (but nor do you) The air crew may certainly have over reacted but this is just because they are like you or I, human and fallible. This does not prove the existence of a dark conspiracy against Arabs or Muslims as you want to claim and it certainly does not prove that any policy of racial profiling is evident.
I have no “mad scheme” at all all that I have said that factors such as religion and ethnicity will be informally considered no matter what you think of it and to rail against it is absolutely silly and futile. Were Muslims to be required to wear a red crescent on all of their clothing or something similar then you would have me onside quicker than you could blink, but your despite current hyperbole about this sort of thing here it is not enough to warrant the fear and loathing exhibited here.
Nah Jason you are no conservative because if you were you would realise that liberal democracy is not just about the rights of its citizens but also about the responsibilities that are the flip side of the same coin.
My views have been formed quite independently from the journalists that you allude to and in fact I am sure that you read them more thoroughly than I ever do. But why is that you think that my opinions mean that I live in a state of fear? Because I certainly do not. In fact the way that you and your pals are so hostile to my contradicting your position suggests that it is you guys who need to calm down and take a few deep breaths not I.
Yeah I know you have enough of your own unreasonable fears of dark conspiracies and humble Queensland bloggers.
should read “despite your” in this para
I have no “mad scheme” at all all that I have said that factors such as religion and ethnicity will be informally considered no matter what you think of it and to rail against it is absolutely silly and futile. Were Muslims to be required to wear a red crescent on all of their clothing or something similar then you would have me onside quicker than you could blink, but despite your current hyperbole about this sort of thing here it is not enough to warrant the fear and loathing exhibited here.
Iain, you have been completely unable to prove why Muslim Arabs looking for safe seats are more likely to be a threat, and more deserving of security personnel interest, than non-Muslim Arabs looking for safe seats. Your whole argument is based upon the notion that it’s “political correctness” and must be wrong because “political correctness” is wrong. That is not an argument. That is just reactionary boulderdash.
John I never set out to do that so your comment is irrelevant. It was your side of the argument who have been banging on about the relative risks of different passengers not I.
By the way the word you were looking for is “balderdash”
Don’t back away now, Iain. You’ve just spent 8 days arguing in favour of racial profiling at airports for what reason? To help Muslims?
No John I have been arguing that the paranoid ranting against “racial profiling ” from you and those getting so hot under the collar here are silly, over blown and pointless.
Try reading what I actually say (hard for you to do, I know) rather than mouthing off about what you think that I have said.
Good grief. Here we go, the classic Iain Hall tactic of backing away from everything he’s just been arguing for, while simultaneously attacking everyone else for misrepresenting his viewpoint (which, like all good conservative views, is an ocean of calm compared to the mindless frothing at the mouth of the left).
I’ll just quote myself so Iain doesn’t force this thread off on a tangent:
And let’s juxtapose Surname’s quote with Iain’s earlier statement:
So, Iain – please get back to explaining how targeting Muslims who discuss safety concerns about flying would improve the detection of safety risks (minimising false negatives).
And Toaf, I’ve been in enough meetings that I’m glad something positive has come out of them. Here’s my favourite demotivational poster.
John
I quite appropriately dismissed your now repeated claim in this comment
Mate, you are using enough straw on this thread to build a house, so instead of attacking what you have imagined that I have said here why don’t you try to address what I have actually said?
Tobias
I see no problem with ethnic profiling is very simply because no amount of lefty teeth gnashing is going to stop those on the front line doing it informally anyway.
But as there was no formal profiling done in this case anyway because this was not an incident instigated by “security” but by cabin crew who were frightened and concerned by what they over heard.
Essentially what would you rather see, the occasional false positive (for what ever reason) which results in the odd disgruntled passenger or a single false negative that results in a big bang.
Go on you take your pick, there are no other choices.
I would rather see people using their brains about what constitutes reasonable suspicion, whereas you seem to be suggesting that the racist misinterpretation of a conversation is acceptable because you somehow think it might prevent a real disaster.
Here’s a hint for you, Iain – an actual terrorist is unlikely to have which seat is safest foremost in their mind. If a person intends to hijack a plane and fly it into a building, I don’t imagine they will be discussing where it is safest to sit since they are going to need to get out of their seat for the hijacking. If a person intends to fly a plane into a building, I don’t imagine they will be discussing where it is safest to sit since they probably expect the event to end in a hellish fireball that kills everyone on board.
You think it is acceptable for airline staff to interpret a Muslim’s conversation as suspicious because, to adapt a descriptor you used earlier, pointfull prejudice. But it is still prejudice – if it would not indicate that a non-Muslim has malicious intent, why would you expect it to be a valid predictor for a Muslim?
Or, to quote John Surname:
We are talking about human beings in stressful jobs who are very well aware the price of getting it wrong and I defy you or anyone else to design a “system” that is immune from error. With the benefit of 20 20 hindsight it is so easy for you to use the racism claim. finding evidence to support your supposition is where you would be coming unstuck I think
Don’t be so patronising Tobias it does nothing for your argument at all
Suspicious behaviour is, as I have, several times, said the primary trigger factor for any security interdiction and if there are other factors that raise suspicion as well, no matter what they are then it is, as they say, “reasonable cause” to at least ask a few questions. Sadly for your argument we can never control the way that airport staff think or what it is that raises their suspicions as they go about their duties and as long as they do their jobs with procedural fairness I can’t for the life of me see why you are making such a fuss.
Don’t bother!
I have addressed his statement twice already and if we consider how long it took you and the others here to realise that his skills at constructing a clear and cogent sentence are rather poor then to keep citing him becomes a case of the blind leading the blind!
Bugger off Iain. You can barely write a coherent sentence, and you attack my writing?
An excellent example of Iain’s “clear and cognent” prose:
Not to mention John’s sentence that Iain pounced on was FINE!
Good grief, this is the most amusing and disturbing comments thread I have read in a loooong time.
Some highlights -
* Iain pompously declaring a particular sentence as poorly constructed and unintelligible, when (a) it isn’t and (b) it isn’t important anyway. Then he goes on and on about it for post after post, failing to recognise he is just plain wrong. Iain, sweetie, you are putting emphasis on the wrong words in that sentence, which is getting you all muddled. Read it with an emphasis on the word “above” ie ” Sometimes I forget that elderly Christians are ABOVE all regular people, and especially dirty Arab Muslims.” Not “Sometimes I forget that elderly Christians are, above all, regular people….” The way it is actually written works fine. Bless your cotton socks.
* Iain’s brilliant comeback to Tobias’s smack down. When it is pointed out to Iain that would be hijackers are not likely to pick “safe seats” on a plane…he says “Don’t be so patronising Tobias it does nothing for your argument at all”. He’s not being patronising, Iain. He is pointing out how much of a fool you are. And I think it enhances his argument beautifully !
* The sadness I felt when Iain stated that there is nowhere in the world that he wants to go where travelling in an aeroplane would be required. Assuming he does not intend to walk or sail to other countries – that means he has no interest in visiting the wider world. And that saddens me. Think of all the amazing things he and his family are missing out on knowing, experiencing and learning. All because he is scared of shadows and crippled by prejudice.
Marry me Liv.
John
It is not I who has tickets upon themselves about their mastery of English, it is you sunshine. I have lost count of the number of tomes that you have insisted that I am “illiterate” and to point out your own errors in return, as I did in this thread is a reasonable response as far as i can see.
The fact that you can’t spell “cogent” correctly sort of undermines any criticism of my instructional widget text that has enabled several people to successfully add a photo to their WordPress profiles. It may not be the neatest piece of prose that I have written but it has a proven functional purpose, which is more than can be said for anything you have ever written.
Bron
Really? I still think not
Olivia
Yes, Surnames foibles can be diverting in the most amusing way.
Now I will offer thanks to you for enunciating why you and the others here have been so insistent that the sentence is “OK” (something that Surname was incapable of doing BTW) you see the problem with your suggestion is a comma, but not the one that you imagine that I have imputed to be there but the one that precedes the word “and” It changes the entire sentence. Had it been omitted there would be no problem with the sentence but its inclusion completely undermines the interpretation you see (and that Surname probably intended) Now I was taught that this use of the comma in front of a conjunction is a bad idea because it is generally unnecessary and can cause confusion. My error was to assume that Surname was well versed in the proper use of punctuation. See here
Actually Sweetie it does no such thing. The experience in the UK has been that the more recent crop of would be Jihadists has been that they are often rather inept and stupid(well they are considered disposable by their masters and too much training is a waste of time ) and as I have shown time and again that I do understand the nature or terrorism what he wrote was tantamount to trying to “teach grandma how to suck eggs” and deserving of my describing it as patronising.
Firstly I have no problem at all with travelling by sea, never have, quite enjoy it actually.
However don’t feel sad that me not wanting to go anywhere that requires air travel. I live in the best country in the world and I have made an effort to see a great deal off it. I have visited maybe 60 or 70 of its national parks, spending time in every part of the country except the Northern Territory (will get there one day) and as much as I have seen, experienced and enjoyed I know that I have barely scratched the surface so the time that I have for travel will be spent seeing this wide brown and wonderful land .
Just how well have you seen this country? Because it saddens me greatly that so many young people think that they are being so clever and so adventitious by patronising the tourist traps of the world while they ignore the wonders that are closer to home.
I am sure that even Olivia has more sense than to take you up on that offer John
should be
However don’t feel sad at me
and times not tomes in the beginning as well