It's been only a couple weeks since his most recent guest contribution, but Rabbi Shea Hecht is back with another excellent article that I'm pleased to feature on TheSolidSurfer.com.
Little is needed by way of introduction; the essay is on a controversial topic, but very clearly speaks for itself:
Is Racial Profiling Necessary?
by Rabbi Shea Hecht
Recently, some of Britain's 1.7 million Muslims have accused police of using tough anti- terrorism laws that target their communities. In what I find to be a fascinating little news piece, now 10 British Muslims are considering suing the British government for racial profiling of young Muslim men. This hasn't stopped British police chief John Stevens from calling for more checks of "young Muslim men" saying similar methods have been effective in Israel.
Being that the Muslim population is complaining that they don’t want to be singled out, my question is this: Is racial profiling necessary?
Let’s take a look at the facts and work from there.
The fact is that many young Muslim men say that their religion requires them to force their way of life onto the rest of the world’s population under the threat of death.
The fact is that many young Muslim men have been trying to do just that creating chaos in many countries and continents all over the world.
The fact is that all the young school children shot to death in Beslan, Russia were killed by young Muslim men.
The fact is that the railroad bombs in London and Spain that killed hundreds of people were detonated by young Muslim men.
The fact is that young Muslim men flew the airplanes into the twin towers killing thousands of people.
The fact is that the 12 people caught planning to blow up airplanes en route from Great Britain to the USA were young Muslim men.
The fact is that if you know there is a group of young Jewish men or young Christian men flying on the same aircraft as you, you know you are safe and have nothing to fear.
The fact is that if you know there is a group of young Muslim men flying on the same airplane as you, you will reconsider flying and be thankful that the airline security does a very thorough job.
The fact is that young Muslim men are threatening the peace and stability of so many countries all around the world.
The fact is that every person regardless of nationality or race has a will to live and a right to live in serenity without being threatened.
The fact is, that as John Stevens the British police chief pointed out, the Israelis do use racial profiling of Muslims quite successfully - and they’ve lowered the rate of deaths in their country due to homicide bombers.
The fact is that El Al was the only airline to fly on September 11, 2001 when every other airline was grounded.
The fact is, that after the recent fright in England, El Al’s security measures didn’t change.
The fact is that every country has a right to defend itself both in and out of its borders.
The fact is that - with an apology to all peaceful male Muslims that don’t plan on forcing their way of life onto others or killing them out because of their heretical beliefs - the logical conclusion to all of this is that if a person wants to live in peace and freedom they are best to keep an eye on young male Muslims.
The fact is that racial profiling is wrong when it’s based on anything other than hard fact - but unfortunately in today’s day and age the facts call for it - and not just in England.
The fact is that most people are happy with the extra security - peaceful Muslims included - because they are not interested in becoming a memory and a statistic.
The fact is that if racial profiling of young Muslim men hurts, I’m sorry. I, for one, would like to be able to live and practice my religion - in peace.
The SolidSurfer.com responds: Rabbi, thank you again for such an excellent thoughtful piece. Any sort of profiling should never be undertaken lightly, but as unfortunate as it is, the facts of terrorism simply require it.
Just to add my two cents - profiling actually occurs far more frequently than many may realize. For example, police officers regularly conduct age- and sex-related profiling on young men, because statistically young men are far more likely than other demographic groups to commit crimes. Most young men, of course, are not criminals. But at the same time, most criminals are by far young men. Just the same, most young Muslim men are not terrorists. But virtually all terrorists are young Muslim men, and so profiling the overall Muslim male demographic clearly makes sense.
Yes, it's true that this will inconvenience many innocent Muslims. But that's a small price for the thousands of lives it will likely save, Muslims and everyone else.
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11 comments:
Dukakis88:
That'd be terrific. And we can also start pulling over all the black men driving cars, because people who steal cars are black, so black people driving cars probably stole them.
Hell, we should just send black kids directly to prison, because they're probably going to end up there anyway. Right?
And we should go to white guys' houses and kick in the doors and go see what they have in their basements and punch holes in the wall, because all the serial killers who kill people and then bury the bodies in their basements are white guys.
As for the Muslims, we should go to all their stores and break all the windows, and then go into their homes in the middle of the night and move them into new, enclosed neighborhoods, letting them take only what they can carry. That way we can keep an eye on them so they can't get up to that terrorism mischief they all like so much.
That will be the first stage of our final solution to the terrorism problem. Let's get to it!
Solid Surfer:
Your analogies have no bearing on this article. Young Muslim men commit 99.99% of all terrorism, and hence they should be profiled for the possibility. Nothing more and nothing less.
Everything else you wrote is irrelevant to the discussion.
Dukakis88:
I guess it would just be redundant to accuse you of faulty reasoning.
But the fact that a given subset happen to be primarily or entirely comprised of members of a larger group does not mean that members of the larger group are likely to be members of the smaller subset.
In case you need some more help, being slower than the other students, think of it this way.
There are a million A. There are ten B.
All B are also A.
Your profiling wrongly assumes that A are likely to be B, even though B is such a small subset that, to describe the entire group A in terms of B is patently fallacious.
All of your policy recommendations regarding Muslims are similar to the measures Hitler took against Jews in the thirties. He exploited some presumed subversive characteristic that it was believed that Jews shared, and then he justified restrictions with national security concerns.
It's hypocritical to decry the atrocities perpetrated against your group while endorsing the same kind of policies against a group you disfavor, and it's dangerous too, because the only real protection against such policies is a blanket prohibition and a strong regime of personal rights.
Solid Surfer:
There is no other way to put it - you are completely wrong. There are thousands and thousands of terrorists. And of the Muslims who are not terrorists, a significant number of them SUPPORT THE TERRORISTS and want to live under Sharia law.
For example,
In England: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/1379
In Israel: http://www.zoa.org/2006/06/new_poll_56_of.htm
And your comparison of my recommendations with Hitler is just disgusting.
European Jews never committed a single terrorist attack. Plenty of Western Muslims do it all the time.
European Jews never wanted to force other Germans to abide by Jewish law. Plenty of Western Muslims do.
European Jews never wanted to destroy their host countries and make them into Jewish theocracies. Plenty of Western Muslims do.
Everything Hitler thought about the Jews was false and made up. Everything these Muslims want to do is real and is a serious danger to Western civilization.
Muslims who don't believe in terrorism and taking over America with Sharia law should be welcome to stay. But those who do should leave.
Dukakis88:
Do you actually believe that there is a movement that is has any capabilities that could establish Sharia law in the United States?
It's very possible that in a few decades, muslims will comprise a majority in some European countries, and political Islam may gain a foothold through sheer demographics, but terrorists have no capabilities that could empower them to conquer or occupy a Western state. They have no tanks. They have no army. They have no navy.
And our Constitution protects us from theocracy. Shredding it damages our protection.
Solid Surfer:
Yes, there is a movement to establish Sharia law in the U.S. And it's led by the most promiment Muslim organization in America, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations).
Here is a website exposing CAIR's activities: http://www.anti-cair-net.org/
And these people don't care a whit about the constitution. The constitution only means something as long as people agree to uphold it, and those who want Sharia have no intention of upholding it.
Solid Surfer:
Also, do you not find anything problematic with what you mentioned about Europe:
"It's very possible that in a few decades, muslims will comprise a majority in some European countries, and political Islam may gain a foothold through sheer demographics"
Essentially, you're saying that it's inevitable that Europe will keep letting Muslims into their countries until they constitute a majority and take over. In other words, national suicide by letting Muslims come in and conquer them.
But why do you assume this is an automatic given? Instead of doing so, we should be advocating for Europe to save itself by immediately ending Muslim immigration and kicking out any current ones who want Sharia law.
I'm no fan of Europe in general, but it's a thousand times better now than it would be as ruled by Muslims under Sharia law.
Some would counter-argue that Europe still needs immigrants because of a declining natural population, but there are plenty of non-Muslims who could bcome immigrants instead. There is no need *whatsoever* for Muslims in particular to immigrate to Europe or anywhere else.
Dukakis88:
I don't think that national policy should be shaped by white supremecist principles. Demographics shift inevitably. The Germans were worried that the Jews controlled too much of the economy and were too powerful. I'm against a second Holocaust against Muslims.
I'm against countries deporting their own citizens for being of the wrong race. If Western Europe wants to put limits on immigration, I guess it can, but honestly, whether they retain a white majority is of no particular consequence to me.
Also, a large percentage of Western European immigrants and the second generation tends to be highly secularized. I don't think they're going there plotting conquest and Sharia. I think they're probably looking for jobs and a higher standard of living.
Solid Surfer:
This has nothing to do with race. The problem with Muslims has zero to do with skin color and everything to do with ideology. For example, Europe would be far better off with Arab Christians than with white Muslims.
And I'm also against another Holocaust, which is why I'm trying to speak out against those who genuinely are trying to commit one - Muslim terrorists. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=23841
Dukakis88:
As healthy as it may be for the liberal-academic establishment to have a sort of gadfly, I don't think David Horowitz and his website are can be taken seriously as an authority or trusted to accurately relay facts.
I'm not particularly swayed by the highly questionable threat of a terrorist Holocaust. I grew up under the cloud of the Cold War and the threat of mutually assured destruction. If this is the great new enemy of the West, the sky seems pretty sunny.
We're talking about people living in caves and throwing rocks. I'm more concerned about getting eaten by a bear than I am about America being conquered by Muslim fundamentalists.
Solid Surfer:
You may not think highly of David Horowitz, but the facts speak for themselves. (And indeed, that article I linked to isn't even original content from his site - it's a reprint of a speech from the Geneva Human Rights Council that was actually delivered by a representive of a very liberal organization, the World Union for Progressive Judaism.)
And there is plenty of other evidence of Muslim fundamentalists trying to take over; take a look at these two sites:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/
They both consist of news articles from around the world, and commentray on the articles by the site's editor. Even if you disagree with the editor on certain points, the contents of the news articles are unmistakeable: Fundamentalist Muslims are trying to violently force their religion onto America and the whole world.
This threat is different from the Cold War, but is just as dangerous in its potential. We can wish it wasn't so all we want (and believe me, I certainly wish this wasn't a problem), but that doesn't change the truth of the matter.
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