|
Letter to Sun-Sentinel
It's so simple. If a lion escapes from the zoo, you don't go looking for giraffes and elephants. We know the exact demographic of those who have so dramatically threatened the safety of our air travel in the past and who have sworn to do so again in the future: 17- to 40-year-old Muslim males of Middle Eastern descent. That being said, to delay the travel of others -- the elderly black woman, the Asian infant, the balding white male -- would all seem superfluous and provocative. Nevertheless, we grumble and bear it as we remove our shoes, hats and belts and dutifully show our unmentionables to complete strangers. Why is it then that the loudest legal backlash from all of this, claiming violation of civil rights, seems to come from those who look like, sound like, pray like, and hail from the same countries as those whose sole stated purpose is to deprive everyone else of their much more important unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Somewhere between McCarthyism and carelessness lies the very prudent act of "profiling" a potential threat using the set of clear and consistent descriptors shared by every single one of the terrorists. To ignore this and instead train our scrutiny on a Mexican toddler sleeping in her bassinet simply because she was the 28th person in line is an example of this carelessness. It reminds me of the old joke that has a man who lost his wallet on First Street searching for it on Third Street because the light is better there. When a lawsuit is filed because a 17- to 40-year-old Muslim male of Middle Eastern descent has taken umbrage with having to disrobe along with the rest of us, then the terrorists stop being furious for just a moment and giggle their grenades off at how politically easy we make it for them to hurt us. Very simply, they laugh at how easy it is for them to repeatedly
exploit the loophole created when our national conscience won't understand
that "An ounce of prevention weighs far more than a pound of
political correctedness"; and that loophole is just large enough
for a bomb-laden 17- to 40-year-old Muslim male of Mid-Eastern descent
to pass through, completely unoffended. - Simon Mirsky |