On Sun, 17 Oct 2004, James A. Donald wrote:
-- James A. Donald:
If you really look like the shoe bomber, then you should have to drive, or use public transport.
Thomas Shaddack
Ever tried to drive to Europe? Or to Hawaii?
Hard biscuit
Do I interpret this statement correctly as the endorsement of ethnicity-based travel restrictions? Didn't domething like this been here already, in the form of Jim Crow laws, and later found unconstitutional?
Why airplanes don't count as a form of public transport?
They do.
I am afraid either I don't understand you correctly, or you are contradicting yourself. The "...or use public transport" from your earlier statement seems to mean that you said something along the lines "if they can't fly, they should use public transportation, which includes airplanes".
This is a measure good for pissing off (which is often the first step to radicalizing) the quite secularized majority of American Arabs.
The proposition that we need to walk delicately for fear of disturbing the tender sensibilities of arabs seems laughable.
Being told I can't use some quite common resource, in this case an important means of transportation, because of so irrelevant factor as ethnicity, isn't exactly delicate. What would you do if you'd be in the receiving end of such policy? Add more such restrictions and some percolating time - would you just bow and obey? How long it would take to get you pissed and eventually revolting?
Are the arabs walking delicately to avoid offending our sensibilities?
Vast majority of them yes. But you don't perceive them because they don't offend you and don't make the news.
You also seem to forget there is another potential factor - not only the visible one (ethnicity), but also one that isn't obvious to visual evaluation - religion. There is a significant black minority that inclines to Islam, some of them potentially radical. Do you want to suggest banning blacks from flying too?
Seen any black suicide bombers?
Not yet. But maybe I just didn't look deep enough through the mass-medial fog of the terrorism "war".
Black Muslim radicalism tends to express itself by mugging Jews and stealing television sets. Strapping dynamite to one's chest just does not seem to be a black thing.
With the proper leadership, everything is possible. Don't forget the WW2 kamikaze pilots, who weren't quite Arabs.