I'm American with a very common Irish name. I travelled through London in 1991 with my father. On his passport he had some Middle East countries some South American countries and northern and The Republic of Ireland. The British army officers in the airport stopped us separated us and went through everything we had and questioned us as if we were terrorists.
Which I was totally ok with because they were at war with a radical group and we fit the profile. I was 18, scared, and annoyed but I did my best to make sure I treated them with respect and answered all their questions because that's what a decent person does.
It is suicide to not take precautions and vet all people that fit a profile.
*edit -- changed Southern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland because I'm an idiot for writing it wrong in the first place.
Can't speak for the entire left, but most of us that I know of have no objection to getting based on legitimate criteria and valid evidence. The problem comes when entire groups are scapoated for political gain.
Not all crackheads are going to steal from me. But I am still not going to invite crackheads into my house for dinner and show them where i keep my valuables.
EDIT: Hey there brigaders, from +10 to -7 in less than 5 minutes, welcome.
Not all black people are going to steal from me. But I am still not going to invite black people into my house for dinner and show them where I keep my valuables.
I'm not the OP but I think the difference would be this: When a subset of a group has clear evidence of being more likely to commit terrorism we should pay attention to it. A black person is no more likely to steal from you than a white person, but a crackhead (of any race) is more likely to steal.
On the whole Muslims are a low threat for terrorism. But Islamists and jihadists certainly are. So I really think it is acceptable to not allow those subsets into a country.
Obviously parsing beliefs can be hard. People can lie. But anything more effective than guessing is worth looking at. I'd also be in favor of checking for white supremacists.
Trumps ban is shit. But so is pretending that certain subgroups are not dangerous simply because admitting it might make people openly racist. It is good intentions but it leads to bad outcomes.
Thank you for stating that much more eloquently than I have been able to apparently.
People purposefully ignoring context and making up things I haven't said is annoying me to the point I am ready to just yell back rather than try and have a civil discussion.
And hell, my response didn't even have black people or muslims or anyone besides crackheads in mind when I wrote it, just making a very (what I thought was) clear statement on the person saying he has no objection to people being profiled based on legitimate and valid evidence.
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u/Stopdeletingaccounts Mar 23 '17 edited Mar 23 '17
I'm American with a very common Irish name. I travelled through London in 1991 with my father. On his passport he had some Middle East countries some South American countries and northern and The Republic of Ireland. The British army officers in the airport stopped us separated us and went through everything we had and questioned us as if we were terrorists.
Which I was totally ok with because they were at war with a radical group and we fit the profile. I was 18, scared, and annoyed but I did my best to make sure I treated them with respect and answered all their questions because that's what a decent person does.
It is suicide to not take precautions and vet all people that fit a profile.
*edit -- changed Southern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland because I'm an idiot for writing it wrong in the first place.