It pains me to call out my own dear (generally quite liberal) husband in "The Faulty Reasoning Almanack," but I fear I must.
Annoyed at what he regards as PC run amuck---J.K. Rowling being treated no differently from any other passenger---he wrote a short screed decrying the senseless insistence on law enforcement personnel treating all passengers with equal suspicion. In his note, he wasn't entirely serious, but whether he was serious or not, he made the argument, and I feel compelled to refute it.
I've heard the same argument from other people who haven't bothered to think the argument through. First of all, let's pretend that it was somehow right or fair or in line with American (or presumably British) values to treat people differently because they happen to belong to a particular religion, race, or nationality.
He seems to think that it would be all right for them to single out young Muslim men. First: how? It's not as if they all look alike. They are of different races and come from every country on earth. And expanding the profiling to include all dark haired, dark skinned young men---such as the man the Met mistakenly shot last year shortly after the London bombings---isn't really fair. And if it were fair, it still wouldn't work. It's not as if hair dye and blue contact lenses weren't readily available to anyone who wants them.
Second, if you limited yourself to people of one race or one nationality, people of other races or nationalities who are crazy or right wing survivalists or involved in terrorist activities for some other cause would very soon catch on. It's not as if there were never any terrorists in the country prior to 9-11. People seem to have forgotten the Oklahoma City bombing, but it was a pretty significant event in its time, and it was carried out by Americans. And the organizations to which those terrorists belong (or different ones with similar goals) haven't exactly vanished off the face of the earth.
Someone completely unconnected with Islam who wants to create fear and anger between Muslim Americans and other Americans might try to carry out an attack. That's not necessarily an unlikely scenario. Racial profiling would give free rein to groups who wanted to exacerbate such tensions or who had specific political agenda.
It's true that an elderly lady, a world-famous author, or a young child are unlikely to be planning a terrorist attack on an airplane, but it's not absolutely impossible that they might have in their possession materials that could be used by someone who is planning such an attack, or that were planted on them by such people.
Third---and this is why I'm so surprised that he'd write this because he's generally critical of police practices that violate European Law---it's wrong. It's wrong to single out people who have done nothing to deserve it and who have nothing in common other than a (nominally) shared religion.
When I was in Miami Airport a few months ago, the back brace I sometimes wear set off the buzzer and I had to take off my shoes, stand on some painted footprints, and---right out in front of God and everyone---hold up my arms while the security guard carefully ran the sensor up and down my back. I don't think she believed for a minute that I was wired to explode, but she was right to check. It was uncomfortable and very embarrassing, but it was also very reassuring.
J.K. Rowling is a fine person, but she could be a target herself and never know it. To make air travel as safe as we can, we have to treat everyone with equal suspicion. It's sad that it has to be that way, but....it has to be that way.
Nick of all people shouldn't be making arguments for expediency over the duty to affirm and respect the dignity of our fellow human beings by refraining from treating some individuals as deserving of different treatments from others because of their membership in this or that group. He, much more than I, believes that some things are wrong just because they are. Before I can make up my mind, I have to weigh the equities; and there are some things I think are wrong in some contexts but not in others. I'm the moral relativist in the family. So I don't know what this was all about, except that he was indignant about the treatment accorded to his beloved Ms. Rowling.
One of his friends asked him in my presence why he opposes the death penalty. He didn't hesitate: "Because it's wrong." What about police lying to one suspect in a crime that another has implicated him or her in order to extract a confession? "Wrong." What about owning or selling guns? "Wrong." And so on. And he isn't by any means a soppy liberal who sides with criminals; he was a special constable with the Metropolitan police for 12 years.
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