(A friend sent me the email at the bottom of this entry. These are my thoughts on the email.)
Thanks for the link big guy. When you send something like this also send your personal interpretation. Psychologists say that when we watch television commercials as a group and nobody says anything we each individually assume that the others accept the sales pitch. In the television example and in emails like this we lend our personal credibility to an argument when we don't explicitly define our viewpoint.
You've built equity in your name and I think that you should protect that equity.
Profiling isn't as simple as applying logic to a particular situation. I propose a broader perspective than the airport check- in lines.
Our country was founded by a group of people who believed in themselves and not in government. Throughout our system there is an underlying mistrust of government power. Present-day political parties aside, most people agree with this stance which is probably most easily captured in the concept of "innocent until proven guilty." If our system has to burden one side, it's going to burden the government.
At this point in American history, as your email demonstrates, we're being asked a simple question: "How much power are you willing to give the government to protect you?" Since our system has for hundreds of years given the people the power, this statement is equivalent to "How much power are you willing to give up for us to protect you?"
It's a great question for us to answer as a society. My personal views have always centered on the concept that government should do little more than protect our borders and allow we the people to build our society on a level playing field (sink or swim, laissez fairre, capitalism, etc.) In peacetime this was an easy argument for me to make. The issues were very cut and dry to me when it came to things like taxation, welfare, highway speeds and other domestic issues. In my belief system I wanted the government to play very little role in these domestic issues. As long as they took care of my borders I was a happy camper and I could continue to idealistically fight against the power of government in the names of our founding fathers.
I have to admit that as the world has changed in the last six months many of my arguments have become very muddled. My core belief is the same: government should protect us and then get the heck out of the way. Unfortunately, as we learned on 9/11 that protection now extends into our borders.
In and of itself, the tactical situation in the email below is very straight-forward: we should allow racial profiling because it creates a greater good for the greater number.
Unfortunately, our government wasn't built on the ideal of the greater good for the greater number. It was built on the ideal of justice for all.
Take an example: Let's imagine a modern society that we govern with absolute control. This particular society is composed of an overwhelming majority of people who are savage. Of course this society also has some good people who keep to themselves and don't cause any harm to others. After years of murderous crime waves in our imaginary society our imaginary scientists prove beyond any doubt an interesting solution to the crime. For the purposes of our example we assume that this solution is perfect and will work like a charm. The solution that our highly-paid imaginary scientists find is this: if we pick one person at random from the population each year and hang them on television the crimes will stop. In that one televised event the savages will live out a year's worth of hateful emotions and will not commit crimes for the next 365 days.
So you, our imaginary president, are charged with accepting or vetoing the bill that would sacrifice one citizen to prevent the murderous crime waves every year. Clearly, if you are looking after the greater good of the society you can save the lives of those who would be otherwise murdered by simply killing one innocent. Do you do it?
Not if you're American. The American ideal says that we will defend the justice for every one person above all else. Our founding fathers never wanted to create a situation where the government could make this type of decision. It is simply too much power and subject to too much interpretation and judgment. To shortcut the argument our founding fathers said that we should forget the greater good and focus on individual liberty.
Which brings us back to the email below. As an American you weren't willing to sacrifice one person's life for the good of others. Are you willing to sacrifice one person's rights for the good of others? Is one person's right worth less that another person's life?
How does war fit into the American ideal? We obviously sacrifice lives to protect the greater good. Any General makes these decisions. Does the fact that people choose to go to war make it acceptable to sacrifice them? If so, what about the draft?
As you can see, the two ideals that I have used throughout my life to evaluate our government are suddenly in conflict. It was much simpler before and will take a lot of discussion with both the people I love and respect as well as the people I loathe and don't respect.
And email is a great way to do that. Thanks for the opportunity.
-----Original Message-----
From: Friend
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 8:32 AM
To: joe@joereger.com
Subject: Profiling
To ensure we Americans never offend anyone - particularly fanatics intent on killing us - airport screeners will not be allowed to profile people. They will continue random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, Secret Service agents who are members of the President's security detail and 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips. Let's pause a moment and take the following test.
In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:
(a) Norwegians from Ballard;
(b) Elvis;
(c) A tour bus full of 80-year-old women; or
(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.
In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
(a) A pizza delivery boy;
(b) Crazed feminists complaining that being able to throw grenade beyond its own burst radius was an unfair and sexist requirement in basic training;
(c) Geraldo Rivera making up for a slow news day; or
(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.
In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
(a) Luca Brazzi, for not being given a part in "Godfather 2;"
(b) The Tooth Fairy;
(c) Butch and Sundance who had a few sticks of dynamite left over from the train mission, or,
(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.
In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
(a) Mr. Rogers;
(b) Hillary, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems;
(c) The World Wrestling Federation to promote its next villain: "Mustapha the Merciless;" or
(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.
On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked and destroyed by:
(a) Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd.
(b) The Supreme Court of Florida trying to outdo their attempted hijacking of the 2000 Presidential election;
(c) Mr. Bean,
(d) Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.
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