Mass Shooting in Las Vegas

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by Ghost of Barry Endean, Oct 2, 2017.

  1. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Your example is exactly what the US is doing. Faced with a threat of Islamic extremists it wastes resources and alienates people through targeting at airports by race rather than for purely intelligence based reasons.

    I'm glad you agree this is illogical.

    I have no problem with intelligence based targeting. I loathe Islamic Extremists and their pathetic world view and unlike you I wouldn't fund them to further foreign policy objectives. But maybe you think targeting skin colour alone is intelligent.

    Since 9/11 white males going bonkers with big guns have killed far more people in the US than any terrorists. I'm trying to illuminate why instinctively you would reject profiling on this basis, or to say that this is a problem white people need to address. It's quite a simple analogy.

    Try also to sometimes think of these boards as somewhere we kick ideas around rather than make public policy. You might release less steam from your ears.
     
  2. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    Like everything, it is a balance.

    Of course profiling has a part to play in preventing crime and terrorism.

    But if it is done in too broad and lazy way it alienates a section of the community and can cause resentment that becomes divisive. It then makes it easier for those that want to recruit from those communities for criminal or terrorist activities easier.

    I think people that "fit" the current profile for known terrorist groups should accept that they are more likely to be stopped, questioned and searched. But it is extremely important that, when taking this approach, the authorities must do it in a sympathetic way that treats the person they have targeted respectfully and on the presumption that they are innocent.

    Having said that, I'm sure I would resent being stopped and delayed every time I travelled, or more frequently by the police, just because how I look or the religion I follow.
     
    miked2006, HappyHornet24 and KelsoOrn like this.
  3. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    Maybe the example was unfair, but it was intended to be an extreme example of what he was on about. He suggests that the only reason white men booking in to a hotel shouldn't be picked on, having his baggage checked as he booked into a hotel is because it would be "discriminatory". The reality, is that it would be pointless doing that at every hotel in the world. The security services have to prioritise as they do not have unlimited resources. It makes total sense to prioritise their efforts against groups that have told us that they want to destroy us, and have been proven to have taken many steps to try and achieve that killing many.
     
    KelsoOrn likes this.
  4. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Who are the 'groups' then? Because what we are saying is it shouldn't just be brown people. I think you probably agree, but you have to get 'it's PC gawn mad' huffy about it.
     
  5. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    I have worked all over the world, and I have clearly been stopped purely because I am white and stand out from the rest of the passengers on my plane. My baggage has been searched maybe a hundred times. On some flights, it was clear they were after drugs, others cigs and booze. It is annoying but I accept it, as maybe they have reason to think whites are more likely to smuggle booze? With thousands of extreme muslim terrorists travelling all over, why are you surprised at the extra scrutiny that anyone receives if they more closely match the profile than others.

    If a British terrorist group was threatening to blow up civilian targets in another country, then if I travelled to that country, I'd expect to get stopped and checked on my way in, and treated with more suspicion when I was there, it is a mix of human nature and common sense. I would not be blaming the security services, I'd be blaming the terrorist group. It is my belief that your justifiable anger at being associated with terrorism is directed at the extremists not at the security services who are just trying to do their job.

    By the way, my elderly mother, in her 80's at the time, used to live in Myrtle Beach in the US. On one of her regular trips out there on her own, she was kept overnight in not much more than a cell in Atlanta Airport and she never found out why.

    At age 19, my passport was stamped "Undesirable" when I dared make a stupid comment along the lines of "Havn't you got anything better to do" to an immigration officer when I was going to work in New York. It meant I was not allowed into the US then, nor for another 3 months.

    The US has always had haphazard methods of immigration control, whether you are black white or yellow. But when an Islamist group promises to blow innocents up in the US or the west in general, it is bound to cause extra scrutiny on people that could look like that. As an air passenger these days, every single one of us has to arrive at the airport hours earlier, we cannot take certain items on the plane, purely because extremists have been blowing up planes and threaten to blow up more. I am white, I am not a Muslim, and I am certainly not an extremist, yet I have to put up with it along with everybody else.

    Your anger (along with that of your community) needs to get diverted into the direction of those who are to blame for most of this as it may help the stop the threat at the source - the radicalisation. But I remember reading that you did not believe that radicalisation isn't even happening, that it was a myth.
     
    KelsoOrn likes this.
  6. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    I can't speak about your specific experiences. But saying you 'have to put up with it along with everyone else' seems to suggest you know what its like to be regularly racially profiled because of the colour of your skin at airports in the 21st century? I work in the music business and travel regularly in and out of the country and can confidently say that there is 100% a certain profile that gets tagged by security - and it isn't white males. But not working in Intelligence, I cannot say whether that is justified or not, and I don't think anyone can. I would say that people fitting those profiles must find it terribly frustrating though and its not for white males to tell them differently.

    And your last sentence...in the nicest way possible, do you instruct 'christian' males to get angry at their communities for the continued bombings in Syria and Iraq? Or all Jewish people for their attacks in Palestine? I am not comfortable at all with this belief in the west that Islamic extremists are the only extremists that there are. It's simply not true. I do accept that the threat for Islamic Extremists in this country is easily the most prevalent though - I'm just not at all comfortable with the view that it is the only thing we should be condemning and looking out for, its very insular to think that.

    One suggestion I would like to add - and I admit, I don't know the costs of implementing - Is it not wise now to get airport style luggage scanning at major high-rise hotels in the world? Seems totally logical to me.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2017
    KelsoOrn, RunkleHorn and sydney_horn like this.
  7. wfcSinatra

    wfcSinatra Predictor Choker 14/15

    Do you love to just waffle? I clearly said I sympathise with airport security so why the essay?
     
    J.B likes this.
  8. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    So when you started
    So when you started off Manny about airport security in New York, you were sympathising with them.
    Fair enough, I think.

    No essay, just trying to get you to understand things from the vast majority of the populations point of view. Not just yours.

    Why do you ignore my point that I think you should be directing your anger at those that are causing the unfair tarnishing you complain of?
     
    iamofwfc likes this.
  9. scummybear

    scummybear Reservist

    But he owned the guns legally, didn't he? So they wouldn't have stopped him from taking his guns up because he's allowed to. Although I believe India do scan bags in hotels since the Mumbai attacks.
     
  10. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    Worst Tinder profile ever.
     
    fan and Burnsy like this.
  11. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    He was allowed to own guns. But not half of the types he had stacked up in holdalls. The ones he mainly used were illegally adapted. So I’d like to think they would have stopped him.
     
  12. scummybear

    scummybear Reservist

    I thought the guns, and bump stocks he's reported to have used (to turn a semi-auto into an almost full auto) are perfectly legal in Nevada? Hence why even the NRA have come out since and suggested that regulations on bump stocks should be tightened.
     
  13. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    They are. But not when combined.
     
  14. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    There's a hotel in London where I've had my bags scanned.
     
  15. Godfather

    Godfather bricklayer extraordinaire

    There's one in Birmingham where I've had my bags emptied ;)
     
  16. kVA

    kVA Reservist

    Bloody good post and I find it far more interesting than many other posts discussing the pros and cons of profiling. I much prefer real life examples.

    I only have one experience of racial profiling, not me, but a good friend. It wasn’t far off a year after the Twin Towers attack. I was part of a stag party flying away for the weekend. A party of all white men, apart from one who is Asian. I’d been good friends with this guy for the best part of 20 years, since we started secondary school. He was born here, as children I remember that his parents observed Islam and expected their boys to too, this was never a problem and our small group of friends got up to all the mischieve that teenagers do!
    After a few drinks at the airport, apart from this chap, it was time to go through security, our friend had disappeared. After a few minutes he reappeared apparently having been searched. As I’d had a couple of beers I was fuming at them selecting the wrong guy. I’d known him for ages and would defend his integrity to the end and I wanted to have a proper middle-class rant at a manager about it. I say middle-class as I always feel that type of rant has much more effect than working class ones.
    Anyway, my mate was very calm and said it’s OK, it’s no problem. After asking the reason for him being searched, I learned that my friend was carrying a Swiss Card.............. ‘wtf is that? like a credit card?’ I enquired. ‘Erm, no, you know, like a Swiss Army knife but in card format?’ came the answer. All of a sudden my anger turned to befuddled-amuse-anger as I questioned how he could be so stupid! His embarrassed response. ‘I forgot I had it in my wallet, my father-in-law gave it to me for Christmas’. Before you say it, he is still married so I don’t think that his father-in-law wanted to stitch him up.

    The stag-do continued with some light ribbing for this guy but without further intervention from the authorities. We still chuckle about it, even now. Out of all of the people that could have been chosen, he was one of the nicest, least religious guys they could have selected and this time they’d gotten it completely wrong.
     
  17. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    I think I must be cracking up, or I have been whooshed? Surely he was stopped and searched due to him carrying a knife/tool through airport security rather than anything to do with his colour, so they got it completely right!

    No?
     
  18. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member


    Are you sure ? Blacks in the US commit far more violent crime often against other members of their own communities than do whites or indeed other racial groups within the US. For example many groups like the Indian and Chinese community in the US commit crimes at a far lower percentage than their percentage in the population.
     
  19. cyaninternetdog

    cyaninternetdog Forum Hippie

    I think they meant mass shootings rather than one on one murders etc.
     
  20. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

  21. Fitz

    Fitz Squad Player

    It’s the whole country, truly. Absolutely nothing will be different after all this, with the possible exception of banning the bump stock. That’s about as apt to slow American gun violence as say banning the beer bong would be to slow American college fraternity parties.
     
    Burnsy likes this.
  22. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    I first travelled to Japan about 8 or 9 years ago, was probably the only non Japanese person on the flight and appeared to be the only one stopped at security. Had my suitcase emptied of contents & xrayed very much in full public view. I don't know why they felt it was right to pick on the only English looking person there but it didn't bother me one iota as I don't have a chip on my shoulder.

    I can only imagine some people seem to look forward to being outraged.
     
    iamofwfc likes this.
  23. Stevohorn

    Stevohorn Watching Grass Grow

    Was you wearing a bowler hat and carrying a copy of The times?
     
    Fitz and Diamond like this.
  24. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    Robin Hood outfit if you must know. They love that over there.
     
    PhilippineOrn and Stevohorn like this.
  25. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    So you’re suggesting that anyone who is racially profiled and is understandably upset by it just ‘has a chip on their shoulder’?

    What an odd thing to say.
     
  26. fan

    fan slow toaster

    i think he's saying something happened to him once 8 years ago and it didn't bother him. and so anyone who faces the same problem on a persistent level for however many years is just making a fuss about nothing. it's solid logic
     
    Bwood_Horn likes this.
  27. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    Why is it odd? When my sister travelled to the U.S. 2 weeks ago she told me that random people were taken from the security queue for a more thorough search and "sniff". People like her, a guy in a wheelchair, an old person, etc. They were absolutely making sure they took a good cross section of passengers so they could be seen to be fair.

    Are the people who are trying to blow up planes and being successful in killing children at concerts coming from a good cross section of society? No they're not.

    That's what's odd, not my post about getting on with it. Racial profiling is a lot more effective at stopping the right people. Maybe if people are thinking they're getting picked on realised that they actually aren't then they would stop whining so much.
     
    KelsoOrn likes this.
  28. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    You're wrong.
     
  29. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    So if you, as an individual, travelled regularly by plane and were routinely picked from a crowd because of your ethnicity to be searched more vigorously, you are saying you would be absolutely fine with it? I appreciate it may have to be this way for now for matters of national security but to suggest open and honest members of the Muslim community have a ‘chip on their shoulder’ for not liking it, seems silly to me.

    You can say it as much as you like that they take a broad spectrum of people to search - but they don’t. I travel by air upwards of 10 times a month for work and that simply isn’t the case.

    I’m not arguing the merits of how successful it is or whether I would change it. I’m merely saying it isn’t anyone’s place to tell people who are affected by it how they should feel or to stop ‘whining’.
     
  30. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    Like you, I speak with experience of flying and I simply don't see it. OK I'm only in security for short periods but I just don't see any demographic being singled out. People such as Squibba will b*tch about the system singling them out when simply not true but won't say a word against the cowards who have put them in the position of being singled out in the first place.
     
  31. miked2006

    miked2006 Premiership Prediction League Proprietor

    My girlfriend is technically mixed race, but typically looks very white (and middle class). She is probably always the least likely person in the queue to stopped at airport security.

    Having visited on short trips before, she instead opted to spend three months in Colombia and became extremely tanned because of it. Colombian natives told her that her darkened skin made her looked Hispanic, but she didn't think too much of it.

    She was however absolutely shocked and appalled at the different treatment she received going through security in Miami. From the second she got off the plane, security guards stared at her suspiciously, all of the white passengers were whisked through and all of the tanned ones were put in a separate queue, where every aspect of their details and belongings were thoroughly checked. Some, completely at random, were pulled into dark rooms in empty corridors and did not emerge for the extra hour she had to queue.

    Having never been on the other side, she had never realised how intimidating and scary it is to be perceived - by big security men with guns - as a criminal, simply for looking a certain way.

    Now I realise smuggled drugs into rich Western countries are a far more deadly and dangerous threat than terrorism, and my girlfriend admitted that she was glad that countries are taking the threat seriously.

    However, the real eye opener was her usual obliviousness that this was a typical airport experience for some people. Usually, she waltzes through without a care in the world. Why would she know that people were being picked out of 'darker queues' to be hauled into dark rooms: either for intimidating interviews or intrusive searches?

    How terrifying is it, that it only took her being marginally 'less white', for the world to perceive her as something she was not.
     
    KelsoOrn and RunkleHorn like this.
  32. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    I'm not after an argument Burnsey, I know you as a decent poster, etc. But all this throws up throws up all sorts of arguments if you extend your thoughts to other scenarios.

    You said something along the same lines earlier, that it isn't for white people to say how non whites should think. Do you think that whites shouldn't have an opinion on the subject, then? Or just that they should not express it?

    If, like I mentioned earlier, a white supremist group threatened to, and over many years, had launched several successful terrorist attacks in, say, Singapore, or Dubai, or Tehran, or Kingston, would you not expect the security services to be more wary of white folk entering the country, and plan accordingly? Is it just not more sensible, and perfectly natural? Personally, I would accept it totally if I went there, would you?
     
  33. Stevohorn

    Stevohorn Watching Grass Grow

    Ive always noticed it more coming back into Norway. Any black or brown face is generally going to get held up longer at passport control.

    Knowing this i make sure i get into the 'whitest' queue.. and that makes me feel racist!
     
    Cassetti's Beard and Fitz like this.
  34. Fitz

    Fitz Squad Player

    I’m at my most racist when I see a non-Latinx will be making my burrito at Chipotle, and mutter under my breath, “dammit!”. They wrap the thing in the the least effective and efficient ways and it ends up falling apart on my shirt. I know it’s wrong but I can’t help myself.
     
    Stevohorn, fan and miked2006 like this.
  35. miked2006

    miked2006 Premiership Prediction League Proprietor

    If I walk into a Chinese restaurant and half the clientele aren’t Chinese, I turn around and walk straight out.
     

Share This Page