Discrimination

Hi Tal Here we go with some ridiculous word games. Ok, I’ll play along. First off, your sentence claims that gay marriage is currently illegal. Is it? If so, why is it illegal? Would it be because some level of Government passed a law making it illegal? Is that not discrimination and therefore not allowed by our Constitution. Would it not then be the case the homophobic right-wing republicans therefore feel the need to change our Constitution to ban such an act (gay marriage)?Or am I totally misreading you here and you actually all for gay marriage? Are you trying to say that gay marriage is not illegal and it never should be?To be honest, I do not know that status of gay marriages in most of the States. I do know that my State (Michigan) recently showed how homophobic we are by banning not only gay marriage but civil unions as well. And I also recall that in the time period leading up to the vote, it was repeatedly said that this ban would NOT be used to deny health care to gay couples. But guess what

The fourteenth amendment means that the provisions and immunities of the Bill of Rights apply at all levels of government. Equivocation on the word "public". I have no concern over what private citizens decide to do, or what they decide to support, even en masse.But we're talking about what the government is doing. Governments cannot take religious positions, the First Amendment is very clear on that. I have a right not to have my tax dollars and my government property, for instance, used to erect the Ten Commandments. Or a large Buddha. Or a mosque.The government can't come out on the side of a religion. It's just that simple. The alternative leads to the kinds of wars that devastated Europe for centuries.

False by inspection. Though a federal law prohibiting gay marriage currently exists, 11 states found it necessary to write similar statutes into their constitutions.Clearly, you can ban something that is already banned.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 01-05-2005 11:52 AM

Shouldn't that be White, Christian American males ? I'm not aware that any terrorist acts have been perpetrated by British Christians in the US (in modern times before someone digs up something from the Revolutionary War ). Therefore people like MTW and myself should be given express passage through the security checks - and free upgrades to First Class wouldn't go amiss.Darn - just remembered I'm an agnostic not a Christian. Mind you, I could fake it for that upgrade to First.Maybe that would just show up the shortcomings of profiling though...(Edited so it makes a bit more sense)This message has been edited by MangyTiger, 01-05-2005 23:04 AM

---

Confused ? You will be...

Jazzns responds to me:

quote:

---

Graduated from UNM in '03. Never heard about the prayer rooms though. Guess I never needed to utilize them.

---

They were there when I was there in the early 90s (oh, that dates me.) The only reason I knew about it was that I had read it somewhere in one of the course catalogs for the semester, I think. Some official publication, at least. I'm one of those people who will read anything when needing to kill time.

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

MangyTiger responds to me:

quote:

---

Shouldn't that be White, Christian American males ?

---

To be most precise, yes. I had assumed that since I had said that when looking at terrorist acts in the US, the assumption of native-born citizens was apparent, but you are correct in that such cannot be assumed.People keep saying focusing on the scale of the attacks on September 11 and indeed, that was huge, but it and the previous WTC attack in 93 amount to a drop in the bucket in the number of attacks compared to the number of attacks carried out by our own home-grown terrorists. Let us not forget that until September 11, the largest terrorist attack in the US with 169 dead was the destruction of the Oklahoma City Federal Building by McVeigh.If one person manages to pick a really good target, does that really make people like him more likely to commit terrorism than the 100 other guys who don't choose such populated targets? We have to look at the whole picture.

quote:

---

I'm not aware that any terrorist acts have been perpetrated by British Christians in the US

---

British? Hard to say. Depends upon which side of the Irish "problem" (for lack of a better term) one falls. Quite a lot of American money has made it into IRA hands. And I want to say that I had heard that some IRA people were trained in Afghanistan with Al Qaeda, but that's fuzzy. Of course, those attacks tended to happen in the UK, not the US, and the Irish aren't Brits.

quote:

---

Maybe that would just show up the shortcomings of profiling though

---

My understanding is that profiling is actually somewhat effective. The problem is that the current uses of it as being discussed by the right are outrageously simplistic as if a single category like race or religious affiliation were sufficient or even the most significant predictor. Prior to the September 11 attacks, there was a good profile and many of the attackers would have shown up (type of passport, method of payment, etc.) but we didn't take it nearly as seriously then as we seem to think we do now.I don't mind profiling in and of itself. I already know it happens because as a male, I get followed around by the security people when I go into certain stores. What I mind is stupid profiling. Profiling needs to take into account a huge number of details and when there are huge numbers of people at risk, it is safer to scrutinize everyone lest you miss somebody because he didn't fit the profile. The stakes are too high.

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

I hadn't heard that one - what is true however is that the IRA received both training and finance from Libya during the 70s and 80s and it looks pretty likely that they were training FARC in Columbia within the last couple of years. At the risk of digreesing I always found it surprising that so many Americans were willing to actively support an organisation that is fairly extremely left wing - in fact the Official IRA (which the Provisional IRA split from in 1970) was a Marxist organisation. I agree - sorry I didn't make it clear I was thinking of the simplistic approach you describe.

---

Confused ? You will be...

/agreeI'd like to point out here El Al's nearly spotless record . They profile. They know exactly who the potential threat is.I also saw an intersting post on 1VB's boards (veterans group)that had a laundry list of terror attacks, and all of them were committed by Arab/mulsim males between the ages of 18-35.I would personally like to see a wee bit more profiling in the military. Johny Baldiwn changes his name to Asan Ackbar. That should raise some flags. Asan Ackbar is the fellow that rolled some frags into the 101st command tent. Mr. Ackbar now sleeps about 100 meters from my house on Fort Knox.And then there's Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun. I don't know what the Marine's were thinking when they didn't charge him with desertion the first time. But, now he's gone, probably back to his family in Jordan.

---

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Didn't you get the memo? Now that the Israeli security forces scrutinize Palestininan men so closely, it's the women that carry the suicide bombs now. Which is exactly what profiling does. It's not like you can profile in a vacumn, or in secret. Profiling makes it completely public who you're looking for, and worse - who you're not looking for.I mean, yeah. Do you really find it so surprising that you can cherry-pick a big list of terror attacks when you restrict your search to the ones committed by Arab men? And then what? Pack him off to Gitmo for changing his name?

What does an Islamic Male look like?What country is he from?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

They are red skinned pigmys from a pacific island.Common sense test = failed.

---

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Tal responds to me:

quote:

---

I also saw an intersting post on 1VB's boards (veterans group)that had a laundry list of terror attacks, and all of them were committed by Arab/mulsim males between the ages of 18-35.

---

Ahem. Where did these supposed terror attacks take place? The one you mentioned happened outside the US.I'm talking about inside the US. Remember what I said about stupid profiling? It is stupid to think that the types of people who carry out terrorist attacks outside the US are going to be the same types of people who carry out terrorist attacks inside the US.

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

What common sense would that be? John Walker Lindh doesn't look like your sterotypical "islamic male" neither does Louis Farrakan or Cassius Clay. Tariq Aziz, former vice-president of Iraq, is a Christian yet he has the sterotypical "islamic male" characteristics.Common sense shows that islamic males dont have a common appearance therefore profiling for them fails the common sense test.edited to add another example.This message has been edited by DrJones*, 01-10-2005 03:07 AM

---

*not an actual doctor

Actually, the odds that they are from a Pacific Island are very high. Or they might be a US citizen, or Canadian, or Nigerian, or German, or British, or Argentinan or Chinese or Russian. They could be French or Spanish or Italian. They could be Israeli or Egyptian or Mexican.So once again, what does an Islamic Male look like?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You use this a lot and I'm wondering if you could start a thread explaining what a common sense test is, where you learned about it, and how it is applied.In most cases your own commentary appears to fail what I would call a common sense test (for example your commentary on the UN and Oil for Food program which I have started a new thread on for you to answer some questions), and things you have said fail the test I would say have not failed at all.What that makes it look like is that you are simply using an ad hominem attack, and labelling something you don't agree with as having failed a "common sense test" when in fact it has done no such thing. You just don't like it.But just to stay on thread here, there is simply no such thing as an identifiable Islamic Male "type". If you said MidEastern, or arabic, or something that involved appearance alone that would have made more sense. Your comments fail the common sense test.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)