John Young: Profiling? Depends; for what?
President Bush and I were on the same page on profiling. Now Attorney General Michael Mukasey has me thinking outside the box.
Mere months after 9/11, with anti-Muslim hysteria peaking, Bush called racial profiling “wrong in America.” This after one of his Secret Service agents was kept off a commercial flight because he is Arab-American.
Former AG John Ashcroft called racial profiling unconstitutional. Courts agreed, overturning convictions in which defendants showed they were targeted because of race.
Now, under Mukasey’s watch, the FBI is considering authorizing racial profiling for national security investigations. In other words, start with ethnicity and religion. Include where that person has been. Consider if the person has “access to weapons or military training.”
Hmm. Access to weapons. That would include, oh, roughly 100 percent of Americans with limbs. And some with prosthetics.
That’s wrong. But, as I said, Mukasey has me thinking anew about how to look out for people.
I’m still opposed to targeting people of Arab ancestry. But in an election season I’m thinking that it might be prudent to start profiling candidates and their supporters because of proclivities proven not to be good for us.
Political profiling? Well, of course.
President Bush knows what it’s all about. In 2004 two people were removed from a Bush “town hall” meeting — not based on anything they did but based on the bumper stickers on their car supporting liberal causes. Good call. Amid a pasty crowd, they also had the unhealthy complexion of Sierra Clubbers who had granola that morning.
Pondering this scenario, I can see where profiling might benefit the commonwealth, as long as we leave Muslims alone.
I have come up with a demographic sub-grouping that all Americans should consider as suspect when choosing political leadership. This comes after profiling an administration that sent a nation to war on lies and did many other things unhealthful for a nation.
If the deaths of 3,000-plus Americans on 9/11 were a loosely defined rationale for invading Iraq, it resulted in the deaths of 4,000-plus more. That is not my idea of national security.
Meanwhile, the administration shredded constitutional rights and diminished accountability for an increasingly totalitarian executive. All in the name of freedom.
Yes, it is time to start profiling. Start with race. Most of these individuals are Caucasian. Most are male. Most are affluent. Most say they’re Christian. Punch the above criteria into your computer. Start tracking. Start denying public-sector employment (ie. elected office.)
Traits? Listen and you will see trends. These figures come to office preaching anti-government themes. Once given access to government, they think of ways to employ its power to their ends and to encroach into private lives.
They will say “government is the problem.” Then they will say “trust government” as we destroy nations militarily and seek to remold whole regions in our image.
They will say “run government as a business.” They won’t mention that what they’re really doing as they sell off government to bidders is boosting the businesses of cronies.
They’re also using business practices, like the scandalous overruns of “cost-plus” budgeting in privatized warfare, that if floated before an actual boardroom would get them arrested by stockholders.
They will spout religious phrases to the audience, but their actions won’t in any way match the faith they claim. Imagine Christ advocating materialism, consumerism, militarism, nationalism, ethnocentrism. That’s right. You can’t.
Voters, keep an eye out. It is time to start profiling in the national interest.
John Young’s column appears Thursday, Sunday and occasionally Tuesday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
July 8th, 2008 | Category: Racial Profiling
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