Yep. We’re pussies.
I should clarify DPUD’s comment (Around the Sphere in 80 IQ Points) on his blog about my assertation… Yes, the UK has gotten pretty squirrely as the article shows. This poor slob in a Transformers shirt is by no means an isolated incident of idiocy, both the UK and the US. I mean, when they take away a little kid’s toy soldiers… come on. I think my remark was aimed more at “The West”.
Here is a great opinion piece that kind of paints a picture and gives me headaches with pictures… as Fry on Futurama called them… “ideas”.
One of my “ideas” was regarding profiling. WHY is it wrong to engage in profiling? Simple: It’s NOT. Let’s use an example:
A 20 year old woman on a college campus has been brutally raped. She didn’t get a good look at the attacker but numerous other rapes on the same campus have had victims that could give a sketchy description of the attacker.
Question: Do we round up grandmothers and grandfathers? Do we also round up all children above the age of five? Do we round up all the women we can get our hands on, including soccer moms, teachers, judges, doctors?
NO WE DON’T. Because the typical profile of a rapist is (1) typically male, duh, (2) typically above a certain age where the could possibly be strong enough to overpower a woman, and a brutal rape implies quite strong, (3) we critically look at an age group of 18 to 30-something because those are the ages that are more likely to look like they belong on a campus and blend in.
We have just profiled a certain segment of the population. It’s not nice, it’s not pretty, and it scares and inconveniences the innocent guys. Should the innocent guys get pissed at the police? Nope, at the rapist. It’s worse if you start dragging moms in for lineups if you’re going to be that idiotic. That’s totally unreasonable. How about MALE judges and doctors? Do they fit the profile? Maybe. But whether or not they get upset is irrelevant, as we’re trying to catch the BAD GUY(S).
So saying that we are going to target every single person the same way is asinine. We’re doing it because somebody said that the idea of upsetting a segment of the population that fits a profile of likely bombers “Is Bad”. It’s a fact of life, it’s nothing personal, and people ought to get pissed at the assholes in their ethnicity who want to kill innocent people.
Put another way, if I’m looking for wheatback pennies in a jar, I don’t go looking for silvery-looking coins.
I’m certainly not going to form a group complaining that guys are being unfairly targeted as rape suspects. It’s just the way the world is. I’ve had mothers pull their kids behind them so they were between me and the kids (long hair and beard days) and yeah, that kind of hurt because I’d die to protect kids, but it’s a FACT OF LIFE. That mom was doing her job and she was right to do so – my hat is off to her for caring enough about her kids to do so.
~~~~~~~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~~~~~
Can’t post much else with actual thought involved until tonight, but in the meantime, gasoline jokes!
Personally, I wish people would quit bitching. Go carpool. Ride a bus. Walk. Change your lifestyle.
That doesn’t mean we can’t try to rile up Old Iron a bit with some ‘toons!
(please note the cartoonists and visit their work elsewhere)
Lemur King's Folly 