We live in dangerous times. Our freedoms and ways of life have come under attack by some. We must however remember what it means to be an American and what makes our country so great. We did not become America by responding to terror with fear. We did not gain strength as a country by denying some groups their civil rights. We have become the country that we are by working together with one another. By respecting and treating one another as equals. This is why I must disagree in the strongest of terms when I read posts such as this...
Racial profiling?!?!? If we start treating one group of people differently than other Americans because of name or appearance, than we are no longer equal. This is something that is done when fear outweighs reason. This will not strengthen us as a nation. This will make us appear weak. This will show the terrorists that our will can be broken. That if we become scared enough, we will go against the values that this nation was founded on. We should not go down this dangerous road as a country because we may not like where it leads us.
There are 5 - 8 million Muslims living in the U.S. today. They are citizens like you and me. Should they be treated differently, solely on the basis of their name, or color of their skin? These are contributing, peaceful members of our society. The terrorists who attacked our country on 9/11 were not Muslims. They may have called themselves that, but they were simply agents of evil. The Muslim religion and values are peaceful. It would be ridiculous to punish true Muslims who practice their faith in a peaceful manner, simply because of some crazed extremists who falsely described themselves as being of the Muslim faith.
If we are to go down this road of racial profiling, than we must consider this. America does suffer from domestic terrorism. There are many fringe groups that engage in attacks against abortion clinics. Whatever our own personal views on this issue are is not the subject here. These groups frequently identify themselves as Christians and claim that they are doing God's work in carrying out various bombings and killings. Should we then begin a practice of racial profiling of Christians? We could profile them based on their Christian sounding names and the color of their skin. This sounds ridiculous. I know. These terrorists are not Christians. They simply call themselves that. Should the good Christians of this country be racially profiled because of some terrorists that are claiming to be of the Christian faith? Of course not. True Christians, like Muslims, are peaceful. Yet, this type of action is exactly what is being suggested by the above poster.
Racial profiling was used with great success by the nazis. Do we really want to associate ourselves with nazi methods? We are far too great a country to go down that road. We do need to find better solutions to ensure the safety of our people. But we must not forget our own Declaration of Independence that states that we are all created equal. As soon as we begin profiling and treating others differently based on their name or skin color, then this country will have lost its greatest strength. I have faith that this country can find a solution to these latest attacks on us in a way that holds true the ideals of our Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. That is to say, the solution must hold true the values that this great nation was founded on, or else we are not who we believe ourselves to be.
What we need is better intelligence. We need our different agencies to communicate information effectively between one another. We need better intelligence infiltrating these terror cells. We need more sophisticated security systems at our airports. All of these solutions can be achieved without racial profiling.
