"They who can give up essential liberty...

...to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin

I am currently engaging in a bit of an experiment. Tucker Carlson launched the "conservative answer to the Huffington Post" a few days ago (a conservative answer to a progressive answer to a conservative aggragate blog? whatever) and, due to its vast superiority when it comes to layout and design, I have decided to give it a shot. Am I a conservative? Not at all, but my biggest problem with today's current political discourse is that there really is none. We retreat to our separate corners and we put our hands over our ears and we listen to only those who agree with us and that's...that's not how it's done. That's not how it should be done. And because of this, I've become increasingly uncomfortable getting my news from left-leaning sources. Am I getting the whole story? What's the other side say? And am I agreeing with what I'm reading because that's what I think, or that's what I'm being told to think?

Also, I feel it can only serve to strengthen/clarify your opinion if you form it in conflict with something. My favorite political discussions are those I have with my (reasonable, well-informed) conservative friends because while we neer change each other's minds, we do tend to wind up with a broader viewpoint and a deeper understanding.

So! Basically, that was a really long way of saying, I'm going to see where this Daily Caller thing takes me.

Day One was a little rough, in that I'd like to punch Eric Cantor in the face and there is some woman who is basically everything you hate about self-satisfied bloggers and Sarah Palin rolled into one, but the news stories...not so bad. Reasonable, even. Understandable, if nothing else.

Today, ignoring the lessons I learned yesterday, I once again ventured into the opinion column. After reading a poorly written, but relatively unoffensive call to parents to exert more diligence over their children's social lives, I clicked on a link for a post by Martha Zoller entitled A woman of a certain age vs. body scanners.

Now, let me preface this by saying, I hate the idea of body scanners. They make me markedly uncomfortable. I just think it's a step too far and, as Zoller points out, "Sources say the substance that was in his panties would not have been detectable by a full body scanner" (if I was a real journalist I would find information to substantiate this claim, but not being a real journalist, I'm inclined to give Zoller the benefit of the doubt when it comes to fact-checkable things). There has to be a point where you draw the line and say, no, no thanks, and, for me, that line is allowing a computer to strip search me. Again, I'm with Zoller here:

On top of that, it seems that TSA is telling a little white lie about whether these machines can store and send images. TSA says no, common sense says yes. If it can take a digital picture, it will show up somewhere and that scares me to death.

I'm not saying the TSA is lying, but it is well within the realm of possiblity that these images could be seen beyond that step through in the airport. And that's just not okay with me.

Zoller goes on:

So let’s look at the real problem with the boarding of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who I call “The Panty Bomber,” on an airplane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day. Sources say the substance that was in his panties would not have been detectable by a full body scanner. There are disputes as to whether he had luggage or a passport, but there is no dispute that he arrived at the airport, booked a one-way ticket, paid cash and checked no luggage.

Again, I'm kind of on board with this, and at this point, I'm feeling good. I'm thinking, look at me and Zoller! We're on the same page! We are coming together over the idea of privacy! The answer is not to increase Big Brother, but to pay attention to things like one-way tickets paid in cash and no checked luggage (I have read enough spy novels in my day to know these are suspicious things)! Now she's going to talk about how his name was flagged and his father told us he was a terrorist and how the system fell down but how the rational answer is not then put the system on steroids but to fix the system and maintain our freedom! Huzzah! Maybe she will even use that great Ben Franklin quote (see above)!

And then I kept reading:

If you throw in there the fact that he was Muslim and a male under 40, there were red flags all over this guy.

So because of political correctness, I have to continue being searched at the airport. I generally set off the alarms every time I go through. Not sure what does it but I get the full raise your legs, hold your arms out, wand up and down treatment almost every time I fly. I don’t really mind it since we know Rubenesque women of 50 are at very high risk to try to take a plane down. What really makes me angry is seeing an octogenarian being frisked right down to their waistbands. I dared to ask a TSA agent why search an 85 year old woman who is in a wheelchair and he said, “last week we found a gun on a 90 year old.” Do you believe that, I don’t?

...oh.

This the point where my head starts to hurt. Suddenly, we're not talking about privacy and liberty anymore, we're talking about racial profiling to cut down on inconvenience.

I am immediately reminded of Colin Powell, when he endorsed Obama:

I'm also troubled by - not what Senator McCain says - but what members of the Party say, and it is permitted to be said: such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian; has always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, "What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?" The answer's "No, that's not America." Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be President? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own Party drop the suggestion he's Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery. And she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards - Purple Heart, Bronze Star; showed that he died in Iraq; gave his date of birth, date of death. He was twenty years old. And then at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross. It didn't have a Star of David. It had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Karim Rashad Sultan Kahn. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey, he was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11 and he waited until he could go serve his country and he gave his life.

According to Wikipedia (a sometimes dubious source, I know, but recall I am not a journalist), there are between 2.5 and 7 millions Muslims in the United States. I do not know the percentage of which are males under 40, and nor do I care. If we, as a country, decide it's okay to single out that demographic and label them as dangerous in our treatment of them, it affects everyone else as well. It creates a divide and draws a line in the sand and says "you are over there and we are over here." The GOP likes to point to American liberty as one of the reasons other cultures and countries take issue with us, as one of the reason we are superior, as something that makes America great and yet they seem to be so cavalier about revoking those rights to groups they take issue with.

And if we are going through with Zoller's suggestion, how do you recognize if someone is Muslim or not? You can't, not definitively and, as far as I know, there is no place on the passport for religion. So therefore Zoller's "Muslims under 40" is widened into "Arab-Americans under 40." Keep in mind, the Panty Bomber was Nigerian. So now its "Arab-Americans and Nigerians under 40." And it expands again. And again.

Zoller seems to accept the fact that, for an unknown reason, she sets off airport security and is stopped. As it should be. If I set something off, I should be stopped. If I pay for a one-way ticket with cash and no luggage, I should be stopped. This I do not argue with, because they are legitimately (in my mind) suspicious. A one-way ticket and no luggage indicates haste and no plan to return, which in turn indicates fleeing from something or creating a situation in which no return is possible. Cash, in conjunction with these things, indicates a desire to not be traced. Combined, very fishy.

I dared to ask a TSA agent why search an 85 year old woman who is in a wheelchair and he said, “last week we found a gun on a 90 year old.” Do you believe that, I don’t?

Well, yes. Yes, I do. You know why? Because in June of last year, an 88 year old man walked into the Holocaust Museum and opened fire. The old are just as capable of harm as the young. Hate doesn't know age, race or religion, and there is no way of looking at someone what is their minds.