THIS is the best way I've ever heard it put. Well said, and I agree with you completely.

There are f'n crazy people EVERYWHERE. Any race, any age, and beliefs.

Anytime something happens, people cry "oh God, why didn't they have better security?" But when things calm down for a few years it all changes to "What the hell do you mean I have to take my shoes off!?"

 

Terrorist groups back in the Good Old Days of the Cold War used to trade with each other to get around racial, national, and ethnic profiling.

While sending the dumb ones to die first is a good use of chumps, don't forget the smart ones are pulling the strings.

 

Blacks commit crimes against whites as well, and you are more likely to be killed by an illegal alien or an African American than by a Muslim.

If you are going to support racial profiling of Muslims than you should apply the same standard to every group. And ask yourself why Muslims are being scapegoated by the media, while illegal aliens get a free pass.

 

USA - Interracial crime at a glance and Statistics

I stand corrected concerning the black on white crime levels but I'll leave it up to you to support the remainder of your claims.

Tim

 

Common civil crime and toxic cultural warfare actions which may or may not violate civil law are quite different, and not a matter for this thread lest it be nuked.

Good airline security or other security practice should avoid simplistic behaviors, not because it might give offense, but because simple systems are easily exploited by complex opponents. The point of the game is to win.

The next kamikaze bomber might look very different than one might expect. Their sponsors have every reason to send something different after an initial batch of "stereotypes" lead the airlines and public to take it for granted that the only kamikazes left after 9/11 are the slow and stupid sort.

 

I've been searched in airports before, twice on one trip. Didn't bother me either time, although the lady who was randomly selected beside me was really bothered by it. I don't see the problem with it myself, I didn't have to strip or anything.

 

I guess the times are just a changing. I remember when flying was a wonderful experience, one that was cause to wear a suit and tie and all the aircraft were spit polished and dinner was served on real china with embroidered cloth napkins and the Captain often invited children into the cockpit. There were no security lines and everyone was curtious kind and well dressed. The thought of some idiot with explosives did not enter our minds. Boy am I old.

On another note I had lunch with a friend that is chief of maintenance for a large outfit, he said he went to the FAA Flight Standards Office to get a airwortiness document and you now can only talk to them through thick bullet proof glass like a late night gas station. I remember face to face friendly meetings with a hand shake. It's all going to crap in a hand basket. Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa

 

Maybe you guys already knew this. But I had an epiphany about why terrorists target airliners. If you think about it, targeting an airliner is the most difficult, unreliable, ineffecient and easily preempted crime. Far more victims could be injured and killed on the ground with truck bombs, suicide vests or poison gas. With less risk, higher frequency and greater sucess. On crowded streets, shopping malls or sporting events.

So why do they choose airliners? Because flying for most people is already an infrequent and stressful event. Commercial aviation has been reduced from the grand experience that vortilon described and has become a cramped, confined cattle drive with limited acess to comfort items like food and bathroom facilitys. Take something that people already fear, find stressful and have little understanding of and make it more scary and you have terrorism that continues to work every day of the year. It's a fear that not only grips people in flight, but follows us home from the terminal. The financial cost of in flight terror is probably over a hundred times that of a single truck or suicide bomb. It doesn't just affect a single flight or even a single airline. But rather all flights of every domestic and foreign airline.

With a prize like that, I don't know if there'll ever be a way to discourage or prevent it 100% completely.

 

Copper pipe, razer wire and a little rear end insertion, remove copper pipe. Let them go about their way after that so they can spread the word

 

Now that sounds like a segment of Ozzie and Hariet! Too bad it's gone.


That's perhaps the most sensible thing that has been said on this entire thread.

Tim

 

I've heard this complaint time and time again from folks who'd been flying since the 50s and 60s.

The airlines should take some blame for this. They turned the flying experience into a 'confined cattle drive' (I like that description, BTW....) LONG before 9/11. Hell....I remember them banning frickin' cocktail peanuts for the fear that a microscopic bit of peanut skin would get in the air and kill someone with an allergy..........

Getting around the country (and maybe into Canada) easily, and if you don't want to drive a car, should be easier than having to jump onto an airplane. I'm hoping that somehow high-speed rail becomes marketable and profitable, AMTRAK gets privatized, and that they develop an interstate network of high-speed rail that rockets folks around the country at 200 to 300 mph. IN COMFORT! Dining cars. Sleeping cars. Room to move around. And a coast to coast ride in under a day.

Obviously trans-oceanic is another matter.....Unless fast ocean liners make a serious comeback.......

 

Now that would be great. Most all of the European and Asian high speed rail systems have excellent safety records also. If it can be done there, they should be able to implement it here as well....albeit on a larger scale. High speed rail service coast to coast would be great and I imagine would be highly utilized.

 

AMTRAK is a reaction to the failure of passenger rail. A private AMTRAK would have to slash service to survive. Privatization is no more a magic bullet than nationalization. In other than urban areas, no one needs (requires=must use and pay for) passenger rail service, so it mostly died. It remains a useful piece of national infrastructure and transportation backup, hence worth maintaining.

High speed rail links other than between profitable, high traffic points at "European" short distances will never make money. Old people who want a slow vacation-like trip on a train won't pay the bills, which is why the classic passenger trains are also mostly gone. Railfans aren't a large market.

If you actually want an alternative rail infrastructure, the only group that can build it is the government, just as it built the Interstate system (which has worked extremely well, so much for everything Washington does being evil).

As for anyone wanting a grand aviation experience, pay for it. Charter flights and other very nice choices are available, for money.
Accessible cheap air travel is what sells in bulk, people vote with their wallets, guess what won?

 

Terrorism is terrorism weather it be guised as a jihad or American bred gang related violence. IMHO.

Tim

 

You'll have to be more specific. I made an argument, and supported that argument with facts.

Fact is, you are more likely to be harmed by an African American than by a Muslim. So if you want to search every Muslim that wants to board a plane, then it makes just as much sense to search every black male who enters the subway. And you should probably pay extra close attention to anyone who speaks Spanish, since they are probably in your country illegally, stealing opportunities from honest Americans.

Of course I don't support such measures. I believe in individual liberty, and states' rights. But I'm curious to know why there are taboos against criticizing certain groups while others are fair game. Why it's OK for Mexicans to celebrate their culture, but when White people want to get together they're branded a hate group. Or why you would scapegoat all Muslims for a terrorist attack allegedly perpetrated by Muslims, but it is politically incorrect to profile blacks despite the fact that they create a disproportionate amount of crime.

Ask yourself these questions, examine all the double standards and politically correct bs that has permeated our way of life, and I think you will start to understand why people are standing in line being told to take their shoes off or choked to death by Walmart security guards.