They'd be more successful targeting the stylishly disaffected youth at universities like Berkeley and Brandeis. There is no shortage of idiots attending these institutions that could be talked into making an anti-American statement.

But they're not looking for useful idiots who'll march and throw rocks, jim m -- they're looking for splodeydopes.

Those are thin on the ground in American academia, where the only thing the stylishly disaffected are committed to that much, is being stylish in their affected disaffection.

Berkeley and Brandeis

Don't forget Harvard!

I was on the T this past week and there were a number of young fools discussing health care and politics. They were headed for Brown Univ next year. Judging from the intellectual acuity displayed in their conversation ("Like, I don't understand what's wrong with socialism and communism.") I think that they would all be quite persuadable to blow themselves up.

they would all be quite persuadable to blow themselves up.

Then I remembered.

the Jihadis finally noticed how much damage Piglosi and Boxer have been doing (and now Slaughter).

It was the next logical step.

How do we know they had abusive husbands? Perhaps they were always disaffected women. Is there somewhere proof they were abused?

"How do we know they had abusive husbands?"

Because all husbands are violent monsters. That's part of the core narrative of the left. Husbands are monsters and marriage is slavery.

Did the jihadis seek out these women or did these women seek out the jihadis?

What? Blonde, white, American women jihadis?

How is this an argument for "good old-fashioned profiling?"??!!?

*wingnut heads exploding*

*wingnut heads exploding*

The only head I see exploding is yours.

When greater than 50% of the terrorists are "white" and linked with al queda or al queda related groups I'll be concerned with profiling. (We're at what-maybe .0001% now?)

Surprised it took that dip-sh*t so long to get to the anti-profiling librurl talking points line. Drivebys have been regurgitating that one for 48 hours already.

That is, a million people who look like one another may spend 1400 years raping, sexually mutilating, mass-murdering and blowing us up at every opportunity but comment on their appearance and the survivors of their centuries of aggression are gulty of "racism" or at the very least of Islamaphobia? But the two white sheilas that don't look like the other million somehow provide "proof" the other million or so actually do not look similar to one another??

Go figger.

No, Mr Allen, the point is that the next spectacular domestic terrorist attack is no more likely to come from a scowling brown-skinned young man than it is from a 50 year old white woman, and that's why a policy of profiling is stupid.

Think about it. If you were a "terrorist mastermind" sending someone on a suicide mission, would you send someone who would instantly arouse suspicion by virtue of age, skin color, accent, and demeanor? Or would you have a greater chance of success if you sent a "Jihad Jane" figure?

Security personnel are already going to be suspicious of dark-skinned young men with Arab accents. They don't need a formal policy for that. They need to be looking for "unlikely" suspects as well.

Let me guess. You didn't know there were such things as Sunnis and Shias before September 11, 2001, am I right? All you know about Islam you've learned SINCE, am I correct? Like in the Alan Jackson song wingnuts love, "I watch CNN but I'm not sure I could tell ya, the difference in I-raq and I-ran." But now you're an expert in Islamic history, and go around telling everybody how much you know about their murderous past, right?

Bruce -

Actually, statistically speaking we are still far more likely to see a brown skinned muslim male than a white female act as a terrorist.

Also, two data points do not make a trend statistically.

What you are alleging is that people who stand in favor of profiling are actually in favor of ignoring the risk posed by all people who do not fit the profile. That is not the case and never has been.

Not once has anyone who is against profiling explained why Israel uses this method to great success. Nor have they explained why it is that they are in favor of the use of profiling by the FBI in search of serial killers, except that the profile in question targets white males.

So answer this question Bruce: Are you like all other libs in favor of profiling when it targets white men, but you think it is racist if it targets anyone else.

Explain yourself. (and try not to talk about statistics since you just proved that you know nothing about that subject)

Sure bruce,
The underpants would be bomber was a 50 year old white woman.
Wake up.

Bruce,
While these 2 women prove that it's not only angry men, weaned on Islam from the middle east that can go jihadi, this doesn't mean that it's "no more likely to come from a scowling brown-skinned young man than it is from a 50 year old white woman".

Please don't be too hard on Bruce.

Bruce is developing a whole new theory of statistics. You see when you have a series of 100's of events the last two events independently predict all future events. He claims he can prove this by mathematical analysis.

I breathlessly await his paper coming in Nature.

Jim, this has nothing to do with statistics. I said the "next spectacular domestic terrorist attack" on purpose. Nice strawman, though.

Of course the next suicide bombing in, say, Israel, will be by an Arab. And the next one in Afghanistan will be by a Pashtun. The next attempt in America may very well be by a brown-skinned young man, but it may also very well be an attempt by someone who doesn't "look suspicious." Is that statement in doubt?

Under the (new) circumstances, I'd say the odds are even. Can I prove that by mathematical analysis? Nope. Can you disprove it?

Abdulmattalab doesn't "look like a Muslim." From across the room, his name could be Tyrone Johnson for all anyone knew.

And again with a weak grasp of the facts, Jim. Israel doesn't use "good old-fashioned profiling" as your average Wizbang commenter defines it. They use behavior profiling, which is something entirely different, and as we discussed at length on a previous thread.

As for your question: I don't have the psychic mind-reading power that you possess, so I don't know how "all other libs" feel about it, but I would be in favor of "good old-fashioned profiling" if it worked. Which, experts from all sides of the ideological spectrum agree, IT DOESN'T. At least in regard to stopping terrorist attacks. If it stops serial killers like Ted Bundy, I'm fer it. If it fails to stop terrorists, I'm agin it. Is that clear enough?

Bruce -
Profiling is all about statistics. You were talking about profiling.

I don't think that there is more than one kind of profiling. What you call behavior profiling is what everyone who advocates it is thinking of. What you call "Good old fashioned profiling" is the same straw man the left trots out to claim that profiling = arresting people for "driving while black".

You immediately accuse your opponents of racism without regard to having any proof of the same. Conservatives want real profiling. We (as in the US and specifically HSA and the TSA) do not do it.

OK, Jim, I'll concede that. Behavior profiling, as practiced by El Al, for instance, I'm in favor of.

If I have misinterpreted what "your average Wizbang commenter" means by "good old-fashioned profiling," I stand corrected. I don't think I have, though.

I'm sure you, yourself, Jim, don't have a racist bone in your body. You seem like a very thoughtful guy. But have you READ comments like # 12 on this thread? Stuff like that is where I get the idea that "your average Wizbang commenter" might have motives that are, shall we say, less pure than your own.

I mean SOME OF "your average Wizbang commenters" BTW, not all.

Bruce-

Uh, Thanks. I guess.

Look, I just think that a lot of people have piled on the idea of profiling for less than honorable reasons. I think that we do ourselves a disservice by ignoring the advantages that it could give us but we are too bent on being PC.

I do not hold myself out to be some exemplar of non-racism. I do try to put forward rational reasons for my beliefs and positions, reasons I can defend with facts and data.

No. I reserve the right to be as filled with ugly hate as the next guy. I just want my views to be defensible and logically consistent.

Agreed, Jim.

But I think many people who complain about "political correctness" really mean "Don't criticise my obvious racism." Not all, but many.

Where I disagree with you is your assertion that everybody is talking about the same thing by the word "profiling." I don't think that's the case at all.

I find that most people who use political correctness to criticize people for racism usually have a racism problem themselves.

I think that in a lot of cases it takes the form of a patronizing racism where they give people a pass based on their race rather than holding people to a uniform standard.

Martin Luther King Jr. was right that we should judge people according to the content of their character. Unfortunately political correctness points us toward assessing people by the color of their skin and using that to create expectation sets for their character.

It is that sense of political correctness that spurred on the whole debacle with the Duke Lacrosse team. Expectations that the white male students had to be guilty. Expectations that the 'victim' should be given a pass because of her gender and race despite a history of mental problems and drug abuse. People failed to look at evidence and focused on race, class and gender. To me that is emblematic of modern liberalism. I have a family full of journalists and University faculty. I see much of the same there.

I'll agree that when it comes to profiling that there are a lot of people who would just consider hassling people of middle eastern descent as being the same thing.