Racial profiling: It's only cool if it DOESN'T save lives

The backlash against Arizona for having the audacity to try to protect its citizens from a known and identifiable threat would be laughable were it not so dangerous.

As you know, Arizona grew tired of waiting for the federal government to enforce existing immigration law and border security, so it recently passed a law giving state authorities permission to enforce existing federal laws against illegal immigration.

Immediately, the complaint was heard from the American Civil Liberties Union, President Obama and various super-smarties (read “smug left-wing media”) that Arizona’s law was “racial profiling” and therefore unconstitutional. This is because everyone, including the super-smarties, knows that most illegal immigration is coming from Mexico, and therefore pressure will grow on Mexicans to prove they are here legally. It’s not racial profiling; it’s truth.

If that offends someone, so be it. The alternative is utterly absurd.

Imagine this: Two overweight Asian women wearing Japanese kimonos rob a bank. When the police issue a radio bulletin, they carefully avoid profiling and announce with all seriousness that the robbery suspects are “two people.”

After all, they can’t mention Asians, as that would mean police might query innocent Asians on the street. Can’t mention Japanese, as that would mean innocent Japanese might be singled out. Can’t mention women, as that would put innocent women at risk of being mistaken for bank robbers.

And for good measure, let’s say that you can’t even mention body size because obesity is a health issue and should not be used by police to track down criminals. After all, that would give average-sized robbers a huge advantage in escaping detection and thus would be discriminatory.

So now that the police are looking for two “people” instead of two “overweight Asian women of probable Japanese extraction wearing traditional Japanese clothing,” how exactly is that supposed to improve law enforcement?

If you agree that this scenario is ridiculous, congratulations. You passed the common-sense test. By reducing the suspects to their least common denominator — human! — we have also reduced the probability that they will ever be apprehended to roughly zero.

Which is exactly the point we have reached with both immigration enforcement and anti-terrorism policy.

The terrorism threat is the most immediate. Everyone knows that Islamic extremists have targeted the United States as well as other Western countries, yet the current administration and its allies have decided not to refer to Islamic terrorism because it might hurt someone’s feelings.

Thus, when the recent New York City car-bomb incident occurred, everyone from Mayor Bloomberg to Attorney General Eric Holder was holding out hope for the possibility that the culprit might have been white, middle-aged and angry about taxes — in other words, a stereotypical tea-party protester. (In case you haven’t noticed, it’s OK to stereotype tea party members!)

Contessa Brewer of MSNBC even went so far as to say she was “frustrated” that the man arrested for the Times Square bomb was a Pakistani-American. “There was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country because there are a lot of people who want to use this terrorist intent to justify writing off people who believe in a certain way or come from certain countries or whose skin color is a certain way.”

Umm, yeah, I’d like to “write off” people who believe in blowing up children and other innocent victims in the name of “social justice” for their misbegotten beliefs. Moreover, I’d like to arrest them, target them and prevent them from killing people by doing whatever is necessary. And to my mind, it seems self-evident that if you don’t believe in zealously protecting yourself and your country from known threats, then you have no credibility.

Here’s a joke making the rounds now, which seems to accurately define the moral crisis of a country too stupid to defend itself.

Q: When does a liberal approve of racial profiling?

A: When it’s called affirmative action.

Yep, it’s just a joke, but it sure seems to pin the tail on the donkey.

Because, let’s face it, racial profiling is done everyday in this country, and no one says a peep about it. In fact, if you try to stop the racial profiling known as “affirmative action” you are said to be a racist and a right-wing kook.

Of course, we all know that liberals are in favor of the “safety net” to protect minorities from the adverse effects of discrimination, and in order to do that the government needs to know that people are minorities. In this case, racial profiling is “politically correct.”

But try using the same technique of categorizing people by race for the purpose of enforcing immigration law or to try to prevent terror attacks, and you are — yep — a racist and a right-wing kook. You are not just politically “incorrect,” you are Hitler.   

By the way, you will notice that the joke about affirmative action refers to “liberals.” This could be said to be a kind of “profiling,” although in this case it is “political profiling.” And I know people get sensitive when you lump them into a group because they feel that they may be mischaracterized. 

But I am sensitive, too. Therefore, I exempt any liberals from the joke’s punchline if they are either against affirmative action or in favor of arresting illegal immigrants based on known patterns of abuse. In fact, I encourage them to attend the next tea-party rally in their city, as they will be welcomed with open arms. The more people who are willing to side with common sense, the better. Labels like liberal and conservative don’t matter as much as pro-American.

The point is that we use “racial profiling” in numerous ways in this country. Otherwise, why would job applicants at large companies be asked to voluntarily provide their race so that the government can track hiring practices? Why would the Census need you not only to pick out your race, but also self-select what kind of Hispanic you are? Does it really matter whether you are of “Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin” when the purpose of the Census as described in the U.S. Constitution (yeah, THAT Constitution) is to provide an “actual Enumeration” of the American people so that representatives may be divided up proportionately? Of course not.

But it does matter if you are trying to divide up tax dollars for various federal programs to communities that have higher proportions of blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans or other minority classifications. This is but one form of racial profiling that is practiced under the guise of “affirmative action.”

Which has been the common practice for at least 50 years.

Yet all hell breaks loose when Arizona designs a law to protect its citizens from an invasion of illegal immigrants by saying that “a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status” of any person “when reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States.”

Seems that actually looking for criminals is anti-American, even when the law said that the police may not consider a person suspicious “solely” on the basis of race, color or national origin. But, heck, in an abundance of caution, Arizona changed its law before it was even implemented to now say that police cannot use “race, color or national origin” at all in determining if someone is an illegal alien.

Guess what, folks? That means no racial profiling in Arizona. So everyone can take a deep breath and calm down.

The law also bends over backwards to insist that its various provisions must be implemented “in a manner consistent with federal laws regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all persons, and respecting the privileges and immunities of United States citizens.”

But that hasn’t stopped the liberal pundits and their allies from threatening a boycott against Arizona and decrying the state as a racist haven. Some pro-illegal-immigrant marchers in California even went so far as to smash windows, throw paint bombs at businesses, and punch and kick opponents — all in the interest of “protecting civil rights,” of course.

Meanwhile, the federal government and the media go out of their way to avoid offending Muslims by referring to the rather obvious fact that most terrorism in this country and in the world is propagated by Islamic extremists.

Of course, when the bomb was found in Times Square, no one could be sure that it was put there by a Muslim. There was no need to narrow the search for the bomber to Muslims. That would be absurd.

But it would be just as absurd to pretend that most terrorism is not a product of Islamic extremism. And it would not only be absurd, it would be absurdly dangerous. It behooves our government to guard us from one and all threats to our security, and two of the most significant threats to America today are illegal Mexican immigrants and Muslim terrorists.

Therefore, our government and law enforcement authorities need to have the power and tools to protect us. If that inconveniences some people, so be it. Terrorism and the drain of illegal immigration are existential threats to our continued survival as a nation. If we are so foolish that we continue to ignore them, then the United States of America is the only country in the world that has a “kick me” sign affixed to its rear end. And we put it there ourselves.