Tempting fate, or at least airport security

I have to wonder what exactly the message these people are trying to send. 

Mark at Tempus Fugit reports about Tim Murtaugh's T-shirt, created in response to Raed Jarrar’s treatment at an airport.

Let's start with Raed Jarrar...

On a trip back from the Middle East, Iraqi blogger and activist Raed Jarrar was not allowed to board a flight at JFK airport because he was wearing a T-Shirt that said "We will not be silent" in English and Arabic. Airport security forced him to change his T-Shirt saying wearing it was like "going to a bank with a T-Shirt reading 'I am a robber.'"

Like, duh. While the government may be playing this silly "Let's pretend it's not Arab Moslems who are killing people." Most everyone else isn't. If you're an Arab Moslem, then A. WHY AREN'T YOU PROTESTING WHAT PEOPLE ARE DOING IN THE NAME OF YOUR RELIGION?!? and B. Expect people to be suspicious of you. It's not like you haven't had ALMOST FIVE YEARS to vocally object to Islamic terrorism. But in that time few Moslems have made much of any public statement about the continuing use of Islam as an excuse to murder innocent people. If we'd seen Arab Moslems frequently on the news protesting the abuse of their religion, I bet most people would be very sympathetic to them, and not suspicious, or at least temper their suspicion. But instead we seem to have two groups: Those who want to murder us, and those who want to quietly watch and say nothing. And there's absolutely no way of telling them apart until it's too late. How do you expect us to react?

Then there's Tim Murtaugh...

After reading about blogger Raed Jarrar’s experience at JFK (he was forced to take off a shirt with Arabic writing on it or miss his flight), I finally stopped being depressed about the war on terror and began being proactively pissed off. I made this shirt, which says “I am not a terrorist” in Arabic. I plan to wear it every time I go to the airport from now on.

 Why is he depressed about the war on terror? He doesn't explain. The assumption would be that he's anti-war. If he's anti-war, then my next question would be answered: Is he really stupid enough to wear that T-Shirt at an airport?

Then there's Mark at Tempus Fugit...

There are versions for men and women available (i.e. not stylistically, but translation-wise). Profits ($1.00 per shirt) go to the ACLU.

If you wear this shirt to the airport (and I’d encourage you to do so), be practical and keep a cover-up shirt in your carry on luggage — that is, assuming that missing your flight would be unacceptable. 

He thinks financially supporting the ACLU is a good thing, but he's at least smart enough to know that wearing such an idiotic T-Shirt without something to change into, will more than likely make you miss your flight.

So what are these people trying to say? Other than that they are brainless? 

I think James Taranto illustrated this level of mindlessnes on Wednesday's Best of the Web...

Richardson R. Lynn, dean of Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, had an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the other day in which he argued against any limitations on civil liberties in the name of preventing terrorism. This passage is especially revealing of the mindset of civil-liberties absolutists:

Even if a totally preventive legal system did work, should we adopt it? The horror of losing friends and loved ones in the inexplicable violence of terrorism is surely one of our deepest fears. But someone has to say: There are worse things.

It calls to mind the famous exchange between CNN's Bernard Shaw and Massachusetts' Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential debate:

Shaw: Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer? 

Dukakis: No, I don't, Bernard. And I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime . . .

Dukakis's answer was 363 words long and included a promise "to call a hemispheric summit" on drug smuggling! And of course, it utterly missed the point. The question wasn't if Dukakis favored or opposed the death penalty but whether he was capable of empathizing with the victims of crime. He came across as completely heartless.

It is equally unfeeling to say "there are worse things" than for one's husband or wife or son or daughter to be murdered by terrorists. Lynn doesn't say what he thinks would be "worse," but he does make clear that he is less concerned about harm to individuals than about an abstract notion of what is good for society

Every time I view my blog, and I see the 9/11 memorial pass by, I pause...and read the mini-bio that's presented, and remember that this is another victim of Moslem extremism. I can't see how the "right" to scare people by making them suspicious is somehow more important than for those 2,996 individuals right to have not been murdered.

Posted by Danny Carlton at September 1, 2006 2:23 PM