First it was the Patriot Act with its monitoring what you read in libraries. Then it was the domestic wire-tapping checking on who you call. Now the government’s taking it to the next level of Orwellian counter-terrorism methods: scoring airline passengers on how much of a risk of terrorism they are. Yes, that’s right. Millions of Americans and foreigners crossing US borders in the past four years have been assigned scores rating how likely it is that they’re terrorists…all without their knowledge. Not only that, but travelers are unable to check their own scores.
It goes without saying that this has drawn outrage from privacy advocates and civil libertarians. The program takes various information and computes it in the Department of Homeland Security’s Automated Targeting System (ATS). This information includes such things as where passengers are from, how they paid for their tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preferences, and what kind of in-flight meal they ordered.
The government, of course, proclaims the necessity of the ATS program. Homeland Security says that their ability to detect and deter terrorism would be “critically impaired” without access to passenger data. Civil liberties groups, on the other hand, are calling it “the most invasive [anti-terrorism] system the government has yet deployed.” It’s unknown whether this system (which was only discovered after a notice was put in the Federal Register, a fine-print collection of federal rules) will continue to operate now that the cat’s out of the bag or if it’s even effective at identifying and apprehending terrorists or criminals, but one thing’s fore sure: you’d better be extra-careful what you decide to read on an airplane. No Noam Chomsky for you.
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Michael Richards. The name, at least a few weeks ago, was unfamiliar to all but the most hardcore “Seinfeld” fans, who knew him better as Cosmo Kramer, the rather eccentric pal of Jerry Seinfeld. Now the name is the newest to be associated with racist rants, following Mel Gibson and his anti-Semitic diatribe, and Senator George Allen and Macacagate (God how I hate that cliché, and yet I still use it).
So, the story goes like this: Kramer, er, Richards is doing his routine at the Laugh Factory comedy club in who-knows-where (I’m not a reporter, I don’t need to know the little details) when a pair of blacks in the audience interrupt his monologue and start heckling him. Richards just explodes, making a number of racist remarks (including the ubiquitous n-word, which I won’t repeat here because I don’t want Al Sharpton getting on my case) before finally being escorted out and banned from the club. Now, I won’t say that Richards was completely justified (he could have just called them assholes and avoided this whole debacle…maybe), but seriously, no comedian likes a heckler. But the two guys haven’t gotten more than a mention in any story I’ve read. Richards gets called on being racist, yet no one pays attention to the rude audience members? Typical.
Anyways, this incident has brought up–yet again–the issue of racism in our society. Yes, it still exists. I have no clue why people are still shocked by that. Newsflash: being politically correct doesn’t make bad things go away. It just pisses off the people who hate being politically correct (like me). Not only that, but why is it that any white person who dares utter the n-word is jumped on by Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and ultra-liberal bloggers nationwide, while blacks get away with saying it on a daily basis? Not only that, but no one would have cared if the race positions had been reversed. If a black comedian had been up there and his hecklers had been white, and he called them both crackers, the media frenzy would have been limited to tabloids and a couple blogs. Instead, a white guy insults a couple of black dudes and all hell breaks loose. Heck, this pushed the whole TomKat (what is with celebrity relationships and combined names?) affair off the front page. Can anyone say “overblown?”
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Perhaps you’ve heard of a scholarship fund set up by Boston University’s College Republicans intended solely for Caucasians. The reason? It says right on the application form: “We believe that racial preferences in all their forms are perhaps the worst form of bigotry confronting America today.” Reactions have ranged from outrage to extreme outrage, from the blogs I’ve read (with a hint of liberal superiority in the latter). I personally find nothing wrong with it. I don’t necessarily agree with their reasons (BU’s College Republicans president Joe Mroszczyk admitted it was just to stir the pot), I don’t see any reason why it should piss people off. I realize that minority scholarships were designed in order to combat past discriminations, so don’t start calling me a racist. But it may come as a surprise to some people that there are actually underprivileged, intelligent, college-education deserving white people out there who could use a scholarship.
Really, it is absurd to cry racism when someone creates a whites-only scholarship when there are other single-race scholarships out there. I can understand the reason for affirmative action, but it’s a rather flawed reason. Affirmative action exists to “correct” past discriminations against minority groups by giving these minorities a leg up in employment, college admissions, and other things, regardless of whether the people deserve it or not. But really, how does this help? Affirmative action essentially says to minorities that they can’t get ahead in life on their own merits alone, and that they need help to achieve. This is complete bullshit. Yes, yes, I know the world isn’t perfect, but race shouldn’t be a factor AT ALL, especially in the case of college admissions or scholarships. Admissions should be based on achievements while scholarships should focus on need and/or achievement. If you’re black and did well in school but come from a poor family, you should have the same chances of getting into a college as a rich, white kid. Unless he’s a stupid, rich, white kid. Then you should have better chances. I think we can all agree on this. But affirmative action isn’t the way to achieve this equality. The Brits call it “positive discrimination” and outlawed it. I think it’s high time America realized that apologizing for discrimination with reverse discrimination isn’t going to work. Denying underprivileged white kids the chance to succeed will never make up for denying blacks or Hispanics or women the chance to succeed. We all deserve a level playing field.
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