Ever since 9/11, this country has been in inflamed in a new wave of paranoia. There are people and governmental bodies who are becoming increasingly suspicious of foreigners, especially ones who were from the Middle East. Even people that aren't from the middle but look like one were given "the eye". New government agencies were formed and people in security were trained better in ways of looking out for danger. There have been already two other waves of paranoia prior to this recent one and they were back in the 1950's. That is when everyone in the United States were afraid of the "red scare". The raising power of communism freaked people out like no other because they were so paranoid and misinformed. Also back then, our CIA agents were trained better to look for suspicious activities relating to communism and probably new government bodies were created to look into that matter. The main point I will try to get at in this blog is that, this country will go to great lengths to try control the situation even if people's basic civil liberties get in the way. In this blog, I will highlight the situations where the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) would use such outrageous tactics to basically bully people in the name of safety.
First of all, lets look into the statistics regarding TSA's new procedures and devices for "safety". Over 64 percent of Americans say they approve of the new body scanners and 32 percent said they opposed. They polled only 514 people and they seem to have a saying for the rest of us. I, myself, highly disapprove of such a device, not only due to health reasons and also for your basic privacy reasons. "Experts" say that the amount of radiation from those body scanners are well within normal limits and the radiation that you are exposed to are equivalent to that of flying in an airplane. Wait a darn minute, if I'm already been exposed to radiation while flying why would I want more radiation as an appetizer prior to fly??? Do those experts even know what they are talking about? Radiation causes mutations which can cause cancer and last time I checked, there isn't a cure for cancer yet. Please, I must insist on passing on the radiation appetizer prior to receiving more radiation. You can say that I am scared of radiation and I stress the issue too much, but let us be serious, do you honestly want to be exposed to more radiation? I think not and until they can provide with much safe alternatives to X-rays, I will always will be in opposition. Also, the thought of some random person seeing your privates is so awkward and wrong.
Alright, lets move right along to the second part of the poll conducted about the new tactics that the TSA is using. About 48 percent of Americans (by Americans, they mean 514 people) thought the pat downs are justified and 50 percent thought it gone too far. These are close numbers but I think it does put into perspective that most Americans are more or less against the new pat down procedures. I would be riding shotgun with the ones that are against of course. Many people say that the pat downs aren't too bad and if you want to fly, quit your whining. I would say to those people, please get your head screwed on straight and it is very sad that you don't even recognize when your basic civil liberties are being infringed upon. Other people will say, it is for safety. What is it that we are trying to be safe from? Are we anymore safe from terrorists than before we had these new devices and procedures? The only thing that these new additions are doing is fueling our paranoia of everyone inside and outside of America. The terrorists are probably watching our news and laughing out loud in their caves right now and having a good life watching us act so ridiculous against our own people. My family and I don't fly as much, maybe every 5-7 years but even that is enough to oppose such an abusive piece of work. I can't imagine for the people who have to fly everyday and even though they might not have to be pat down each time, it can still be very frustrating and awkward for someone you don't know to keep groping you day in and out.
The intrusive nature of the pat downs needs to stop and better ways of scanning needs to be develop so this matter can be put to rest. It also doesn't hurt to give the TSA "thugs" as many would like to call them, sensitivity training. The video above is among many of videos that will demonstrate my point exactly. That poor girl had a concussion, her arms were twisted so far behind her back that they nearly popped off, and also not to the mention the psychological damage she will have to endure for a while. Instead of introducing a new technology such as the body scanner, maybe we can focus more on the betterment of the metal detectors. Perhaps we can make them much more sensitive to detect various elements are needed to make an explosive device. In conclusion, what have we learned? We do not need to be exposed to anymore radiation than we already are exposed to on a daily basis so that we can fly. This is not the Fallout World and gaining radiation does not give anyone any special abilities like glowing in the dark. Another thing that we can learn from this is, is that the TSA needs to stop hiring random thugs off the streets or straight from out of prison to be agents. Please don't get me wrong, I'm all for rehabilitating criminals so they can be reintroduced into society but this is too much of kick to start them out with. I know this thugs and criminals things has been used to death but I think it is still the best reference to use when watching TSA agents work.
I've read your post and agree with you 100% about how everyone should get a chance at education no matter how they have entered the country. I believe this also allows those people to get a bigger jump start in life so that they will not turn to the life of crime. Education is very important and this country does not care enough about education, instead we care more about buy more and more big guns that are protecting us from some “paranoia” monster. The amount of money spent on our military could probably be used to revamp our education system twice over and more. Instead, we choose to keep cutting back on education, cutting teacher salaries, and close schools, so that we can spend more on guns.
One of the biggest steps in giving a chance of education to everyone is the introduction of the “Dream Act”. This act would allow illegal immigrants to gain citizenship through a serious of steps and becoming a citizen would allow those people to gain federal grants which will in turn help them them get more education. This act has been turn down several times due to Senate Filibusters and has been reintroduced over and over. Each time, tougher restrictions are placed on illegal immigrants and therefore makes it so much harder for those people to try to apply. The amount of restrictions placed in newer versions of the act is so outrageous that I wonder why this didn't pass so Congress could say “Hey, we passed this, but it's not our problem they're aren't talking advantage of it”.
In the end, it is our responsible as citizens to voice our opinions to the government. If there aren't enough of us on board, then there isn't much to do. Some believe that citizens should get the first chance but I believe everyone should get this chance at the same time. I considered myself lucky to be able to attain grants and loans to go to college and start a better life. This in turn also encourages me to try to seek out ways to get people off of the streets and into schools so they can help us make this nation a better place for everyone. The only way to do that is to be educated so politicians can't look down on them with their fancy Harvard degrees and say “Look at those people, they don't deserve to be in this country”
Why can't we all be friends? This is an excellent question in respect to that it is very broad. Of course, we can narrow that down into many subcategories. This time, I will be focusing on the subject of Muslims in America and how local policies and actions are trying to uproot them from our society. I will also be reinforcing this post with videos from a recent CNN show called "Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door"However, I will not be analyzing the videos, that is something for you to do. Some say this show was biased because they were only interviewing opponents on the shallow end of the gene pool but that is not the point I was referring to. The point is that a lot of people are having opinions on things which they have no knowledge of. This will in turn migrate them further into that shallower end. If you think about it, pretty much every problem in this country can be related to people having opinions on things that they don't understand; immigration, health care, Muslims, and etc...
First of all, lets get something straight, Muslims is spelled " M U S L I M S" and not " M O S L I M S". This has got to be one of the most annoying things I have ever faced. I do not know if the people that spell it wrong with the O are really that dumb or if they are trolling. I guess there isn't really a difference. What I need for people to understand is that the people who attacked us on 9/11 ARE NOT the same as the rest of the Muslims. Those people not only hijacked those planes but also hijacked the religion of Islam. Yes, contrary to popular belief, Islam is a major religion. What a shocker right? Automatically, after 9/11 we began this notion of associating that all Muslims were terrorists and they sought to blow us all up. We also began to think that Islam is a very violent religion, but this is not true, Islam is one of the most peaceful religions out there. I think that we shouldn't automatically give judgment to an entire group of people just because some individuals decide to do something awful. However, we are doing this anyways because we don't understand.
The saying that the founding fathers found this country under the one true god is really a joke. It is true that America was intended to be a religious haven for Christians fleeing from other Christians, but still this idea is really one big joke today. In the modern age, the founding father excuse is old and dead and cannot be used. Look around you, what type of people do you see? Do you see all white people who wear crosses and practicing Christianity? No, we do not see this; instead we see all types of people of all races and religion living together. Albeit, this cannot go without saying that there were a lot hardships to jump through in order for us to be where we are today. We are a unique nation because we are a melting pot of different people and if the the founding fathers intended for only white Christian people to come and live here, then probably America would not exist to this extent today. We needed people to come to this country so we could expand westward and this nation would probably not get as much if we filtered out everyone else besides white Christians. Things are always changing and we cannot let 350 year old ideas govern us. The founding fathers are not in office and cannot see the change of today, therefore, most of their ideas are best kept to more of a guideline, rather than actually implementing them directly.
Click for Part 3
(Sorry, the "add video" feature is semi-fail and most of the videos had their embedded links disabled)
I realize that there are aren't any major policies that specifically target Muslims, but I can tell you about one that really "looks in the Muslims general direction" The law is known as the Patriot Act, of course you know about this and how the government tap any person's phone line if that person is suspected of involvement in some illegal action would damage this country. Well that is pretty much the main idea of that act. This can probably be misused if not already misused by those individuals who are not fully competent on the subject matter. We just don't know about it. If we can illegally torture Muslims, why not right? What about the local government level, what is being done to bar Muslims from the community? Well in the videos, the opponents protested and went to community hearings to speak up against the Islamic Community Center, but after failing many times, they decided to start a lawsuit on the grounds that the Islamic Center did not have a permit to be built. However, under Tennessee law, religious buildings didn't require a permit. Once again the opponents argued that Islam was not a religion. (I really dislike hilly billy lawyers with fail bow ties). The final blow struck down the opposition when people from the US Attorney's Office arrived in person, which is quite rare, to deliver a paper saying that "Islam is a religion". When they showed that letter, I just laughed so hard. Anyway, I said would not analyze the video, but I had to use it as an example on how at the local levels, opposition to Muslims are trying ridiculous ways to get officials on board.
The idea of building mosques in America means that the Muslims are claiming victory really boggles my mind. Sure, looking at history, this might be true but this is not true at all in America. In fact, it is the opposite, the Muslims are trying to connect with the rest of us and are not trying to assimilate us into their culture. People think that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia Laws on the US. Does anyone even know that this cannot be done in this country due to the Constitution? We probably end up nuking ourselves if we had to give up the Constitution. Just because Sharia Law is bad in one country doesn't mean its the same thing in another country. Some Sharia Laws even promote the progression of women. Another thing I must emphasize on is that culture is not religion, sure religion is part of culture but they are both entirely different things. One cannot judge the culture of a country and automatically tie it to the religion of that country and then assume that they are all bad. One final thing is that, I don't understand why people think that women are being oppress because they wear the hijab and or the niqab. The Muslim women I seen so far believe that this grants them more freedom? I mean, isn't that enough or do we have to assimilate everyone to make them wear blue jeans and a t- shirt everywhere. In fact, in some EU countries, they have banned several Islamic clothing which takes away their freedom even further...I'm not even gonna bother trying to analyze or else the universe will implode. Final word is that, why can't we educate ourselves, become a Muslim for a day and learn about them...Oh I know why because are ignorant and stuck up and believe our way of live is always the right way.
I am a 21 year old student getting the transfer credits out of the way so I can transfer to pharmacy school (I hope).I wasn't born in the states but was practically raised in Austin but I have moved around a bit. I think the fact that I wasn't born here and have knowledge of another culture, I can sort of see over the "veil" that is so called American culture and politics. I am a liberal as proven to me by the online test that we had to take in Professor Seago's US politics class. Before that, I wasn't all that sure. Living in a spot of blue in a sea of red, to me is quite amusing. I believe that we need more liberal thinkers in this state in order to solve many of the state's problems. I am taking the class so that I can further my knowledge of Texas politics and stay ahead of the ignorant mass that plague this state and country. I feel proud to be living in a bastion of liberalism however, it is still not enough to provoke the Texas government into twisting its head on back on. I do hope in the future to move on and live in a state where people care about each other and think as a community as opposed to living in a traditional and individualistic state such as Texas.
