Posted on 05/23/2007 9:42:29 AM PDT by GMMAC
Political correctness in a time of terror
Steven Edwards, National Post
Published: Wednesday, May 23, 2007
NEW YORK - The extent of our brainwashing by the politically correct has been exposed by follow-up reporting on the terror plot targeting a U.S. Army base. The teenaged clerk whose tip led to the arrests of six Muslim men on May 8 feared at first he would be accused of racism if he went to the authorities.
Had he not overcome his initial PC reaction, the alleged plotters might well have gone undetected and succeeded in their supposed bid to kill as many U.S. soldiers as possible at Fort Dix. N.J.
News of the clerk's hesitation should serve as a wake-up call that over-indulgence in political correctness could have catastrophic consequences.
The six suspects in the Fort Dix terror plot are in their early 20s. Three are brothers and all hail from the former Yugoslavia, Turkey and the Middle East.
While these facts alone are not enough to make them worthy of suspicion, the men fit a "profile" if coupled with unusual behaviour.
But civil liberties groups pushing politically correct doctrine to extremes have been so successful, many of us are now programmed to think twice about speaking out, no matter what we see.
Such a dilemma faced the employee of Circuit City, an electronics store.
"It all began on a frigid January [2006] day with 10 bearded Muslim men huddled in the parking lot of a Circuit City debating who would go inside to have a copy made of a tape showing them firing guns and praising jihad," writes the New York Post's Jana Winter.
Two of them entered the store, approached the television section staffed by the clerk and asked him to transfer to DVD the contents of a camcorder minicassette they handed over.
The teen accepted the cassette, but after he and a fellow employee glimpsed its images during the conversion, they reportedly "freaked out."
The 90-minute tape showed apparent jihadists screaming "God is Great" against a backdrop of booming gunfire at a Pennsylvania shooting range.
However, Ms. Winter writes, the teen at first didn't know what to do.
"Dude, I just saw some really weird s---," he reportedly told a co-worker.
"I don't know what to do. Should I call someone, or is that being racist."
After speaking with a manager, he contacted the authorities -- but what if he had succumbed to his concern about being considered a racist?
All this happened 16 months ago, during which time the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted an undercover investigation resulting in the arrests.
What's troubling is that the extreme fringe of civil rights activists have also been pushing their agenda during this time -- so much so that the teen, if today faced with the same dilemma, might not have spoken out.
For example, imagine how intimidated he may have felt had he been making his decision after the lawsuit filed last month by six Muslim clerics who were removed from a U.S. Airways flight in Minneapolis.
They are demanding to know the identities of passengers and others who raised the alarm about their behaviour so that each can be individually sued.
The imams claim they were merely praying, and guilty of nothing more than "flying while Muslim," but people who spoke out said much more was involved.
According to the witnesses, the imams were shouting during prayers. Once on the plane, they began swapping seats, leading some passengers to fear they were seeking to control the exits.
Passengers were also puzzled why some of the imams were asking for seat-belt extensions, fearing they sought the heavy buckles for use as weapons.
The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court, seeks initial damages from the airline and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission.
Whether the suit is eventually thrown out or not, the damage in the collective fight against terrorism is already done. Such legal consequences will almost certainly make people think twice about speaking out in future.
And while it's now apparent the behaviour of these clerics was more odd than menacing, the intentions of the next group may not be.
In an age of terrorism, people need to feel they can report suspicious behaviour without penalty. Constraining that freedom creates the risk of a terrorist plot going undetected.
The irony for civil rights activists is that a major new attack could create such a public outcry that even current rights are curtailed.
Best to let common sense be the guide when it comes to judging threats.
© National Post 2007
There’s a growing backlash against PCism. It’s called “The Return of Common Sense.”
Apparent to anyone who has studied the ideology long enough to know that the entire incident was a deliberate provocation.
That’s just what the Dems and the ACLU want, so they can impeach Bush.
Political Correctness IS a time of Terror.
PC is not just a river on the Nile.
The power of PC. It has gotten thousands of people killed, and in this case, almost got more killed.
read later
The irony for civil rights activists is that a major new attack could create such a public outcry that even current rights are curtailed.
No way there'll be such an outcry, no matter how bad the attack. The irony is that modern Americans are sheep who are so timid they refuse even to cry out, and any who do are scolded by the others to shush up, because it might make the wolf hungrier. So we (Americans as a whole) are the worst kind of sheep.
that makes it menacing,(I believe it was a “dry” run) not odd.
Those men speak to us now. And we should listen, and listen very, very carefully, even though none of them were saints.
That is the attitude needed against blundering, PC , Utopianism.
Imagine these airport Imams against Earp, being pistol whipped on the spot with a Buntline Special. I sort of have an affection for that image.
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