nachovx wrote:
> Muslims should be the ones forced to carry ID at all times and
> be subject to random stop and search.
Without implying approval of the first part of that, re the second part, how do you tell someone's religion just by looking at them?
To anticipate a possible answer to that question, which I'm not necessarily suggesting you would give - because it isn't possible to tell someone's religion from their appearance (as shown by eye-witness reports of recent events), you'd have to make them wear something that showed their religion. Do you see the echoes of Nazi Germany in that?
Why doesn't everyone cool down and re-engage their brains?
And also - for everyone again - see
London bombers - evidence.
Re: London bombers - evidence.
All I would say is in the same way police forces all over Europe stop and search for suspected illegal immigrants and criminals ... it's called profiling, and you can eliminate at least 80% of the population almost instantly. Visit Paris and Amsterdam and watch it in action, it can be seen as racist, but it works --- there are a lot of illegal Moroccans in Amsterdam, but they stay out of the centre because they know they will be stopped.
Re: London bombers - evidence.
To take up the first part of what I quoted - "Muslims should be the ones forced to carry ID at all times " - so if someone was stopped and not carrying ID they are not Muslim? In the examples you cite, everyone (or everyone legally present) has an ID card.
Profiling may eliminate 80% of the population but that still leaves over 10 million people in this country (to use your hypothetical percentage figures). I think the policy you suggest, apart from being impractical, would increase the number of potential terrorists. By analogy, in a case of arson the police search for the arsonist and the firemen pour water on the flames - not petrol. Of course in specific circumstances profling, formal or informal, is in practice going to be used.
But anyway, I'm prepared to admit that I don't know what would work, and I wish more people on this forum would use that too-little-used sentence "I don't know." Not aiming this bit at you in particular, but too many people have delusions of certainty and in too many cases on this forum recently it has been the ones with the most extreme views.
Profiling may eliminate 80% of the population but that still leaves over 10 million people in this country (to use your hypothetical percentage figures). I think the policy you suggest, apart from being impractical, would increase the number of potential terrorists. By analogy, in a case of arson the police search for the arsonist and the firemen pour water on the flames - not petrol. Of course in specific circumstances profling, formal or informal, is in practice going to be used.
But anyway, I'm prepared to admit that I don't know what would work, and I wish more people on this forum would use that too-little-used sentence "I don't know." Not aiming this bit at you in particular, but too many people have delusions of certainty and in too many cases on this forum recently it has been the ones with the most extreme views.