Thinking About ‘Profiling’

In current usage, ‘Profiling’ is the idea that the police (or anyone, really) uses race (or religion, or other non-legal criteria) as a basis for indicating whether someone is potentially guilty of a crime of some sort. That’s not the dictionary definition, by the way.

This has become politically incorrect because it smacks of prejudice. Here in the South, profiling is most commonly the assumption by police officers that a black or hispanic person is more likely to have committed a crime then a white person. So when a house gets broken into, absent a witness, the cops are more likely to randomly pull over the vehicle of black or hispanic persons than white people, if they see a suspicious vehicle in the area. This causes the appearance that the police are prejudiced. Therefore, the police actively try not to ‘profile’.

The question is, does profiling have any validity as a tool for winnowing out the guilty?

Well, the short answer, IMHO, is yes. Why?

Where I live, if you watch the local news for a period of time, you will find that probably 70% to 80% of perpetrators of violent crime are black or hispanic. This is my informal observation, I have not actually done any surveys. But that is, by my estimate, about the ratio of crimes by race in this area and at this time.

There are historical reasons for this disparity which I won’t go into here, but I do observe that this probably does not pertain everywhere in the country. Some areas it may be the other way around, or some other ratio – I wouldn’t know. And I do expect it to shift slowly over time, as the various cultures intermingle more thoroughly; but that is a very slow process. I would expect that eventually it would align with the actual ratio of races in a given area.

Given that informal statistic though, for this area, if you are a careful person, you are careful of all strangers – but you go one notch up on your internal alertness scale if the strangers are black or latino. Around here, that is.

So profiling does figure into your situational awareness at least to some degree. I have to conclude that it makes sense as a reasonable tool to help evaluate those around you. However, if it is your only criteria, then it has become racist, and is both illogical and immoral.

Now let’s think about the situation with Hasan, the Muslim murderer at Fort Hood. There seems to be a feeling that he may have still been in the military only because of a fear by his superiors that kicking him out would have been seen as profiling and prejudice against Muslims.

Hasan gave plenty of clues that he was potentially about to go critical. It seems likely that his commanders were aware of these clues, but ignored them to avoid being branded as prejudiced. Our ‘politically correct’ culture has thus indirectly resulted in the deaths of 13 people.

Muslim extremists (not all Muslims, mind you) have been the perpetrators of almost every terrorist conflict in the last twenty years. They killed over 3000 people on 9/11/2001, and have been responsible for many other bombings, shootings and killings world-wide, before and since. Given these facts, it makes sense to be a bit hypersensitive to signs of instability in anyone who is a Muslim. Not to condemn – but to be watchful and aware.

If this is profiling, so be it.

I walk in the woods near my home occasionally. I see snakes. Probably nine out of ten of them are non-poisonous. But I still ‘alert’ every time I see a snake. This is a survival trait instilled in humanity by millions of years of practice at staying alive. It’s also ‘profiling’. And this is a very good example of why profiling works.

In the same context, I don’t shoot every snake I see. I watch them, and if they threaten me I kill them. This is correct action. Now, a racist is somebody who shoots every snake he comes to.

That’s a pretty good analogy.

-Popgun

Misinformation

The Obama administration’s talking heads (including Obama) frequently claim their opposition is spreading ‘misinformation’. Methinks that is like the pot calling the kettle black.

These days, finding the truth requires research. You sure as heck won’t find it by listening to Whitehouse spokes-heads. Or any other politician.

Sometimes, you can glean the truth by watching shows that pit persons of opposite viewpoints against each other in debate, such as Bill O’Reilly, or Huckabee, for instance. This requires critical thinking, however. Often you have to be careful to winnow out your own preconceived notions which distort your own view.

Quoting Robert A. Heinlein’s “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long”:

What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

Without the facts, it is impossible to accurately make good decisions about anything.

-Popgun

Gold!

I keep seeing ads on TV by companies that want you to “invest in” i.e. buy gold.

Okay – I know I’m probably missing something here. If gold is such a great investment, and if this company has all this gold to sell – why aren’t they keeping it?

It looks to me like if it was a great investment, they’d hang on to all the gold.

Just sayin’.

-Popgun

Predictions I Made a Year Ago

About a year ago, 10/23/2008, I made a number of predictions about how it would go if Obama was elected. I thought this would be a good time to revisit them, and see how I did.

The predictions I made are below – my current comments are in bold italics.

1. There will be an increased government bureaucracy ; and increased government spending to go with it. Boy, I nailed this one!
2. Since that has to be paid for, there will be increased taxation. Yes, on everybody with an income, one way or the other. ALL taxes eventually filter down to the wage-earning citizen. Starting with SCHIP, and more – much more – on the way.
3. Obama will attempt to implement his medical care program. If he is successful, medical care may become less expensive – but the quality and availability of care will decline over time. (As is the case in Great Britain and Canada). He is certainly trying to implement this – the outcome is too soon to tell.
4. It will increasingly be a bad environment for business; more taxation = less profit. Look for more business to relocate overseas. There will be more unemployment. Prices of consumer goods will increase as the additional taxation is passed on to customers. All of this is happening right now.
5. There will be inroads made against free trade agreements with other countries. Imports will cost more. Exports will decline, further damaging our economy. Not sure about this one – the dollar is worth less, so this should be true, but I haven’t followed this closely.
6. The economy will decline to deep recession levels, at best. (This may happen no matter who wins). Here we are!
7. Our military will, over time, be defunded and emasculated, in order to shift funding to other (welfare type) programs. Pulling out of Iraq, canceling missile defense systems in various places, cutting funding for fighter planes, shutting down Gitmo, can’t decide whether it’s a good political move to support Afghanistan…
8. There will likely be new attacks by terrorists both inside and outside the U.S. who think Obama won’t retaliate. There have been several attempts inside the US, and notice the recent major bombings in Iraq and Pakistan.
9. There will be a general withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. In the works now.
10. Iran will be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Iranian influence in the Middle East will increase. In the works. It remains to be seen if Israel will take action independent of the U.S., but it is doubtful we will act to stop Iran.
11. Drilling for oil in the U.S. will be curtailed, while Obama’s alternate energy “Manhattan Project” will be implemented. As a result, until alternate-energy-powered cars are economically available, you will pay more for gasoline. Lots more. Both ground and air travel will decline over time as it becomes too expensive. Drilling for oil has certainly been curtailed. I still think much higher fuel prices are on the way, but it’s not here yet. I missed on the alternate energy project.
12. Obama will select liberal judges for the Supreme Court, who are not strict interpreters of the Constitution. The Democratic congress will rubber-stamp them. Fact. See Sotomayor.
13. Pro-abortion groups will be in their ascendency – laws allowing unlimited abortion will be passed within the limits imposed by the (liberal) Supreme Court. The conservatives are doing their best to keep abortion funding out of the health care reform bill now being debated. It remains to be seen whether they will be successful.
14. Institution of the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ which will shut down conservative talk radio, and make it harder for any right-wing message to be heard. Hasn’t happened yet. Instead, they are actually trying to do the same thing through administrative rules, bypassing the need to vote on it. To soon to tell if they will succeed.
15. Every possible obstruction to our Second Amendment gun rights will be implemented. The Second Amendment guarantees that we can own guns. However, there is no such guarantee about cost, quantity, or type. Obama will not protect manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits, and he is in favor of restricting ‘certain types of guns’. Laws will be passed requiring hardware modifications that will make most guns either useless or out of the financial reach of most Americans. So far, I missed this one totally. I’m fairly sure they will get around to it, but it’s not as high on their priority list as I thought.

Potential results – not as likely as above, but possible:

1. Nationalization of the oil companies (already called for by some Democrats). Not yet. Just major banks and automobile manufacturers.
2. Suppression of free speech will become more prevalent. Try Googling “Obama’s Truth Squads“. 487,000 hits! Notice the attempts by this administration to muzzle Fox News.
3. The public school system will become a tool of indoctrination for the political left. (See Obama’s involvement with the Annenberg Challenge – purposed to indoctrinate school children with Bill Ayer’s beliefs!). Lots of little kids being taught songs praising Obama these days…
4. Total collapse of the economy to depression era levels – or below. Thank God, no. Yet.
5. Iran will attempt to destroy Israel with it’s new nuclear weapons, due to their belief that we will not retaliate. Not yet.
6. The end of the United States as a world power. Not yet – although Obama has done so much bowing and apologizing that he is most certainly seen as a weak president, internationally.

All things considered, I did pretty good, I think. Certainly not bad for an aging farm boy.

-Popgun

Health Insurance Profits

Obama, Pelosi and Reid are painting the insurance companies as greedy pirates, making obscene profits.

The facts seem to indicate that, in reality, health insurance margins (profit) is somewhere between 2% and 6%.

Not only is this not piracy, but this fact has other implications:

If you think about it, this implies that the insurance companies are very efficient in their competition with each other. They would make more money in that field if it was there to be made. This implies that they cannot lower rates much lower without operating at a loss. Competition has driven the profits down to this level! This strongly makes the case that current costs are close to the minimum possible to operate the system.

If so, requiring insurance companies to cover everyone, without regard to prior conditions, simply must cause rates to rise from their current level.

This also strongly supports the idea that a ‘public’ option which could be run by the government at a loss (since we’re all paying for it) would in fact drive the insurance companies out of the health care business, very quickly.

Once the insurance companies are gone, there is no mechanism to limit what the government charges for their insurance. The government has the power of taxation. Of course, the government won’t call it taxation – they’ll just call it your insurance bill. But you’ll go to jail, if you don’t pay.

I don’t see how any government revamping of health care is going to save us any money, nor do I see how it will improve health care.

Personally, I like the current situation – where buying insurance is voluntary. If the Democrats have their way, we won’t have any choice.

-Popgun

A Thought

As a Christian, I believe that I will live forever (after I die).

Maybe we’re here on this earth to learn patience. Somebody that lives forever is going to need a lot of patience.

-Popgun

Pocket Knives

The world has really gotten ridiculous. This young man is on suspension for having a small pocket knife locked in his car in a school parking lot.

Shucks, I carried a pocket knife bigger than his every day to school from the fourth grade on, completely without incident. So did most boys. A lot could be learned about a young man, based on what kind of knife he carried.

Farm boys like me carried a Case or maybe an Old-Timer 3-blade pocketknife, usually big enough to wear a hole in your bluejeans pocket. Boy scouts carried a Swiss Army knife. A couple of the more edgy kids carried a cheap switchblade (yes, that was illegal). I think I remember seeing at least one butterfly knife.

Big woo. Nobody got stabbed.

The only knife wound that happened in my entire school career was this one boy who stabbed himself in the belly trying to cut a button off of a shirt (why? I have no idea – but that’s what he told me he was doing). And he did that at home, with a hunting knife.

This whole knife thing is vastly overblown.

Having said that, I realize that I grew up in a time when most parents taught their kids that it isn’t nice to stab other people. This entire scenario has more to do with the failure of the concept of parental responsibility than anything else.

I think the failure to consider the context and just blindly assign penalties is wrong. Our country’s judicial system has a certain amount of leeway built into it to allow for special circumstances, and pig-headed school administrators should apply that concept as well.

-Popgun

Insanity is Rampant in the World Today

Amazing.

Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize – without doing anything.

Our government actually thinks it can spend its way to prosperity – with money it doesn’t have. To the tune of trillions of dollars. This administration has spent huge amounts of money, many times faster than any previous administration – ever. And wants to spend more. Anybody that’s ever managed a check book knows the problem with this approach.

The President of the United States has bowed down to the king of Saudi Arabia, and has made friendly overtures to every dictator he has come in contact with. In the same breath, he has insulted Britain, Israel, the Dalai Lama and every other friendly power he could.

The President of the United States has made it clear that he thinks the U.S. is just another nation – nothing special.

The President of the United States thinks he needs to apologize for us to other countries. He doesn’t seem to have any pride in our country.

The House of Representatives has passed a cap and trade bill that will represent the largest tax increase this country has ever seen – in a time of economic crisis – which is based on politically pushed pseudo-science about which serious doubts exist in the scientific community. A huge tax to promote an ineffective cure for a problem that may or may not exist.

The Democrats are actually implementing socialism. In America.

Nationalization of major businesses and banks has taken place – in America.

About 800,000 unborn children are murdered in the U.S. every year. For the sake of convenience. This is called ‘health care’.

Iran is about to get nukes, and our troops on the ground in Afghanistan need a bit of help – and we’re waiting on our President to make up his mind. And waiting. And waiting.

Yet the President doesn’t have time to discuss this with the commander of those troops. Instead, the President has spent enormous amounts of time and energy promoting health care reform – a health care reform that a majority of Americans don’t want. A health care reform that is structured to destroy the insurance industry and much of our freedom.

Our government is about to fool around and let the dollar lose it’s position as the basis for international trade.

Unemployment rate at 9.9% and climbing. The ’stimulus’ hasn’t worked, so the Democrats are thinking about doing it again. What moron repeats something that didn’t work the first time?

The Democrats think (or want you to think) that they can tax a business and that tax is not passed on to we the consumers. (Check out the proposed funding for the ‘health care’).

I’m sorry, folks, but none of these things look good to me.

Upper management is insane. Or something.

UPDATE: Ha – I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Day by Day!

-Popgun

An Old Story

A long time ago, someone told me this story. I’d attribute it, but I don’t remember where it came from.

A pastor was preaching to his congregation:

“Strong drink is of the Devil! Christians should not drink Strong Drink!”

“Amen, brother!” said the old widow in the front row.

“And smoking is sinful! Lovers of the Lord should not Smoke!!”, sayeth the Pastor.

“Amen, Pastor!”, said the old widow.

“And Snuff! Snuff is Evil!!”, cried the Pastor.

“Now you’re MEDDLING!”, muttered the old Widow.

The moral of the story is obvious. Everybody is in favor of reform, as long as it is somebody else that is being reformed.

This is the fundamental problem with the current push for health care reform. Everybody agrees it’s a great idea – just don’t mess with ME. And that’s exactly how I feel, too.

I want the current push for reform to fail, because frankly I do not trust the current administration to stick to the specific subject. They have tried to hide so much left-wing progressive policy in this bill (or set of bills) that the whole thing has gone sour. I no longer trust them to come up with ANY bill that is honest.

Obama, Pelosi and Reed, and others, have poisoned this bill with their left-wing agenda. They have made so many patently false statements about it that it turns the stomach.

It’s kind of like getting screwed over by a dishonest salesman. The next time he tries to sell you something, you aren’t going to trust him much. That’s how this feels to me. I don’t have any faith at all that what is being done is for my family’s benefit.

So, Mr. Congressperson, if you happen to read this – vote NO on the health care bill, whatever is in the final version. You haven’t read it, you don’t know what’s in it. Vote NO. Maybe we can tackle it again in a few years with a more rational approach.

-Popgun

How About That?

I was reading the excellent blog of Bayou Renaissance Man, and came across this article about bacon.

I was amazed to discover that pig by-products are used in the manufacture of bullets and explosives. This is news to me.

Then, I remembered that I have read somewhere that Muslims and certain other religions define pigs as unclean animals. So I did a little fast research and found that in Islam, this sin pertains if a Muslim person knowingly partakes of pork. If they do it unknowingly, it is not a sin.

So here’s a thought: Perhaps we need to advertise the fact that our weapons have pig in them. Once aware of this, a Muslim terrorist would be committing a sin if he puts himself in a position to be shot or blown up with modern firearms or explosives.

Just a weird, tongue-in-cheek observation… sometimes my mind goes in odd directions.

-Popgun