Adventures In Profiling

letterstomycountry:

Those who read my blog with a modicum of frequency perhaps know that I’m far more receptive to “New Atheism” than most.  I find myself agreeing with the likes of Sam Harris more often than not when I watch him debate with religious apologists.  But his political conclusions, frankly, sometimes shock the conscience:

We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it. And, again, I wouldn’t put someone who looks like me entirely outside the bull’s-eye (after all, what would Adam Gadahn look like if he cleaned himself up?) But there are people who do not stand a chance of being jihadists, and TSA screeners can know this at a glance.

This paragraph is, in part, removed from its context.  You should read the whole essay before lighting torches and raising pitchforks.  

Read the rest of it at the link above.

Two quick points and I’m just going to come out and say it, I loathe Sam Harris as a thinker. This is distinct from any claim that he’s not a loving friend, son, sibling, owner of pets and/or parent. Anyway back to the points, 

1. This form of toxic political thought oozes from every pore of Sam Harris’ body. The more conscious you are about it, the more apparent it becomes and ideally, the easier it is to see to disassociate yourself from Sam Harris. This is the same guy that wrote, “The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you… we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for ‘racism’ and ‘Islamophobia’.” Now he’s saying that we SHOULD profile Muslims (by the way, a particular type of Muslim because Muslims do not look the same.) I fail to see how one quote doesn’t influence the other.
2. The very next paragraph at the link above reads, “Needless to say, a devout Muslim should be free to show up at the airport dressed like Osama bin Laden, and his wives should be free to wear burqas. But if their goal is simply to travel safely and efficiently, wouldn’t they, too, want a system that notices people like themselves? At a minimum, wouldn’t they want a system that anti-profiles—applying the minimum of attention to people who obviously pose no threat?“ I don’t know what to say other than I feel the exact same way as I did when I read the original quote without context. It would be sometimes shocking if Sam Harris didn’t always make such claims. 

I’m not arguing that Sam Harris isn’t sometimes making good arguments but that Sam Harris is sometimes impossible to disassociate from the other Sam Harris, the kind of Sam Harris that The Nation wrote about roughly a year ago. Also don’t forget that even a broken clock is correct twice a day.