State of Alabama: Libertarians are terrorists

[John Kilduff]

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No I don't think this is an example of why profiling "works" and that's precisely why I was asking for other cases that fit the profile. My suspicion is that this specific profile is statistically non-correlated with terrorism (or violent crime, for matter of that too).

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You named two examples of the profile in question, and I gave you one more. I don't know any grandmothers who blow up the Murrah Building. I don't know any black guys who set off bombs in Centennial Park. So there you go. Profiling "works", right? Target the angry white guys, and we'll get those terrorists before they get us!

I mean, c'mon, do you really want to talk about statistically significant correlations? Since when did we need "statistically correlated with terrorism" to justify profiling? There are something like 1.4 billion Muslims in the world. How many need to be terrorists before we start profiling them?

Well, the right-wing, foaming-at-the-mouth Islamophobes will respond "SEPT. 11TH! WE ONLY NEED 19! Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all the 9/11 bombers were Muslim! Some of my best friends are Muslims, but they need an extra pat-down at La Guardia before I get on a plane with them!"

So there you go. Apparently the "statistical correlation" needed to justify profiling of Muslims is .000000019% (19 divided by 1 billion -- I generously left out four hundred million Muslims).

We've got 3 examples of the anti-gun control and 'the Constitution has been subverted' crowd committing acts of terrorism. There are 300,000,000 Americans, but let's assume only about 100,000,000 are white males. The "statistical correlation" of white males committing acts of terrorism in the US is .00000003%

ZOMG, .00000003% > .000000019% -- white American males are almost twice as likely to be terrorists than Muslims! Better profile these guys. If you deny this, you clearly just don't understand probability.

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Baseless without the statistics to back it up, and that's exactly why I asked for some more cases or statistics. My suspicion is that the government agency that posted this did so based on supposition rather than statistics.

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Yes, of course, because the statistics cited to justify profiling of Muslims that so many on the right advocate is beyond reproach.

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Please calm down; I'm just trying to analyze this factually.

Could we discuss one thing at a time and resolve it if possible before moving on?

To be resolved: is the "profiling" cited on the website statistically supported or not?

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Yeah, I don't think you get it. Of course it's not "statistically supported". You can't "statistically support" it, because no one knows how many people are sufficiently "anti-gun control", and no one knows exactly how many people believe that "the Constitution has been subverted" to be part of the profile. The profile is just vague nonsense.

So of course it's not "statistically supported", but my question is: since when has that mattered when people call for the authorities to use profiling? Hence why "statistically support this instance of profiling" is nothing more than moving the goal posts. You don't *need* to statistically support it based on arguments used in the past to justify profiling. Recall: what's the justification for profiling Muslims before they get on airplanes? As far as I can tell, the "statistical proof" is 19/1,400,000,000. Well, okay. If that stands as "statistically significant proof", then so does 2/100,000,000 (or for AlexM's sake, 2/70,000,000 or whatever number he wants to assign to the white male population of the US).

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I wouldn't mind discussing that later, but right now I am trying to see if there are more than even just 2 or 3 examples. I don't think of any but that doesn't mean there weren't. If the state website posted that based on 3 examples then "what were they thinking?!" and how did it ever get approved for posting.