7 ms·

In 2014 I traveled to Ghana for a friend's wedding there. The day I flew back, I had to go through a second, thorough security checkpoint at the gate before I c

by altendo 10y ago

In 2014 I traveled to Ghana for a friend's wedding there. The day I flew back, I had to go through a second, thorough security checkpoint at the gate before I could hope to board my plane. I didn't have anything to worry about - I'm considered one of the "'real' Americans" that the OP mentions - but I was still struck by what sort of impression this might leave on others coming to the United States with me. Namely, I thought that it sent the message that the US, before even receiving visitors, was saying "I don't trust you". There is always that balance between security and openness; I don't deny that it's difficult to manage. Let's not pretend, however, that people aren't affected by xenophobic rhetoric. They are. What message does it send to actual Americans citizens like the OP when we lambaste them for their religion? Is that who we are as Americans, those who spread fear to those who don't look or act "real"? I'm not liking where this country is going.

Klathmon 10y ago
I'm just so shocked by how... normal it's gotten. When I was growing up, I was taught that you shouldn't ever think differently of someone because of their skin color, their ethnicity, or their religion. Obviously you should always strive to never judge a person by any one thing, but those 3 were practically beat into me as being something you just don't do. So much so that we had laws against it. When I first started hearing the term "Muslim ban" my jaw hit the floor. I reacted the same way I would if someone proposed a "Nigger ban". It just sounded so horribly wrong and misguided and awful. Like every fiber of my being was screaming that this is such a terrible awful thing, but nobody else seemed to be reacting to it. In my mind, this country was built on an openness to all religions. And I'm just so shocked to see that such a large number of people would not only disagree with that, but advocate for the opposite!
- Consultant32452 10y ago
  I don't support the so-called "Muslim ban" either, but it's worth acknowledging that anyone even calling it a "Muslim ban," including the POTUS, is just doing so to get a reaction out of people. And it worked. How about calling it a ban on countries we happen to be bombing right now? That headline isn't quite as salacious, but is more accurate than calling it a Muslim ban. We bombed I think 5 of the 7 countries in the ban within the last year. The fact that people seem more upset about stopping some people at the border than they are about dropping cluster bombs on them in their home country is really puzzling to me.
  - ra1n85 10y ago
    Point very well made. While Iran hasn't been bombed by the US, but the US did help to sabotage communications between control software and Siemens PLCs that manage enrichment centrifuges in Iranian facilities.
  - ewzimm 10y ago
    To use a tech analogy, this is basically the same situation that comes up with rogue certificate authorities. Security is based on trust, and if browser vendors discover that a certificate authority is not verifying the identity of the parties to which it issues certificates, that certificate authority is blocked at least until better validation procedures can be established. The reason cited for this travel ban is that these countries either have no control over who gets an ID or actively sponsor terrorism. International travel is based on the idea that we trust other countries to validate the identity of travellers. If we know for certain the the government has no control over identity verification and that most passports are obtained from the black market, it seems reasonable to issue a temporary halt while we establish a trustworthy system for verification.
    - Consultant32452 10y ago
      I agree that's a genuine and reasonable concern, but it's not unique to these 7 countries. We're only citing that reason because of the other contextual things going on.
      - ewzimm 10y ago
        I'm mentioning it because it was explicitly stated by the White House as the justification for temporary travel ban. They also said that Muslims as well as members of other religions who were at risk of religious persecution because they belonged to a minority religious group would have special considerations (it's often unreported that Islam is not a monolithic religion and not only Christians, but members of competing sects are often executed for their beliefs). These countries were excluded from relaxing visa requirements under the Obama administration because of documented concerns about their identity verification processes. In Somalia, for example, the government esentially has no control and can't leave the capital city without risking death.
- notheguyouthink 10y ago
  > I'm just so shocked by how... normal it's gotten. I mean, i think in concept it's perfectly fine. If we started banning a small sect of insanely violent Christians i don't think it would be wrong, nor do i think people would cry racism / xenophobia. My issue is that in the above example we're not banning all Christians, we're banning that small sect. Likewise, we're not focusing on banning a small sect of Muslims (which /may/ be perfectly reasonable), we're banning them all. .. And there's just so damn many of them, it's banning vastly more innocents than guiltys.. the net has been cast far too wide. Ignoring Muslims for a moment, why can't we ban a crazy sect of christians who have shown massively violent/hateful trends? Are we not just banning an obvious pattern of human behavior? Does their skin color or religion really matter that much?
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    Well personally I feel that using religion as a "flag" in something like that is still wrong. Now that might be my "mid 20's white male never been directly affected by any kind of terrorist attack" talking, but I just feel that the risk for abuse is too great. In the US we have laws that make it harder for the police and the government to take action. We deliberately tie our own hands with things like laws against unreasonable searching, against being forced to incriminate yourself, and more. We have many times in our history let very bad people walk free because of these restrictions we have placed on ourselves, and personally I believe that to be the right choice. Now things are different when you are talking about non-citizens, but at the end of the day I think we should strive to that same kind of standard. Don't use things like religion, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, or other things like it as a basis for "flagging" someone. If they are violent, then disallow them based on that. If they surround themselves with violent extremists, then disallow them because of that. If they publicly speak about how they want to hurt americans, then disallow them because of that. But don't group someone from the same religion in with them. Yes, that means that it will be harder to "secure our borders" and yes i'm sure that means that bad people will get through at some point, and yes I know that those bad people could very well do a lot of harm. But I really truly believe that more good than harm will come from it simply from the amount of good people that will be coming into the country compared to the bad.
- jimmyk 10y ago
  those 3 were practically beat into me This is called indoctrination. Who was behind this indoctrination, and what were their motivations? Did they have your interests in mind, or their own?
carlmcqueen 10y ago
When I was returning to the United States from Croatia, but in Heathrow Airport, my wife and I got picked for a secondary interview at the gate with a British Gentleman who asked me and my wife very detailed questions. My wife had just changed jobs, so her inability to give the corporate address of her employer made her interview take twice as long as mine. He had a hard time understanding that while a hospital was based out of Alabama somewhere she worked in Missouri and she didn't know a lot about their Alabama operations. All those questions made us very nervous but once through we saw no more problems.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
Depending on where the second security checkpoint was, it may be perfectly normal. Was it at the first US airport you hit? IIUC, the reason for this is, if you're flying from some country where we don't trust their airport security, we want to re-screen you and your luggage before we let you fly on our planes. This was going on clear back in the 1980s.

by altendo 10y ago

Klathmon 10y ago

I'm just so shocked by how... normal it's gotten. When I was growing up, I was taught that you shouldn't ever think differently of someone because of their skin color, their ethnicity, or their religion. Obviously you should always strive to never judge a person by any one thing, but those 3 were practically beat into me as being something you just don't do. So much so that we had laws against it. When I first started hearing the term "Muslim ban" my jaw hit the floor. I reacted the same way I would if someone proposed a "Nigger ban". It just sounded so horribly wrong and misguided and awful. Like every fiber of my being was screaming that this is such a terrible awful thing, but nobody else seemed to be reacting to it. In my mind, this country was built on an openness to all religions. And I'm just so shocked to see that such a large number of people would not only disagree with that, but advocate for the opposite!

Consultant32452 10y ago
I don't support the so-called "Muslim ban" either, but it's worth acknowledging that anyone even calling it a "Muslim ban," including the POTUS, is just doing so to get a reaction out of people. And it worked. How about calling it a ban on countries we happen to be bombing right now? That headline isn't quite as salacious, but is more accurate than calling it a Muslim ban. We bombed I think 5 of the 7 countries in the ban within the last year. The fact that people seem more upset about stopping some people at the border than they are about dropping cluster bombs on them in their home country is really puzzling to me.
- ra1n85 10y ago
  Point very well made. While Iran hasn't been bombed by the US, but the US did help to sabotage communications between control software and Siemens PLCs that manage enrichment centrifuges in Iranian facilities.
- ewzimm 10y ago
  To use a tech analogy, this is basically the same situation that comes up with rogue certificate authorities. Security is based on trust, and if browser vendors discover that a certificate authority is not verifying the identity of the parties to which it issues certificates, that certificate authority is blocked at least until better validation procedures can be established. The reason cited for this travel ban is that these countries either have no control over who gets an ID or actively sponsor terrorism. International travel is based on the idea that we trust other countries to validate the identity of travellers. If we know for certain the the government has no control over identity verification and that most passports are obtained from the black market, it seems reasonable to issue a temporary halt while we establish a trustworthy system for verification.
  - Consultant32452 10y ago
    I agree that's a genuine and reasonable concern, but it's not unique to these 7 countries. We're only citing that reason because of the other contextual things going on.
    - ewzimm 10y ago
      I'm mentioning it because it was explicitly stated by the White House as the justification for temporary travel ban. They also said that Muslims as well as members of other religions who were at risk of religious persecution because they belonged to a minority religious group would have special considerations (it's often unreported that Islam is not a monolithic religion and not only Christians, but members of competing sects are often executed for their beliefs). These countries were excluded from relaxing visa requirements under the Obama administration because of documented concerns about their identity verification processes. In Somalia, for example, the government esentially has no control and can't leave the capital city without risking death.
notheguyouthink 10y ago
> I'm just so shocked by how... normal it's gotten. I mean, i think in concept it's perfectly fine. If we started banning a small sect of insanely violent Christians i don't think it would be wrong, nor do i think people would cry racism / xenophobia. My issue is that in the above example we're not banning all Christians, we're banning that small sect. Likewise, we're not focusing on banning a small sect of Muslims (which /may/ be perfectly reasonable), we're banning them all. .. And there's just so damn many of them, it's banning vastly more innocents than guiltys.. the net has been cast far too wide. Ignoring Muslims for a moment, why can't we ban a crazy sect of christians who have shown massively violent/hateful trends? Are we not just banning an obvious pattern of human behavior? Does their skin color or religion really matter that much?
- Klathmon 10y ago
  Well personally I feel that using religion as a "flag" in something like that is still wrong. Now that might be my "mid 20's white male never been directly affected by any kind of terrorist attack" talking, but I just feel that the risk for abuse is too great. In the US we have laws that make it harder for the police and the government to take action. We deliberately tie our own hands with things like laws against unreasonable searching, against being forced to incriminate yourself, and more. We have many times in our history let very bad people walk free because of these restrictions we have placed on ourselves, and personally I believe that to be the right choice. Now things are different when you are talking about non-citizens, but at the end of the day I think we should strive to that same kind of standard. Don't use things like religion, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, or other things like it as a basis for "flagging" someone. If they are violent, then disallow them based on that. If they surround themselves with violent extremists, then disallow them because of that. If they publicly speak about how they want to hurt americans, then disallow them because of that. But don't group someone from the same religion in with them. Yes, that means that it will be harder to "secure our borders" and yes i'm sure that means that bad people will get through at some point, and yes I know that those bad people could very well do a lot of harm. But I really truly believe that more good than harm will come from it simply from the amount of good people that will be coming into the country compared to the bad.
jimmyk 10y ago
those 3 were practically beat into me This is called indoctrination. Who was behind this indoctrination, and what were their motivations? Did they have your interests in mind, or their own?

carlmcqueen 10y ago

When I was returning to the United States from Croatia, but in Heathrow Airport, my wife and I got picked for a secondary interview at the gate with a British Gentleman who asked me and my wife very detailed questions. My wife had just changed jobs, so her inability to give the corporate address of her employer made her interview take twice as long as mine. He had a hard time understanding that while a hospital was based out of Alabama somewhere she worked in Missouri and she didn't know a lot about their Alabama operations. All those questions made us very nervous but once through we saw no more problems.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

Depending on where the second security checkpoint was, it may be perfectly normal. Was it at the first US airport you hit? IIUC, the reason for this is, if you're flying from some country where we don't trust their airport security, we want to re-screen you and your luggage before we let you fly on our planes. This was going on clear back in the 1980s.