Wise words from Publius:

…
On a recent business trip to the US – thankfully before the junk groping got under way – I was profiled myself. Out of dozens of flyers, a trio of police officers – rather than TSA rent-a-dolts – stopped and asked me if I was carrying cash over $10,000, which must be reported. I was shocked for a moment. Why me? I hadn’t done anything wrong. No, but I was the only one on the flight wearing a business suit, and my one carry on item was stuffed with three days worth of clothing. My unshaven appearance probably didn’t help. It simply made sense to target the guy who looked like he would be carrying large sums of money, rather than the mother with three kids behind me.

While the officer was courteous, and I tried not to show my annoyance, it was an intelligent bit of profiling. The law being enforced was essentially unjust, a product of the misbegotten American War on Drugs, but part of life is knowing when to pick your battles. The cop knew hassling the mother of three was a waste of time, and might cause a scene, while questioning me in a civilized manner might actually lead to finding what he was looking to find. Making a fuss would get me nowhere, and in any case I was a guest in a foreign country, not a citizen. A Toronto cop asking me the same questioning, while walking down the street, would have gotten a somewhat less congenial response…

For generations it’s been a cliche of the Left [not only them] that generals are always fighting the last war. In the war against Islamic Fundamentalism, it’s the intellectuals that are fighting the last cultural war. This is not the North America of 1960 and our society is not, in the conventional sense, a bastion of racism needing expiation. It’s a basically free, basically tolerant society engaged in a low level – but still dangerous – war against primitive religious fanaticism. Failing to use the tools at our disposal, in a intelligent and restrained manner, makes us both less secure and less free.

Mark
Ottawa