Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   I fear that you are projecting your notions of how "racist people" behave
> and what they think on me, for the sole reason that I dared to mention
> ethnicity as something which could be used for illegal immigration
> statistics. As ironic as that may sound, I call that prejudice.

  Btw, do you know what I find both interesting and sad?

  I consider myself to be the exact opposite of a racist in the sense that
I *couldn't care less* about "race" or skin color or anything. To me it's
exactly as important and irrelevant as hair color, eye color, height, weight
or whatever. If I meet someone, or see someone working on a store, or
whatever, skin color and ethnicity is completely irrelevant to me. I couldn't
care less. At most it can be a curiosity like someone with a strange hair
color or a big nose: Curious, but irrelevant.

  I suppose one could also call me *insensitive* in this respect of not
caring. To me talking about people's ethnicities is exactly as relevant or
irrelevant (depending on context) as talking about their nationality,
gender, age, education, shoe size or favorite food. It matters exactly
as much, no more, no less. I have absolutely no qualms about using
ethnicity as a point of some argument, as I would use anything else, such
as gender, age, religion or political affiliation. I don't care. To me it's
all the same.

  So what's so interesting and sad about this? That if you really, truly
don't care about ethnicity and consider it exactly as important or unimportant
as anything else, and have no qualms in talking about it, be it positively
or negatively, you are usually considered a racist, and all kind of prejudices
about what you really think are assumed of you.

  If people want to call me insensitive, then I suppose that's fair. I suppose
I *am* insensitive because I just don't care. But calling me racist just
because I don't care is plain stupid (not to mention insulting). People who
call me racist are prejudiced, which is kind of ironic.

  But that's the modern western culture today. Either you are a devoted
anti-racism activist, or a white-power supremacist. There is no middle
ground. Especially there is no "I don't care" option.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Well, that was kind of my point: If the store clerk is not assuming your
> guilt, nor is the guard at the airport, what makes a policeman checking
> someone's ID different?

Because it's not your behavior triggering it.

If you don't want the clerk to see your ID, pay cash or walk away.

If you don't want your bags inspected, don't take bags on the plane, or 
don't take a bag at all.

How do you avoid having the policeman ask for proof of legal residence? And 
do you get to walk away if he asks and you refuse?

I can't believe you're not seeing the difference here.

>> Not in the US, not legally.  That's the point.
> 
>   You mean that in the US the police can construct criminal profiles on
> everything else *except* skin color? Hair color is ok, as well as eye
> color, the color of clothes... but not skin color?

No.  Features irrelevant to the commission of crimes aren't to be used to 
stop people.

Note that there's a difference between profiling in the "serial killers are 
more often white males" case than in the "pull over white males and ask if 
they killed someone" case.  The difference is that in the first, you're 
*reducing* the number of innocent people you bother, and in the second 
you're *increasing* the number of innocent people you bother.

>   Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but if that really is so, it seems
> like a real hindrance to police work, in the name of political correctness.

No, in the name of reducing racism.

>>>   If most illegal immigrants happen to look similar, it only makes sense
>>> to concentrate resources on people who look like that. It's the same as
>>> the vast majority of rapists being male, hence it it makes sense to
>>> concentrate resources on investigating males and skipping females.
>>> Nobody is crying sexism because of that.
> 
>> Nobody that you're aware of, perhaps.
> 
>   You mean there are people who are complaining about the police investigating
> only males in rape cases?
> 
>>>   I really think people are way too hypersensitive with any kind of
>>> profiling based precisely on skin color. Any other type of profiling is
>>> ok, but heaven forbid if you start using skin color as a distinctive
>>> feature. The second you do that, all human rights are flushed down the
>>> toilet. Sheesh.
> 
>> You're not allowed to profile in the US based on religious beliefs, 
>> ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other factors.  Just like you can't use 
>> those to make hiring decisions.
> 
>   Ok, I think we are using a different meaning of the word "profiling".
> It's possible I have understood the term wrongly.
> 
>   I have heard about criminal profilers on the police force who try to
> get a picture of what kind of person the criminal might be based on the
> available clues, and this can include things like ethnicity (such as
> for example "serial killers are typically white middle-aged males"),
> but maybe that's just in TV series and movies?
> 
>   If making a criminal profile based on ethnicity is illegal, does that
> mean that the police cannot say things like "serial killers are typically
> white males"?
> 
>> Well, then, come on over here and I'll see to it that you're asked hourly 
>> to provide proof that you're here legally.  Including in the middle of 
>> the night, just for safety's sake.
> 
>   I assume you are exaggerating. I have hard time believing there are
> enough policemen to do that.
> 


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> You said
>>>   Take 100 illegal immigrants. If 90 of them are of mexican origin and
>>> the rest are of European origin, you certainly *can* distinguish the majority
>>> of them by how they look.
> 
>> This is factually incorrect, *if* you have 10,000 mexicans and 30 europeans 
>> in the community you're policing. You will spend 10,000 investigations to 
>> catch 90 illegal immigrants if you investigate the ones who look mexican, 
>> while you'll spend 30 investigations to catch 10 illegal immigrants if you 
>> investigate all the europeans.
> 
>   I find it amusing how you manage to both claim that the math says it's
> not possible to use statistics to catch illegals more efficiently *and*
> then you present how you can, in fact, use statistics to catch them more
> efficiently.

No, I'm saying that the math you presented is flawed.  One more time:

You can't use the math of proportions of different subgroups of illegals to 
target which unknowns you question. You must use different proportions of 
subgroups of illegals relative to subgroups of legals.  Once you do that, 
there's no reason to favor one particular way of splitting the total 
population into subgroups over another way of splitting the total population 
into subgroups.

>   But at least you admitted that my math was not flawed, although a bit
> indirectly. "This is factually incorrect if ..." means "that example is
> correct, but if you have this another situation, you need a different
> formula".

Except that the different formula applies to things other than ethnicity. 
There are huge numbers of correlations you can make, and not knowing which 
is accurate will cause you to fail to apply the math right.

>   Bottom line is, it's just like I said earlier: You are taking my simple
> example, showing that the same formula does not work on a more complex
> situation (and even giving a more working replacement), and then somehow
> arguing that the math is showing that statistics can *not* be used for
> this purpose. Still a non-sequitur.

Except I also gave you the *best* formula, which is to *not* check randomly, 
but rather check based on the statistical relationships with the *best* 
power to make policing more efficient. And you equated that with giving up 
completely.

>> Yet acting on that is "outrageous"?
>   Where did you invent this "outrageous" word from?

Outrageous and outlandish have very similar meanings here. I simply 
misremembered which word you used.

>   Seems like you have a new obsession with a fancy word you conjured up from
> somewhere.

Now who is picking nits?

>> Racism: Assuming people of a particular genetic background share a common 
>> (usually negative) trait unrelated to their genetic background.
> 
>   And who is making such assumptions here?

Every example of policing people for illegal immigration has spoken about 
ethnicity.

Had you simply said "police should use statistical models to figure out 
which possible suspect is most likely breaking the law and concentrate on 
those," I would have said "They already do. It's called Probably Cause. And 
the current law in Arizona is targeted at preventing police from doing that."

>>>   One could argue that keeping statistics based on ethnicity is wrong, but
>>> curiously that happens only if the statistics make *certain* ethnicities
>>> look bad, while with other ethnicities it's ok. 
> 
>> We're not talking about that here.
> 
>   Making ancillary comments on things is not allowed?

I'm just trying to prevent confusion.

>>> I didn't ever claim that checking all people of a certain group would be
>>> *the most efficient* way. I said that it would be *more efficient* than
>>> purely random checks. There's a difference between "more" and "most".
> 
>> Sure. But it's still far below "checking people who have done something that 
>> leads you to believe based on their *behavior* that they might be illegal 
>> aliens."
> 
>   At least you somehow admit understanding what I'm writing. 

But that wasn't what you were writing before. If this was what you were 
writing in the first place, we wouldn't be arguing, if you agreed that 
"people of a certain group" are "people for whom you have probable cause."

Otherwise, it's prejudice, and if based on genetics/ethnicity, racism.

>> It does when the citizens consistently complain and vote against 
>> citizenship-proving ID. (To be clear: Of course we have citizenship-proving 
>> ID. We're just not required to produce it on random demand by police.)
> 
>   Well, I suppose citizens get what they want, even if it wouldn't always be
> on their best interest.

Given the history of *this* country, I'm pretty sure it's in *our* best 
interests.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Warp wrote:
>   Why does it matter what was used as an example? What does it matter if it
> was ethnicity, weight or show size? Ethnicity happened to be part of the
> original discussion.

All of those examples have nothing to do with whether you're in the country 
legally.

>   I think your problem is that you are too obsessed with ethnicity. Whenever
> someone talks about ethnicity, it must always be "racism".

Not at all.

>> And why would you argue against the *best* example of distinguishing 
>> feature, which happens to be probable cause?
> 
>   And why would you invent arguments I have neved presented?

OK. At this point, you're again not answering the questions that would clear 
up the confusion, so have a good one.

>> And, in this instance, "racism" isn't necessarily a bad word. It's just 
>> using someone's race to target them for presumtions about the likelihood 
>> they'll behave in a certain way.
> 
>   "Racism" is exclusively used as a negative and derogatory term. There are
> no neutral uses in practice.

Yet you're suggesting exactly that there are neutral and even beneficial 
uses of the *act* of racism.

>>>> I'm confused. The only distinguishing feature you have mentioned in this 
>>>> whole thread is ethnicity, and my bringing up other distinguishing features 
>>>> is called "outrageous", and we're talking about how to catch criminals.
>>>   What the fuck are you talking about?
> 
>> Sorry. You said "outlandish", not "outrageous."
> 
>   Yes, "outlandish" as in "strange", something which confuses because it
> seems so out-of-place. In this case referring to an argument which seems
> so detached that it's hard to understand how it's connected to anything.

It seemed pretty obvious to me.

First, you suggest that if many illegals are of a particular ethnicity, then 
police should concentrate on that enthnicity when doing checks of illegals. 
I ask whether, if many illegals are of a particular religion, police should 
concentrate on that religion when doing checks for illegals. You refer to 
that as "so detached it's hard to understand how it's connected."

Often, around racists (and not to imply you are one), their racism seems 
perfectly normal and rational, just like around religious people their 
prejudices against other religions seem perfectly normal and rational. When 
one substitutes something other than "race" into the same formula, the 
racist will say "Why in the world do you think that's anything similar?"

>> Why did you say that targeting people in churches is outlandish and 
>> incoherent even if most illegals are christian, while it's perfectly 
>> reasonable to target ethnicities if most illegals are of a particular ethnicity?
> 
>   I didn't say that "targeting people in churches is outlandish and
> incoherent". I said that your question was so strange that I had hard
> time understanding its connection to anything.

My question was about targeting people in churches.

OK, I think I'm done here.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Darren New wrote:
> Once you do that, there's no reason to favor one particular way of 
> splitting the total population into subgroups over another way of 
> splitting the total population into subgroups.

Oh, and the only reason to favor using ethnicity over (say) religion, the 
kind of house you live in, the kind of job you work at, etc, is that it's 
easy to look at someone and see their ethnicity, and not so easy to look and 
see their religion, the size of their house, etc.

Which is why people who *are* racists think it's perfectly reasonable to 
base laws on that.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Warp wrote:
>   I consider myself to be the exact opposite of a racist

Note that I haven't called you a racist. I've said that what you suggested 
is racist. There's a difference.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   Well, that was kind of my point: If the store clerk is not assuming your
> > guilt, nor is the guard at the airport, what makes a policeman checking
> > someone's ID different?

> Because it's not your behavior triggering it.

> If you don't want the clerk to see your ID, pay cash or walk away.

> If you don't want your bags inspected, don't take bags on the plane, or 
> don't take a bag at all.

> How do you avoid having the policeman ask for proof of legal residence? And 
> do you get to walk away if he asks and you refuse?

> I can't believe you're not seeing the difference here.

  I think that you are seeing a difference because you are assuming a racist
motivation for the ID check in the last case. Do you deem it completely
implausible for the police to check someone's ID for other reasons than
racism?

> >> Not in the US, not legally.  That's the point.
> > 
> >   You mean that in the US the police can construct criminal profiles on
> > everything else *except* skin color? Hair color is ok, as well as eye
> > color, the color of clothes... but not skin color?

> No.  Features irrelevant to the commission of crimes aren't to be used to 
> stop people.

  "Stopping people" and "profiling" aren't the same thing.

> Note that there's a difference between profiling in the "serial killers are 
> more often white males" case than in the "pull over white males and ask if 
> they killed someone" case.  The difference is that in the first, you're 
> *reducing* the number of innocent people you bother, and in the second 
> you're *increasing* the number of innocent people you bother.

  I don't see how you are increasing the number of innocent people being
bothered when you are dropping 50% of the population from the suspects list
outright.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   Why does it matter what was used as an example? What does it matter if it
> > was ethnicity, weight or show size? Ethnicity happened to be part of the
> > original discussion.

> All of those examples have nothing to do with whether you're in the country 
> legally.

  You just refuse to understand what "example" means, don't you?

  "If ethnicity is a distinguishing factor, then..." is an example. It's
not making a claim about what is and isn't a distinguishing factor.

> >   I think your problem is that you are too obsessed with ethnicity. Whenever
> > someone talks about ethnicity, it must always be "racism".

> Not at all.

  Then why do I get the feeling? Ethnicity really seems to be a touchy
subject.

> >> And why would you argue against the *best* example of distinguishing 
> >> feature, which happens to be probable cause?
> > 
> >   And why would you invent arguments I have neved presented?

> OK. At this point, you're again not answering the questions that would clear 
> up the confusion, so have a good one.

  Are we having reading comprehension problems? Or difficulties in
understanding rhetorical questions? Let me translate:

  "And why would you invent arguments I have neved presented?" means
"I have not made any such argument".

  Maybe you should learn literary techniques sometime.

> >> And, in this instance, "racism" isn't necessarily a bad word. It's just 
> >> using someone's race to target them for presumtions about the likelihood 
> >> they'll behave in a certain way.
> > 
> >   "Racism" is exclusively used as a negative and derogatory term. There are
> > no neutral uses in practice.

> Yet you're suggesting exactly that there are neutral and even beneficial 
> uses of the *act* of racism.

  Firstly, I'm not suggesting that (and I'm getting really tired of you
claiming I do, over and over), and secondly, you are comparing apples to
oranges. I was talking about the term "racism" as being used exclusively
with negative connotations, which is why I don't appreciate you insinuating
I'm one.

  If you keep making that insinuation, I'm going to end this conversation.
I'm not going to continue this if you keep insulting me.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sun, 02 May 2010 14:47:07 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   Maybe I'm being dense here, but I still don't get it.

There is a difference between "we have a specific crime that we are 
looking for suspects for" and "we are doing random checking to see if 
someone might have committed a crime".

To use your rape example, suppose instead of "we're looking for a white 
male because of this specific case we're looking into" the police started 
by collecting DNA samples from all white males just *in case* a crime 
were committed.

That's the difference.  What the Arizona law does is not tie the act of 
"being an illegal immigrant" to a specific instance of a crime.

Does that make sense?

Jim

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 00:49:20 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

>> The law goes further, though, by making it possible for people to sue
>> law enforcement for *not* enforcing the law - so if someone thinks
>> their neighbor is an illegal and calls the police, and the police do
>> nothing about it, then the neighbor can sue the state for failing to
>> take action (so I understand).
>>
>> Jim
> Yeah. One person put it like this: "Damned if you do, damned if you
> don't, so you are just damned 'period'."

Yep.  And a cop of Hispanic descent in Tucson has actually filed a 
lawsuit over this now.

Jim

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 13:39:17 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Sun, 02 May 2010 01:43:24 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> >   If he is an illegal immigrant, why should the country he illegally
>> > entered take responsibility? It's his own country's problem.
> 
>> Because that's the way the world works, Warp.  In fact, some people who
>> immigrate legally or illegally no longer have a country of origin
>> because their country simply no longer exists....so what do you do with
>> them?
> 
>   Maybe that's how it works in practice. It still doesn't mean it's fair
> in my opinion.

When it comes to the laws of the US, though, your opinion really doesn't 
matter much.  In Arizona, my opinion doesn't matter either.

Jim

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Warp wrote:
>   I think that you are seeing a difference because you are assuming a racist
> motivation for the ID check in the last case. 

No. I'm seeing a difference because in the first two cases, you're doing 
something that triggers the ID check, and refusing the ID check simply means 
you don't get to do that which requires an ID check.

In the last case, you're doing nothing that would trigger an ID check other 
than simply being, and refusing the ID check means you go to jail.

 > Do you deem it completely
> implausible for the police to check someone's ID for other reasons than
> racism?

Not at all. We call it "probable cause."  Police check ID all the time. They 
just don't do it *randomly*, nor do they do it based on your facial 
features, your clothing style, etc.

>> No.  Features irrelevant to the commission of crimes aren't to be used to 
>> stop people.
> 
>   "Stopping people" and "profiling" aren't the same thing.

If you use profiling to *not* arrest innocent people, nobody complains. 
Police do that all the time.  "Look, he's of the profile of people who 
aren't speeding. Let's not stop him."   "Look, he's of the profile of people 
who were in a different country when the store was robbed. Let's not 
question him."

>> Note that there's a difference between profiling in the "serial killers are 
>> more often white males" case than in the "pull over white males and ask if 
>> they killed someone" case.  The difference is that in the first, you're 
>> *reducing* the number of innocent people you bother, and in the second 
>> you're *increasing* the number of innocent people you bother.
> 
>   I don't see how you are increasing the number of innocent people being
> bothered when you are dropping 50% of the population from the suspects list
> outright.

By suggesting that you ask for ID without probable cause, rather than asking 
for ID only with probable cause, you are in fact increasing the number of 
innocent people you stop, because probable cause is the leading statistical 
indicator that you are indeed doing something wrong.

Driving dangerously is the best statistical indicator that you're driving 
while you've been drinking enough to make driving dangerous. Not the color 
of your car, the style of your hair, the neighborhood you're driving 
through, the number of people in your car, your age, or the color of your skin.

And we all support the sort of profiling that says "only stop people who did 
something to make you think they, as an individual and not just a member of 
a group, did something wrong."

What you're suggesting as possible efficiency improvements is statistics 
*not* based on whether the particular *individual* you're stopping is doing 
something wrong, but based on features shared in common with other 
individuals who commit a particular class of crime. And since there's no way 
to look at someone at random and determine whether anything about them other 
than ethnicity, that tends to turn into racism.

If you said "go around to companies where they're not paying the amount of 
taxes they should be based on how much product they're building and knowing 
how many workers it takes to build that product", then that isn't profiling 
any more. That's probable cause.

If you say "Go around to random companies and ask to see the paperwork on 
people who look mexican" or "go around to random companies and ask to see 
the paperwork on people who are christian", then that's not probable cause, 
that's profiling innocent people who have done nothing related to the crime 
you're checking them on.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 13:43:47 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Sun, 02 May 2010 02:46:04 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> > Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> >> Good guess and said better than I could but I just don't want anyone
>> >> to live in a Nazi state.
>> > 
>> >   I think this is a genuine instance of Godwin's law.
> 
>> I think it's actually a genuine instance of *not* Godwinning a thread
>> by invoking the Nazis - it's a perfect example.
> 
>   No. Godwin's law says: "As an online discussion grows longer, the
> probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
> 
>   It's precisely a comparison which was not made to invoke the law, but
> came as a result of the discussion. In fact, I think there's someone
> else's corollary that says that a deliberate invocation of Godwin's law
> isn't.

Except that in Nazi Germany, this sort of thing is pretty much precisely 
what was done - racial profiling to identify those of Jewish (or other 
'undesirable') descent.

It's actually relevant to this discussion, not like other instances where 
a thread is Godwinned by a comparison that really is not realistic at all.

Jim

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> You said
> >>>   Take 100 illegal immigrants. If 90 of them are of mexican origin and
> >>> the rest are of European origin, you certainly *can* distinguish the majority
> >>> of them by how they look.
> > 
> >> This is factually incorrect, *if* you have 10,000 mexicans and 30 europeans 
> >> in the community you're policing. You will spend 10,000 investigations to 
> >> catch 90 illegal immigrants if you investigate the ones who look mexican, 
> >> while you'll spend 30 investigations to catch 10 illegal immigrants if you 
> >> investigate all the europeans.
> > 
> >   I find it amusing how you manage to both claim that the math says it's
> > not possible to use statistics to catch illegals more efficiently *and*
> > then you present how you can, in fact, use statistics to catch them more
> > efficiently.

> No, I'm saying that the math you presented is flawed.

  No, you didn't. You said, and I quote: "This is actually incorrect, *if*
you have ... etc."

  In other words. The example I gave was correct. You then presented a
*different* example where the same formulation doesn't work in the same
way.

>  One more time:

> You can't use the math of proportions of different subgroups of illegals to 
> target which unknowns you question. You must use different proportions of 
> subgroups of illegals relative to subgroups of legals.  Once you do that, 
> there's no reason to favor one particular way of splitting the total 
> population into subgroups over another way of splitting the total population 
> into subgroups.

  I don't see the logical line of reasoning there. It's a non-sequitur.

  "You must use different proportions of subgroups" -> "there's no reason
to favor one particular way of splitting over another" does not logically
follow.

> >   But at least you admitted that my math was not flawed, although a bit
> > indirectly. "This is factually incorrect if ..." means "that example is
> > correct, but if you have this another situation, you need a different
> > formula".

> Except that the different formula applies to things other than ethnicity. 
> There are huge numbers of correlations you can make, and not knowing which 
> is accurate will cause you to fail to apply the math right.

  I never said you can't use anything else than ethnicity to come up with
the formula. My example was simple for the sake of example.

  It intended to demonstrate a *point*. The numbers weren't important,
no matter how much you like to nitpick about them.

> >   Bottom line is, it's just like I said earlier: You are taking my simple
> > example, showing that the same formula does not work on a more complex
> > situation (and even giving a more working replacement), and then somehow
> > arguing that the math is showing that statistics can *not* be used for
> > this purpose. Still a non-sequitur.

> Except I also gave you the *best* formula, which is to *not* check randomly, 
> but rather check based on the statistical relationships with the *best* 
> power to make policing more efficient. And you equated that with giving up 
> completely.

  Where? All I said is that your implication "your example doesn't work in
this case" -> "statistics cannot be used at all" does not follow.

> >> Yet acting on that is "outrageous"?
> >   Where did you invent this "outrageous" word from?

> Outrageous and outlandish have very similar meanings here. I simply 
> misremembered which word you used.

  Really? I would say that outrage and strangeness are quite different
things. Not even comparable. The first describes a feeling while the second
describes the understandability of something.

> >   Seems like you have a new obsession with a fancy word you conjured up from
> > somewhere.

> Now who is picking nits?

  I'm not nitpicking. I'm amused at your curious sudden infatuation with that
word, which seemed strange.

> Had you simply said "police should use statistical models to figure out 
> which possible suspect is most likely breaking the law and concentrate on 
> those," I would have said "They already do. It's called Probably Cause. And 
> the current law in Arizona is targeted at preventing police from doing that."

  Yeah, using ethnicity as an example is forbidden because you are immediately
a racist if you do.

> >> It does when the citizens consistently complain and vote against 
> >> citizenship-proving ID. (To be clear: Of course we have citizenship-proving 
> >> ID. We're just not required to produce it on random demand by police.)
> > 
> >   Well, I suppose citizens get what they want, even if it wouldn't always be
> > on their best interest.

> Given the history of *this* country, I'm pretty sure it's in *our* best 
> interests.

  Maybe distrust of authorities is a self-feeding process which never ends.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:07:31 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> No, it's not about offending people, it's about the fact that in the US
>> the constitution specifically prohibits the police from pulling people
>> over "just because".
> 
>   Well, then it's different here, as I have mentioned with the traffic
> police.

Police patrolling the roads here can pull people over for very minor 
infractions (and in some cases, they do in order to 'get a nose in the 
door' to see if there's something illegal going on; for example, between 
Lincoln and Omaha NE, there's a stretch of road that's often used by 
people trafficking drugs.  The profile is cars with out of state license 
plates driving after a certain time at night.

The cops along that stretch of freeway will pull cars over that have out 
of state plates - but only if they have seen a *specific* traffic 
violation.  I've been stopped two or three times along that stretch for 
various things, like not staying in my lane or failure to signal for 50 
(or 100) feet before changing lanes.  It was late, I was tired; the stops 
were perfectly legitimate.

But if I had been a model driver in that section of freeway and they 
pulled me over because I drive a car that does not have NE license 
plates, *that* would be an illegal traffic stop.  Further, under US law, 
if they *did* find illegal substances in my car, if the traffic stop was 
not legal, they would not be able to prosecute because they would have 
lacked probable cause to pull me over in the first place.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:10:43 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Mon, 03 May 2010 07:39:47 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> >   I said that if the vast majority of illegal immigrants can be
>> >   distinguished
>> > by how they look, it makes sense to concentrate more on those people
>> > than on people who are much less likely to be illegal immigrants.
> 
>> And yet you don't think that this is racist.  Amazing.
> 
>   I suppose you could technically call it "racism", AS I HAVE SAID MANY
>   TIMES
> ALREADY.

You very specifically asked Darren "what the fuck he was talking about" 
when he made this point; show me where you said it was *technically* 
racism, because I certainly didn't see that.

>   I fear that you are projecting your notions of how "racist people"
>   behave
> and what they think on me, for the sole reason that I dared to mention
> ethnicity as something which could be used for illegal immigration
> statistics. As ironic as that may sound, I call that prejudice.

I'm not projecting anything here.  You are demonstrating an extreme 
degree of reading comprehension problems and engaging in nit-picking 
(yeah, those things you accuse others of doing) when we try to explain to 
you why it is the way it is, and what is wrong with the law.

You then proceed to throw "examples" out that are entirely different from 
what we're talking about (see my recent post having to do with the 
difference between a *specific* crime and general; you still don't seem 
to understand that investigation of a *specific* crime - like a rape 
(your example) is different than saying "hey, that person is hispanic-
looking, I should check to see if he's here legally or not".  Under US 
law, the former is acceptable, the latter is not.  Why?  Because the 
former is in the investigation of a specific crime; the latter is not.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:40:52 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   I consider myself to be the exact opposite of a racist in the sense
>   that
> I *couldn't care less* about "race" or skin color or anything.

When you say "race matters", look out, you're making a distinction based 
on race, whether you want to admit it or not.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>>   Why does it matter what was used as an example? What does it matter if it
>>> was ethnicity, weight or show size? Ethnicity happened to be part of the
>>> original discussion.
> 
>> All of those examples have nothing to do with whether you're in the country 
>> legally.
> 
>   You just refuse to understand what "example" means, don't you?
> 
>   "If ethnicity is a distinguishing factor, then..." is an example. It's
> not making a claim about what is and isn't a distinguishing factor.

Yes. And you understand that nobody is arguing against the examples that are 
*not* bogus, right?  Nobody thinks it's racist to arrest someone who looks 
mexican for not paying taxes, anymore than anyone thinks it's racist to 
arrest a black man for driving up on the sidewalk.

> 
>>>   I think your problem is that you are too obsessed with ethnicity. Whenever
>>> someone talks about ethnicity, it must always be "racism".
> 
>> Not at all.
> 
>   Then why do I get the feeling? Ethnicity really seems to be a touchy
> subject.

Because the bad examples you give are all examples of ethnicity, or other 
properties irrelevant to the person committing the crime and relevant to the 
group of people that person is in.

Your suggestion is you should look at the entire group of people who *do* 
commit the crime, then lump in other people that share properties of that 
same group to investigate. Except you've offered no examples of properties 
that have anything to do with the actual commission of the crime. You 
haven't offered the suggestion like "we should go look for the people who 
came into the country on a six month visa six months ago."  You haven't 
offered the suggestion of "we should visit the families of people who 
immigrated legally a couple years ago to see if they then snuck their family 
into the country."  None of those have anything to do with ethnicity.

>> Yet you're suggesting exactly that there are neutral and even beneficial 
>> uses of the *act* of racism.
> 
>   Firstly, I'm not suggesting that (and I'm getting really tired of you
> claiming I do, over and over), 

You are. You said "if 90% of the illegal immigrants are of mexican descent, 
police should focus their attentions on that 90%."   I'm sorry if you don't 
recognize that as a racist suggestion, but it is.  It's prejudice based on 
race.  Disclaiming it as a hypothetical/subjunctive assertion doesn't make 
it less racist. It just implies that maybe racism is beneficial in this 
respect.

>   If you keep making that insinuation, I'm going to end this conversation.
> I'm not going to continue this if you keep insulting me.

I'm not insinuating you're a racist. I'm stating that many of the 
suggestions you've made here are racist, namely, suggesting that ethnicity 
is a reasonable distinguishing factor for catching criminals with no 
evidence that any particular crime has been committed.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> There is a difference between "we have a specific crime that we are 
> looking for suspects for" and "we are doing random checking to see if 
> someone might have committed a crime".

  There is a difference, but I don't see the random checkings as being all
that abhorrent in all cases (as I have mentioned, here the police does
random checkings on drivers even without any reason to suspect them of
being drunk, and I think that's completely ok).

  Of course if the police abuse their rights to perform random checking
in order to harass people they don't like, that's going over the line.

> To use your rape example, suppose instead of "we're looking for a white 
> male because of this specific case we're looking into" the police started 
> by collecting DNA samples from all white males just *in case* a crime 
> were committed.

  As a side note: Why are people so afraid of DNA databanks? Why is it
such an abhorrent idea? What kind of "invasion of privacy" is having
your DNA in a databank? Exactly how does that invade one's privacy?

  Imagine that if every single citizen had to have their DNA registered,
and thanks to that the apprehension rate of rapists grows near 100%,
wouldn't that be a good thing? Not only would the rapists be all caught,
but it would also act as an effective deterrent.

  How could DNA information be misused by authorities?

> That's the difference.  What the Arizona law does is not tie the act of 
> "being an illegal immigrant" to a specific instance of a crime.

> Does that make sense?

  I suppose that that kind of law could perhaps have good intentions
behind it, but in practice it's too radical to have any chance of actually
working, even if the intentions were good. (Of course I have no way of
knowing what the actual intentions were behind that law proposal. Maybe
it *was* made by purely racist reasons.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 13:43:47 -0400, Warp wrote:

> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> On Sun, 02 May 2010 02:46:04 -0400, Warp wrote:
> > 
> >> > Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
> >> >> Good guess and said better than I could but I just don't want anyone
> >> >> to live in a Nazi state.
> >> > 
> >> >   I think this is a genuine instance of Godwin's law.
> > 
> >> I think it's actually a genuine instance of *not* Godwinning a thread
> >> by invoking the Nazis - it's a perfect example.
> > 
> >   No. Godwin's law says: "As an online discussion grows longer, the
> > probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
> > 
> >   It's precisely a comparison which was not made to invoke the law, but
> > came as a result of the discussion. In fact, I think there's someone
> > else's corollary that says that a deliberate invocation of Godwin's law
> > isn't.

> Except that in Nazi Germany, this sort of thing is pretty much precisely 
> what was done - racial profiling to identify those of Jewish (or other 
> 'undesirable') descent.

> It's actually relevant to this discussion, not like other instances where 
> a thread is Godwinned by a comparison that really is not realistic at all.

  Well, that's more or less what I said above. A deliberate invocation of
Godwin's law isn't.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:06:25 -0400, Warp wrote:

>> He's presuming you're guilty, because he has to have probable cause to
>> pull you over to ask if you're legally in the country.  Being brown
>> isn't sufficient.
> 
>   Well, that was kind of my point: If the store clerk is not assuming
>   your
> guilt, nor is the guard at the airport, what makes a policeman checking
> someone's ID different?

The fact that they're an agent of the state engaged in law enforcement.  
They're paid by the state to do that.

The clerk in the store is not employed by the state (well, in Utah liquor 
stores, they are), but a condition of purchase is that you be legal.  
Your options are to either present ID if asked or not make the purchase.  
The choice is not "present ID or *go to jail*.".  Huge difference.

>> >> Based. On. Skin. Colour.
>> > 
>> >   Why are people so damn obsessed with skin color? Criminal profiling
>> >   does
>> > not have anything to do with racism. Skin color is just one feature
>> > which can be used for profiling.
> 
>> Not in the US, not legally.  That's the point.
> 
>   You mean that in the US the police can construct criminal profiles on
> everything else *except* skin color? Hair color is ok, as well as eye
> color, the color of clothes... but not skin color?
> 
>   Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but if that really is so, it
>   seems
> like a real hindrance to police work, in the name of political
> correctness.

Specific crime vs. assuming a crime was committed because someone looks 
hispanic.  That's the difference, and it's not about political 
correctness, it's about prosecuting *actual specific crimes*.

Look at it this way:  Someone at a border crossing spots someone of a 
specific description (or a group of a specific description - not just 
"they look Mexican", but height, weight, etc.).  Cop sees someone 
matching the description for a specific crime, that gives them reason to 
stop the person and investigate, even if they're not guilty.

Cop sees someone who is Hispanic and *assumes* they must be here 
illegally (otherwise what's their probable cause for stopping the 
person?) and asks for their papers.  That's NOT OK.  Why?  No specific 
crime was committed or reported.  The reason for the stop isn't "this 
person looks like someone who crossed the border illegally" but "this 
person looks like an illegal immigrant because all illegal immigrants are 
Hispanic" - the presumption is "they must be guilty because they're 
Hispanic" not "they match a description for a specific crime that's been 
reported".

Does that make it clearer?


>> >   If most illegal immigrants happen to look similar, it only makes
>> >   sense
>> > to concentrate resources on people who look like that. It's the same
>> > as the vast majority of rapists being male, hence it it makes sense
>> > to concentrate resources on investigating males and skipping females.
>> > Nobody is crying sexism because of that.
> 
>> Nobody that you're aware of, perhaps.
> 
>   You mean there are people who are complaining about the police
>   investigating
> only males in rape cases?

I'm saying that you don't know the details of every investigation that 
has ever taken place regarding rape cases in the US.  Or you have a 
really strange hobby.  The fact that you (or I) are not aware of an 
instance of this doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

>> >   I really think people are way too hypersensitive with any kind of
>> > profiling based precisely on skin color. Any other type of profiling
>> > is ok, but heaven forbid if you start using skin color as a
>> > distinctive feature. The second you do that, all human rights are
>> > flushed down the toilet. Sheesh.
> 
>> You're not allowed to profile in the US based on religious beliefs,
>> ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other factors.  Just like you can't
>> use those to make hiring decisions.
> 
>   Ok, I think we are using a different meaning of the word "profiling".
> It's possible I have understood the term wrongly.
> 
>   I have heard about criminal profilers on the police force who try to
> get a picture of what kind of person the criminal might be based on the
> available clues, and this can include things like ethnicity (such as for
> example "serial killers are typically white middle-aged males"), but
> maybe that's just in TV series and movies?

You're talking about a specific crime.  The point is that there is no 
*specific* crime in the case of enforcing the AZ law.  In order to 
prosecute a crime, the prosecution must be able to state with specificity 
what crime was committed and when.

>   If making a criminal profile based on ethnicity is illegal, does that
> mean that the police cannot say things like "serial killers are
> typically white males"?

No, but they cannot say "I must detain and/or question all white males 
because most serial killers are white males, even though nobody has 
reported a serial killer in this area."

>> Well, then, come on over here and I'll see to it that you're asked
>> hourly to provide proof that you're here legally.  Including in the
>> middle of the night, just for safety's sake.
> 
>   I assume you are exaggerating. I have hard time believing there are
> enough policemen to do that.

Well, the state of Arizona seems to think the cops there have the time to 
do this.  But now you are perhaps starting to see the problem.  There 
aren't enough cops to enforce this ridiculous law, and to do so the cops 
have to take time away from pursuing dangerous offenders because the law 
requires they investigate *every* *possible* instance of an illegal being 
in the state, and allows the public to sue the government if the police 
fail to investigate such violations.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Further, under US law, 
> if they *did* find illegal substances in my car, if the traffic stop was 
> not legal, they would not be able to prosecute because they would have 
> lacked probable cause to pull me over in the first place.

  That's one thing I have never understood.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:18:35 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   I think that you are seeing a difference because you are assuming a
>   racist
> motivation for the ID check in the last case. Do you deem it completely
> implausible for the police to check someone's ID for other reasons than
> racism?

If the reason the police have stopped someone is because they "look like 
an illegal", then that's a problem.  And since we're talking about 
Arizona SB1070 (the law in Arizona that requires police do *just this 
thing*), that's the point that's being discussed.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 13:55:10 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Sun, 02 May 2010 03:05:24 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> >   So all other types of criminal profiling are ok, but not profiling
>> >   based
>> > on how someone looks like?
>> > 
>> >   I really think this is political correctness getting in the way of
>> > criminal investigation.
> 
>> No, but being brown isn't a crime.  What about that do you not
>> understand?
> 
>   I didn't say being brown is a crime, nor did I anywhere even imply
>   that.
> 
>   I don't understand your response.

You've said that there's nothing wrong with law enforcement asking random 
people for their ID.  There is in the US - in order to do so, they have 
to have probable cause of the individual having committed a specific 
crime.  The police in the US aren't permitted to stop random people and 
ask to see their ID just because they feel like it.

So in order to be stopped, the individual has to have committed a crime.  
The Arizona law makes "being brown in public or private places in 
Arizona" a crime.

That's unconstitutional.

You are saying there's nothing wrong with the police asking people for 
ID.  There is in the US under US law.  So by supporting the position that 
the police can stop people "just because they match the assumed profile 
of illegal immigrants", and the only criteria for such a stop is their 
ethnicity, you are therefore saying that being brown is a crime (whether 
you say so explicitly or not), because *otherwise* what are they being 
stopped for?

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> There is a difference between "we have a specific crime that we are 
>> looking for suspects for" and "we are doing random checking to see if 
>> someone might have committed a crime".
> 
>   There is a difference, but I don't see the random checkings as being all
> that abhorrent in all cases (as I have mentioned, here the police does
> random checkings on drivers even without any reason to suspect them of
> being drunk, and I think that's completely ok).

We do that here, too, in some places.

>   Of course if the police abuse their rights to perform random checking
> in order to harass people they don't like, that's going over the line.

And that's exactly what we disallow here.

And that's exactly what this whole immigration law is designed to 
circumvent, allowing (and even requiring) police to harass people they don't 
like or that are disliked by those telling the police to harass them.

Also, stopping everyone on a particular stretch of road at a particular hour 
is quite different than trying to stop everyone on a particular sidewalk or 
in a particular store or something like that.

>   As a side note: Why are people so afraid of DNA databanks? Why is it
> such an abhorrent idea? What kind of "invasion of privacy" is having
> your DNA in a databank? Exactly how does that invade one's privacy?

False positives, for one. The ability for anyone who already has your DNA to 
plant it at the scene of a crime is another. The fact that the DNA database 
can be hacked is a third.  Not necessarily "invasion of privacy" per se.

We dislike it because it can lead to exactly the same problem as every other 
  "register your ethnic differences with the government" has ever led to.

>   Imagine that if every single citizen had to have their DNA registered,
> and thanks to that the apprehension rate of rapists grows near 100%,

That's not how DNA fingerprinting works. You can't pick someone out of a big 
bunch of people.

Think of blood typing. You can't say "Well, the murderer was A+. Go round up 
everyone A+ and question them."  When you have a hundred million people in 
the DNA database, you're going to get tens of thousands of false positives.

And if you say "you can use it to eliminate people", that's true, but if you 
eliminate a hundred million people and end up with 10,000, when the actual 
suspect like might only be 20 people, how does that help compared to taking 
DNA samples from the 20 people?

> wouldn't that be a good thing? Not only would the rapists be all caught,
> but it would also act as an effective deterrent.
> 
>   How could DNA information be misused by authorities?

Planted on the scene of a crime. Used to round up all those pesky people of 
Arab descent.

DNA information is *already* misused by authorities. We call it "racism." 
They just didn't collect and centralize it all yet. They actually have to go 
look at you to evaluate your DNA for those purposes.

>   I suppose that that kind of law could perhaps have good intentions
> behind it,

We already have the laws with good intentions behind them.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 16:00:13 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> Further, under US law,
>> if they *did* find illegal substances in my car, if the traffic stop
>> was not legal, they would not be able to prosecute because they would
>> have lacked probable cause to pull me over in the first place.
> 
>   That's one thing I have never understood.

The ends don't justify the means.  To be effective in enforcing the law, 
the police have to follow the law.  The penalty they suffer by not 
following the law is that someone who is guilty may go free - so the 
incentive is for them to follow established police procedures.  Getting a 
warrant before a search (or permission from the property owner) is 
standard procedure.

If the state doesn't follow the rules, the state doesn't get to benefit 
from the rules being broken.  Otherwise, you set up a "whoops, we'll do 
better next time" scenario that repeats itself.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> the presumption is "they must be guilty because they're 
> Hispanic" not "they match a description for a specific crime that's been 
> reported".

  Am I being too naive when I make the assumption that it is possible to
check people's IDs without presumption of guilt nor for racist reasons,
even if a choice is made based on typical illegal immigration profiles?

  I do understand people getting angry by such actions, but I really think
it is possible to perform such checks without there being discriminatory
motives behind. The *intent* is not to discriminate, just a honest intent
of catching illegal immigrants. (Of course you can argue that this is not
the most efficient way of doing that, but I'm talking about motivations
and intent. Why is discrimination and racism always assumed as such? Do
we always have to assume the worst about everything and everybody?)

  That was, more or less, my original point in this entire thread, even
if I didn't know how to express myself this clearly back then.

> >   You mean there are people who are complaining about the police
> >   investigating
> > only males in rape cases?

> I'm saying that you don't know the details of every investigation that 
> has ever taken place regarding rape cases in the US.  Or you have a 
> really strange hobby.  The fact that you (or I) are not aware of an 
> instance of this doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

  Of course there always are exceptions. I was talking about normal
occurrences. I don't think it's at all usual for people to complain
about such a thing.

> >   I have heard about criminal profilers on the police force who try to
> > get a picture of what kind of person the criminal might be based on the
> > available clues, and this can include things like ethnicity (such as for
> > example "serial killers are typically white middle-aged males"), but
> > maybe that's just in TV series and movies?

> You're talking about a specific crime.  The point is that there is no 
> *specific* crime in the case of enforcing the AZ law.  In order to 
> prosecute a crime, the prosecution must be able to state with specificity 
> what crime was committed and when.

  Well, one *could* argue that illegal immigration *is* a specific,
existing crime being committed right now... (Not that this justifies
draconian laws and discrimination, but still...)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:54:06 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> There is a difference between "we have a specific crime that we are
>> looking for suspects for" and "we are doing random checking to see if
>> someone might have committed a crime".
> 
>   There is a difference, but I don't see the random checkings as being
>   all
> that abhorrent in all cases (as I have mentioned, here the police does
> random checkings on drivers even without any reason to suspect them of
> being drunk, and I think that's completely ok).
> 
>   Of course if the police abuse their rights to perform random checking
> in order to harass people they don't like, that's going over the line.

Here in the US, we're very strongly opposed to putting the government in 
a position where it can abuse its power.  There was actually a war over 
this in our history because the government that governed us was seen to 
be abusing its power.  The framers of our government decided that the 
government should not have this power because they'd seen it abused.

>> To use your rape example, suppose instead of "we're looking for a white
>> male because of this specific case we're looking into" the police
>> started by collecting DNA samples from all white males just *in case* a
>> crime were committed.
> 
>   As a side note: Why are people so afraid of DNA databanks? Why is it
> such an abhorrent idea? What kind of "invasion of privacy" is having
> your DNA in a databank? Exactly how does that invade one's privacy?

In 15 years' time, DNA is found to be unreliable for some reason.  A 
whole bunch of innocent people are convicted based on DNA evidence 
because it was irrefutable and infallible back in 2011.

So then what happens?

Again, it comes down to not trusting the government to not abuse its 
power.  It's a means of keeping government power in check.

>   Imagine that if every single citizen had to have their DNA registered,
> and thanks to that the apprehension rate of rapists grows near 100%,
> wouldn't that be a good thing? Not only would the rapists be all caught,
> but it would also act as an effective deterrent.
> 
>   How could DNA information be misused by authorities?

There are lots of ways it could be (and is) misused by authorities.  
Cross-contamination, improper labeling of the dataset - DNA data is 
supposed to be 100% accurate (or better than 99% accurate), but that's 
only as good as we know today based on today's science.  If it's 
mislabeled or miscategorized, how exactly does one challenge that if it's 
supposed to be infallible?

>> That's the difference.  What the Arizona law does is not tie the act of
>> "being an illegal immigrant" to a specific instance of a crime.
> 
>> Does that make sense?
> 
>   I suppose that that kind of law could perhaps have good intentions
> behind it, but in practice it's too radical to have any chance of
> actually working, even if the intentions were good. (Of course I have no
> way of knowing what the actual intentions were behind that law proposal.
> Maybe it *was* made by purely racist reasons.)

Nobody here (as far as I know) has said it doesn't have good intentions 
behind it, but that doesn't make it a good law.  I've actually read the 
law, and while it doesn't specifically say "those of Hispanic descent are 
subject to being stopped", it does IMHO cross the line by making it a 
"specific crime" to "be" in Arizona illegally.  First, that's already 
covered by Federal immigration laws, but the law sets the police up so as 
to be required to engage in racial profiling.  Even the governor of AZ 
(who signed the bill into law) has said she doesn't know how the law 
should be enforced without using racial profiling - but she signed it 
into law anyways.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:40:52 -0400, Warp wrote:

> >   I consider myself to be the exact opposite of a racist in the sense
> >   that
> > I *couldn't care less* about "race" or skin color or anything.

> When you say "race matters", look out, you're making a distinction based 
> on race, whether you want to admit it or not.

  On the contrary: I'm *not* making any distinction based on race. To me
it doesn't matter what race somebody might represent.

  (And yes, I know that the current politically correct multiculturalist
dogma is that "races do not exist". This is motivated only and purely
because of aversion towards racism. "Race" is in no way a negative notion
any more than "nationality" or "gender". Multiculturalists have given it
a bad name because racists use it as an excuse for their bigotry, and
they make it sound that even acknowledging human races to *exist* is
racism all in itself. Bollocks.

  At least wikipedia doesn't seem to have a problem in explaining "race" as
pertaining to humans.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   In other words. The example I gave was correct. You then presented a
> *different* example where the same formulation doesn't work in the same
> way.

No, the example you gave was wrong.

It's like you saying "Every adult is over six feet tall."  I'm saying "No, 
that's factually true only if you pick adults for your sample set that are 
all over six feet tall."

>>  One more time:
> 
>> You can't use the math of proportions of different subgroups of illegals to 
>> target which unknowns you question. You must use different proportions of 
>> subgroups of illegals relative to subgroups of legals.  Once you do that, 
>> there's no reason to favor one particular way of splitting the total 
>> population into subgroups over another way of splitting the total population 
>> into subgroups.
> 
>   I don't see the logical line of reasoning there. It's a non-sequitur.
> 
>   "You must use different proportions of subgroups" -> "there's no reason
> to favor one particular way of splitting over another" does not logically
> follow.

You split the population of size Z into several groups, A, B, C.  Your 
suggestions for splitting criteria have most frequently been based on 
ethnicity or other properties not having to do with behavior.

Each subgroup, A, B, C, has two portions:
A' - The people in group A who are legal residents.
A'' - The people in group A who are illegal residents.
B' - The people in group B who are legal residents.
B'' - The people in group B who are illegal residents.
Etc.

The likelihood of success of stopping a person in group A and finding an 
illegal resident is not in the proportion A'' to Z, as your flawed example 
suggests. That's where I said your math is bogus.

The success is in proportion of A'' to A' (or A'' to A, depending how you 
want to measure proportions). That's the correction I applied to make it 
possible to do the statistics you wanted to do.

However, the choice of which individuals go into group A and which 
individuals go into group B and so on is most efficiently made by making A'' 
very large compared to A while making B'' very small compared to B. Then you 
can stop people in group A and efficiently find lawbreakers, while leaving 
group B alone.

The *most* efficient way to do that is to have group "A" be "the individual 
people we have actual reason to suspect are breaking the law", with group 
"B" being "the people who are doing nothing to arouse suspicion."  And this 
is a division you can't make base on the genetics, age, or any other factor 
of the person in question that the person in question cannot control.

There's no reason to *logically* believe that splitting A and B based on 
ethnicity is better or worse than splitting A and B based on religion or age 
or neighborhood of residence or value of automobile being driven.   There's 
no reason to believe and no statistics to support that anything you can tell 
simply by looking at a person has any correlation with their illegal 
immigrant status.

>   It intended to demonstrate a *point*. The numbers weren't important,
> no matter how much you like to nitpick about them.

The numbers *are* important. See above.

Now, if you're suggesting that the police should concentrate their attention 
on groups of people who demonstrate through their behavior that they might 
be illegal immigrants, nobody would be arguing with you.

>   Where? All I said is that your implication "your example doesn't work in
> this case" -> "statistics cannot be used at all" does not follow.

See above. I'll say it again here: The best statistic is probable cause.

>> Outrageous and outlandish have very similar meanings here. I simply 
>> misremembered which word you used.
> 
>   Really? I would say that outrage and strangeness are quite different
> things. Not even comparable. The first describes a feeling while the second
> describes the understandability of something.

They're not identical in meaning. But similar enough to be confusing I suppose.

>> Had you simply said "police should use statistical models to figure out 
>> which possible suspect is most likely breaking the law and concentrate on 
>> those," I would have said "They already do. It's called Probably Cause. And 
>> the current law in Arizona is targeted at preventing police from doing that."
> 
>   Yeah, using ethnicity as an example is forbidden because you are immediately
> a racist if you do.

Do you understand the difference between using someone's behavior as a 
trigger and using someone's appearance as a trigger? That using statistical 
models based on statistics that are too vague for the crime being committed 
is a bad idea? That 99% of every person you stop is going to be here 
legally, and that using statistics not based on individual behavior to 
narrow that down in any significant way isn't going to work?

It's not just ethnicity. It's anything that's irrelevant to the actual crime 
under consideration. It would be just as bad if you targeted the people in 
red automobiles, because that hasn't anything to do with the crime either.

>> Given the history of *this* country, I'm pretty sure it's in *our* best 
>> interests.
> 
>   Maybe distrust of authorities is a self-feeding process which never ends.

They have to start being trustworthy before we can start trusting them. I'm 
pretty sure it works both ways. Just like in clean cities, people put their 
trash in the trash cans in public. In cities where there's already trash all 
over the ground, people don't bother.

If we didn't get screwed by trusting our leaders, we'd be more likely to be 
trusting. But trustworthy leaders ought to be able to lead even in an 
environment of distrust.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> supposed to be 100% accurate (or better than 99% accurate), 

Read "better than 99% accurate" as "less than 3 million false positives" in 
a nation-wide DNA database.

> how exactly does one challenge that if it's 
> supposed to be infallible?

To be fair, that's a pretty damn easy thing to challenge. "Here, take my DNA 
again."

Of course, every accused criminal will try this approach, at which point, 
what did you save by doing a giant collection in the first place.

> but the law sets the police up so as 
> to be required to engage in racial profiling. 

It's also a witch-trial law. If someone reports you as illegal, the police 
are required to come and make you prove you're not.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 16:14:31 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> the presumption is "they must be guilty because they're Hispanic" not
>> "they match a description for a specific crime that's been reported".
> 
>   Am I being too naive when I make the assumption that it is possible to
> check people's IDs without presumption of guilt nor for racist reasons,
> even if a choice is made based on typical illegal immigration profiles?

Yes.  Because in the US that is specifically not allowed because it is 
racial profiling if the illegal immigration profile is "the person 
appears to be of Hispanic descent or origin".

>   I do understand people getting angry by such actions, but I really
>   think
> it is possible to perform such checks without there being discriminatory
> motives behind. The *intent* is not to discriminate, just a honest
> intent of catching illegal immigrants. (Of course you can argue that
> this is not the most efficient way of doing that, but I'm talking about
> motivations and intent. Why is discrimination and racism always assumed
> as such? Do we always have to assume the worst about everything and
> everybody?)

Because it is racial prejudgment that brings the person to being 
stopped.  Not anything they've done, not any specific crime they've 
committed.  No probable cause for the stop.

>   That was, more or less, my original point in this entire thread, even
> if I didn't know how to express myself this clearly back then.
> 
>> >   You mean there are people who are complaining about the police
>> >   investigating
>> > only males in rape cases?
> 
>> I'm saying that you don't know the details of every investigation that
>> has ever taken place regarding rape cases in the US.  Or you have a
>> really strange hobby.  The fact that you (or I) are not aware of an
>> instance of this doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
> 
>   Of course there always are exceptions. I was talking about normal
> occurrences. I don't think it's at all usual for people to complain
> about such a thing.

I think if someone is wrongly accused (and asking for a DNA sample can be 
seen as an accusation) because they declined to provide a DNA sample, 
then yes, it would be usual to complain.  The 5th amendment of the US 
constitution allows people to decline to answer questions or to not 
incriminate themselves.

In fact, the advice I see most often from people in law enforcement is 
"don't answer questions or provide anything that could be used against 
you in any way unless you have consulted a lawyer".  The police *can* 
ask, but the citizen can refuse and require that the officer obtain a 
warrant - and in order to obtain a warrant, the police have to 
demonstrate that there is probable cause to guess that the suspect 
committed the crime - in other words, the evidence the police have to 
that point has to reasonably suggest that the person they're 
investigating committed the crime; they can't ask for it because they 
think there's a chance - they can't go on a hunch or gut feeling.

>> >   I have heard about criminal profilers on the police force who try
>> >   to
>> > get a picture of what kind of person the criminal might be based on
>> > the available clues, and this can include things like ethnicity (such
>> > as for example "serial killers are typically white middle-aged
>> > males"), but maybe that's just in TV series and movies?
> 
>> You're talking about a specific crime.  The point is that there is no
>> *specific* crime in the case of enforcing the AZ law.  In order to
>> prosecute a crime, the prosecution must be able to state with
>> specificity what crime was committed and when.
> 
>   Well, one *could* argue that illegal immigration *is* a specific,
> existing crime being committed right now... (Not that this justifies
> draconian laws and discrimination, but still...)

No, it's not a specific existing crime - because there's no date/time 
that the "event" took place.  If you can tie the person specifically to a 
specific border crossing, then yes, there is - but "just being" isn't a 
crime.

A person can't be arrested for having blue eyes because people with blue 
eyes are more likely to use drugs.  Someone with blue eyes can be 
arrested, though, if the police can show that that specific individual is 
a drug dealer.

So in order for the police to stop someone for being an illegal 
immigrant, they have to be able to demonstrate that that *specific 
individual* is *likely* to be an illegal immigrant - and that 
determination cannot be based on race, religion, or other demographic 
statistical factors (unless, again, they can point to a specific instance 
of illegal entry and say "we suspect this person entered the country 
illegally at such and such time and date and physical location.".

Jim

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 16:22:04 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:40:52 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> >   I consider myself to be the exact opposite of a racist in the sense
>> >   that
>> > I *couldn't care less* about "race" or skin color or anything.
> 
>> When you say "race matters", look out, you're making a distinction
>> based on race, whether you want to admit it or not.
> 
>   On the contrary: I'm *not* making any distinction based on race. To me
> it doesn't matter what race somebody might represent.

Um, you are, if you say "90% of illegal immigrants are of Hispanic 
origin, so we should stop people of Hispanic origin in order to ensure 
they're here legally".  That's the textbook definition of racial 
profiling.

Jim

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 13:31:46 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> supposed to be 100% accurate (or better than 99% accurate),
> 
> Read "better than 99% accurate" as "less than 3 million false positives"
> in a nation-wide DNA database.

True....

>> how exactly does one challenge that if it's supposed to be infallible?
> 
> To be fair, that's a pretty damn easy thing to challenge. "Here, take my
> DNA again."
> 
> Of course, every accused criminal will try this approach, at which
> point, what did you save by doing a giant collection in the first place.

Unless of course the problem is caused by contamination of the crime 
scene, planting of DNA evidence, or contamination of the evidence after 
it's collected.

>> but the law sets the police up so as
>> to be required to engage in racial profiling.
> 
> It's also a witch-trial law. If someone reports you as illegal, the
> police are required to come and make you prove you're not.

Yep.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> You've said that there's nothing wrong with law enforcement asking random 
> people for their ID.

  In fact, what I have done is to oppose the idea that law enforcement asking
random people for their ID (or doing other types of checking) is *always* a
bad thing, which seemed to be what was being suggested here. That's a bit
different from claiming that it's always a good thing.

  As I said, the police checks random drivers here, and I don't see it as a
bad thing. Hence it's not *always* a bad thing.

> The Arizona law makes "being brown in public or private places in 
> Arizona" a crime.

  I have hard time believing the law actually says that...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> nor for racist reasons,
> even if a choice is made based on typical illegal immigration profiles?

What do you mean by "profiles"?  And how does the policeman pick who to ask?

That's *exactly* the point in contention. What's in the profile? How do you 
know the person you're asking fits the profile?

If the profile is "looks Mexican" and the policeman picks based on 
"Mexican-looking guy walked past" then it's racist.

If the profile is "didn't pay social security tax last year in spite of 
spending thousands of dollars on his credit card" and the policeman does a 
credit card database search for people like that, then it's not racist reasons.

See?

> Why is discrimination and racism always assumed as such?

Because a person's "race" is the only thing about them that they can't 
easily change that you can recognize just by looking. These are *great* 
factors for enforcing something. Unfortunately, what it enforces is usually 
unrelated to crime.

If you had an airborne disease that only affected red-heads, that would be a 
*great* way of finding people who needed the vaccine.

>> You're talking about a specific crime.  The point is that there is no 
>> *specific* crime in the case of enforcing the AZ law.  In order to 
>> prosecute a crime, the prosecution must be able to state with specificity 
>> what crime was committed and when.
> 
>   Well, one *could* argue that illegal immigration *is* a specific,
> existing crime being committed right now... 

No. It's a category of crimes. You know only statistically whether it's 
being committed. You know there's a whole bunch of it going on, but you 
don't know a *specific* case of it. Just like you know there's muggings 
going on right now, but you don't know a *specific* victim.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> Further, under US law, 
>> if they *did* find illegal substances in my car, if the traffic stop was 
>> not legal, they would not be able to prosecute because they would have 
>> lacked probable cause to pull me over in the first place.
> 
>   That's one thing I have never understood.

It discourages the police from breaking the law in the first place. In 
practice, people aren't going to put police in jail or otherwise punish them 
for catching criminals. If you believe there should be laws like this in the 
first place, the only reasonable way to enforce them is to take something 
away from the police when they break the rules, rather than add something 
(like punishment) when they break the rules.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 16:38:41 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> You've said that there's nothing wrong with law enforcement asking
>> random people for their ID.
> 
>   In fact, what I have done is to oppose the idea that law enforcement
>   asking
> random people for their ID (or doing other types of checking) is
> *always* a bad thing, which seemed to be what was being suggested here.
> That's a bit different from claiming that it's always a good thing.
> 
>   As I said, the police checks random drivers here, and I don't see it
>   as a
> bad thing. Hence it's not *always* a bad thing.

And over here that's not the way law enforcement generally works.  You 
seem to trust your government; over here, we tend not to.

>> The Arizona law makes "being brown in public or private places in
>> Arizona" a crime.
> 
>   I have hard time believing the law actually says that...

Not in those specific words.  The law is available online, feel free to 
read it (I have, actually).  I've read the law and I've read several 
opinions and interpretations of it that help explain what the legalese 
actually means in practical terms.

No law would be written to be overtly racist, but that doesn't mean that 
the implications of enforcing it wouldn't be.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Unless of course the problem is caused by contamination of the crime 
> scene, planting of DNA evidence,

Both of which are made much harder if you don't have the suspect's DNA 
before you examine the crime scene, note. :-)

> or contamination of the evidence after it's collected.

Yes, that too, but that's going to be a problem with most any kind of evidence.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Darren New wrote:
> Unfortunately, what it enforces is 
> usually unrelated to crime.

Or, to phrase that better, "usually the crime it enforces is unrelated to 
their race."

For example, it was great for catching run-away slaves.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 13:45:03 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Unless of course the problem is caused by contamination of the crime
>> scene, planting of DNA evidence,
> 
> Both of which are made much harder if you don't have the suspect's DNA
> before you examine the crime scene, note. :-)

Yup.  Sadly there are people who work in law enforcement who are more 
interested in "catching someone and locking them up" than "catching the 
right person and ensuring they can't commit another crime".  Good thing 
that is the minority of cops.

>> or contamination of the evidence after it's collected.
> 
> Yes, that too, but that's going to be a problem with most any kind of
> evidence.

Very true.  Here in Salt Lake City, the evidence room in the public 
safety building is subject to flooding.  The office is far too small for 
the number of people occupying it.  They have problems with this (I 
understand) on a fairly regular basis.

Good thing the bond measure was approved for them to build a new office 
building. :-)

Jim

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> If the profile is "looks Mexican" and the policeman picks based on 
> "Mexican-looking guy walked past" then it's racist.

  In the technical sense maybe, but the policeman didn't necessarily do it
with a racist mindset. Maybe he doesn't care what color, height or shoe size
someone has, as long as the law is enforced.

  You can argue that profiling people like this is not the best and most
efficient way of doing it, but why must racism always be assumed?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   In fact, what I have done is to oppose the idea that law enforcement asking
> random people for their ID 

Even that wouldn't raise the outcry we have here. But police aren't being 
told to check *random* people. They're not stopping every tenth person 
driving past, like they do with the sobriety checkpoints. They're stopping 
people who *look* like an illegal immigrant.

They are using a profile. They aren't using "random". Stopping "random" 
people isn't anything to do with "If 90% of the lawbreakers are X, then you 
should check people who are X", regardless of what X is.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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On 3-5-2010 20:07, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> No, it's not about offending people, it's about the fact that in the US 
>> the constitution specifically prohibits the police from pulling people 
>> over "just because".
> 
>   Well, then it's different here, as I have mentioned with the traffic
> police.
> 
I assume the procedure is the same here as in Finland. It is not 
entirely clear to me if it also exists in the US. So can anyone from 
there answer Warp's implicit question/conclusion?

The procedure is this: the police fences of a piece of the road and 
checks everybody, nobody excluded. Checks can be on alcohol or weapons 
or drugs. They need to have a special permit to do so, often this is 
setup as a inter-policedepartment action as the number of policemen 
required is too large to be handled by a single department. If the 
permit is for alcohol they are not allowed to search the whole vehicle 
(perhaps if they find a drunk driver they can, don't know).

If there is more traffic than they can handle they set up camp in e.g. a 
petrol station next to the road. They pull over as much as they can 
handle and when someone leaves they take the next approaching car. 
Skipping one because it is driven by an old lady and the next one is a 
young person with a foreign appearance is not allowed.

Thus the racial profiling pitfall is circumvented.

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Warp wrote:
>   You can argue that profiling people like this is not the best and most
> efficient way of doing it, but why must racism always be assumed?

Because there are trivial ways of ensuring it's prevented.

When we first started having a bunch of checking of bags at the airport 
gates here, the checkers working juuust before you go on the plane would 
roll a die. If it came up 6, you got checked. Not if you looked arabic, or 
mexican, or smelled bad. That's random.

If you've been in an international airport, you might have seen a red/green 
light at customs. You push the button. If it turns red, you get checked. 
That's random.

The policeman saying "I'll check *that* guy in the crowd" very likely is 
racists even if the policeman doesn't think it is. He's going to use his 
"hunch." His beliefs are going to affect his choice. This is why we have 
science - to keep even unconscious beliefs from affecting our worldview.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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On 3-5-2010 22:40, Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>> Further, under US law, if they *did* find illegal substances in my 
>>> car, if the traffic stop was not legal, they would not be able to 
>>> prosecute because they would have lacked probable cause to pull me 
>>> over in the first place.
>>
>>   That's one thing I have never understood.
> 
> It discourages the police from breaking the law in the first place. In 
> practice, people aren't going to put police in jail or otherwise punish 
> them for catching criminals. If you believe there should be laws like 
> this in the first place, the only reasonable way to enforce them is to 
> take something away from the police when they break the rules, rather 
> than add something (like punishment) when they break the rules.

I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but the 
society as a whole even more.

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andrel wrote:
> The procedure is this: 

Yep. That's pretty much how it works here, at least in theory. Of course, 
who is going to check?

If the traffic rate is too high, it's also OK to stop every Nth person. But 
you don't get to pick who you stop *after* you see them. You make the list 
of which cars you'll stop before you even set up the blockade.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 16:22:04 -0400, Warp wrote:

> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:40:52 -0400, Warp wrote:
> > 
> >> >   I consider myself to be the exact opposite of a racist in the sense
> >> >   that
> >> > I *couldn't care less* about "race" or skin color or anything.
> > 
> >> When you say "race matters", look out, you're making a distinction
> >> based on race, whether you want to admit it or not.
> > 
> >   On the contrary: I'm *not* making any distinction based on race. To me
> > it doesn't matter what race somebody might represent.

> Um, you are, if you say "90% of illegal immigrants are of Hispanic 
> origin, so we should stop people of Hispanic origin in order to ensure 
> they're here legally".  That's the textbook definition of racial 
> profiling.

  You didn't understand me. I do not distinguish race as being any more
or less relevant than any other feature.

  If hair color can be used for some statistic, then so be it. If race can
be used for some statistic, then fine. I don't care. To me it's all the
same. I don't make any special distinction.

  Or in other words, I'm not hypersensitive about talking about race, as
so many other people seem to be. To me it's just as incosequential as a
subject as hair or eye color.

  If the distinguishing feature of some statistic happens to be race, and
you really want to call it "racial profiling", then I suppose I can't stop
you. It's just that the term "racial profiling" is always used in a very
negative sense, like it was a thousand times more outrageous than making
a statistic based eg. on gender or age groups. To me it's all the same.
I don't make any special distinction between them.

  I wish everybody else was like that too. I wish the world was a place
where you can talk about human races, make statistics about them and
whatever, freely and without any kind of worry, because it's just as
inconsequential as gender, age or shoe size.

  But no. If you start talking about races, making statistics and profiles,
you are immediately labeled as racist. Sheesh.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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andrel wrote:
> I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but the 
> society as a whole even more.

It depends on whether you believe you caught the right person in the first 
place.

What lots of people seem to be forgetting in this thread is that by far, the 
vast majority of the population is *not* breaking the law.  If there were no 
limits on the techniques the police could use to find criminals, then the 
99% of the people who are law-abiding would be subject to the same problems 
as the people who aren't. And the 99% of people who are law abiding are 
willing to let the guy with an open bottle of beer in the car go, so they 
don't get stopped and have the police rip *their* car apart in order to see 
if maybe there's any pot in a little baggy in the door panel or something.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Warp wrote:
>   You didn't understand me. I do not distinguish race as being any more
> or less relevant than any other feature.
> 
>   If hair color can be used for some statistic, then so be it. If race can
> be used for some statistic, then fine. I don't care. To me it's all the
> same. I don't make any special distinction.

Every feature you mentioned is part of "race". It's all based on genetics.

Was this intentional, or did you also want to include, say, style of 
clothing, amount of taxes paid last year, which God you happen to worship, etc?

>   If the distinguishing feature of some statistic happens to be race, and
> you really want to call it "racial profiling",

People only call it that when the feature you're profiling for hasn't 
anything to do with race. If you're talking about Tay sachs, nobody 
complains about racial profiling.  It's when you're talking about criminal 
behavior that people complain about racial profiling, because the two are 
unrelated.

>   I wish everybody else was like that too. I wish the world was a place
> where you can talk about human races, make statistics about them and
> whatever, freely and without any kind of worry, because it's just as
> inconsequential as gender, age or shoe size.

And when it's inconsequential, people don't mind. If police profiling was 
inconsequential to the people whose race is being used as the bad guys, 
nobody would complain.

>   But no. If you start talking about races, making statistics and profiles,
> you are immediately labeled as racist. Sheesh.

No, it's when one starts talking about races and arresting people based on 
that race that people label one racist.  A doctor who says "blacks are more 
likely to get hernias than whites" or "jews are more likely to get Tay Sachs 
than chinese", nobody labels him racist.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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