From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Sep 14 2002 - 13:28:44 MDT
As an aside to this whole discussion, the Ayn Rand
Institute hosted an event 9/9/02 in Irvine, drawing a
standing room only crowd which they very
conservatively estimate as "over 500." I put it
considerably higher.
The relationship to this discussion comes with Leonard
Peikoff's reply - as best I recall - to a question
about profiling. As he put it (quoting only
approximately - from memory), ~"I'm originally from
Canada. If Canada were to start a war with the U.S.
and there was some kind of distinguishable mark that
tended to indicate that someone was originally
Canadian by birth, then I would hope that the U.S.
authorities in charge of protecting U.S. citizens
would use that to single out those people for
appropriate security measures. And if I were held up
for questioning as a consequence of looking "like a
Canadian" when there was realistic, objective reason
to think that some kine of violence was iminent, then
I would not only applaud their efforts, but I would
feel that I should apologize for the country of my
birth for its evil actions. I would expect that
people might treat me differently, as well they
should. If they saw me coming and crossed the street
or closed their shutters and locked their doors, then
they would only be behaving rationally, and I would
have no grounds for complaint. Now this, of course,
does not give anyone Carte Blanc to violate my rights,
but so long as they are following proper rational
legal procedure and respecting my individual rights,
then this profiling is just one aspect of normal
procedure. All kinds of evidence go into "making a
suspect," and characteristics such as skin color,
ethnicity, dress, etc. are valuable aids to
identifying criminals as well as would-be criminals."
I hope I didn't mangle that too much or add too much
of my own extrapolation from memory.
Ignoring real statistical differences between
identifiable groups when those differences bear
directly upon outcomes and success in reaching goals
may be "pc," but it is also stupid, evil and
irrational. If people are stigmatized by association
because they have the wrong name, skin color, accent,
gender, age, etc., then the solution is to seek
effective methods by which we can separate the good
people who are accidentally included in a profile from
the real bad guys - not to pretend that profiling is
wrong in itself.
We all use profiling all the time, in fact, which
makes the anti-profiling position also hypocritical.
Let's try to think of ways to make more accurate
individual assessments - something I have been pushing
for with my proposed universal social contract and its
projected ramifications.
(I do not, BTW, just to clarify, recall having any
objections to the original proposed Exi Inclusion
statement. But let's not confuse - as the PC crowd
would have us do - real racism or sexism, for example,
with simple, practical decision factors which we use
and should use.)
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