Presidential Security
October 2nd, 2007 by Adam
Some people speak badly of racial profiling as though it were some intrinsically racist thing. Face it– the human mind naturally groups people together, and sometimes those groups are imperfect, but without some kind of system in place, chaos reigns. What’s more, racial profiling is efficient, and needs to extend even further than airport security and traffic stops.
Let’s go back 150 years, to one of the most traumatic events in U.S. history— to April 14, 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. His shooter? John Wilkes Booth, a white guy with a vendetta against the President. Fast forward 15 years to a train station in Baltimore where Charles Guiteau, fellow white man, shoots and kills President Garfield. Just 20 years later, President McKinley is assassinated. The shooter? Caucasian; male. Then, on that fateful day in 1963, John F. Kennedy was murdered in broad daylight. His shooter was never identified, but the prime suspect was a white male, who was himself murdered by another white male. Are we seeing a pattern?
In fact, throughout history, no American president has ever been shot by anyone other than a white male. So why, why why, when attending an event where the President is appearing, does every single man, woman, and child get searched by the Secret Service? This is criminally inefficient—history clearly shows that black women do not shoot Presidents; old Asian men do not shoot Presidents; little Johnny Boy Scout does not shoot Presidents. If we can all agree that Presidential Security is of paramount importance, why are we focusing attention on people that don’t shoot presidents, thereby taking valuable energy away from scrutinizing those who do?
Some hippies and ACLosers will argue that it’s unfair to single out white males. They’ll cry into their granola about plots uncovered by foreign nationals, and others of various backgrounds, to assassinate a president. At the very least, those beatniks must accept that the odds are overwhelmingly against them: if anyone is going to shoot the President, it’s far more likely to be a white male. Why shouldn’t white men be subject to further security measures, no matter how “racist” it may seem? It’s just smart.
What would be even smarter is looking at the events which Presidents typically attend— they’re chock full of white guys. It’s a powder-keg just waiting to blow and if the Secret Service really cared about Presidential Security, they’d fill the first few rows with women and minorities and keep all the middle-aged white men locked up in back. (And while we’re at it—who the hell thought it was a good idea to fill the Secret Service with white males? That’s like hiring Arabs to work security at our airports– insanity perpetrated by liberals to keep our country in a state of imminent danger.)
This trend of personal violence against politicians extends even beyond Presidents. The white supremacist George Wallace was shot by a white man– who saw that coming? In 1978, the mayor of San Francisco was murdered by Dan White. Just guess what color he was! It’s obvious that white males must be regarded as a specific threat when it comes to political figures in general, but especially Presidents. Of course they aren’t bad people and don’t need to singled out all the time, just in places where they might be dangerous—political rallies, poll stations, public speeches, and any time they’re within a square mile of the President. It’s time we cared more about safety than fairness; maybe some ‘rights’ will get trampled on, but what’s more important, America—‘civil liberties’ or the safety of our great nation’s leaders?
And for the love of God, stop searching old women in wheelchairs—my tax dollars shouldn’t go to protecting the President from non-threats while a WASP strolls in calmly behind her with a gun.
Adam