UK: Rational Discrimination

aug 07 via DF

THEODORE DALRYMPLE

The fundamental problem is this: There is an asymmetry between the good that many moderate Muslims can do for Britain and the harm that a few fanatics can do to it. The 1-in-1,000 chance that a man is a murderous fanatic is more important to me than the 999-in-1,000 chance that he is not a murderous fanatic: If, that is, he is not especially valuable or indispensable to me in some way ...

Arriving in Britain by air the day after two men crashed a gasoline-laden Jeep Cherokee into the main terminal at Glasgow's international airport ...

Was this a sign of the admirable tolerance of British society, or of its bovine complacency born of an inability, or unwillingness, to make the effort to defend itself? Was it decency, cowardice, or stupidity?

I really don't know anymore, which is an indication of the problem: Only time will tell, and by then it might be too late ...

And the plain fact of the matter is that British society could get by perfectly well without the contribution even of moderate Muslims ...

In other words, one of the achievements of the bombers and would-be bombers is to make discrimination against most Muslims who wish to enter Britain a perfectly rational policy. This is not to say that the government would espouse it, other than surreptitiously by giving secret directions to visa offices around the world. But why should a country take an unnecessary risk without a compensatory benefit?

The problem causes deep philosophical discomfort to everyone who believes in a tolerant society. On the one hand we believe that every individual should be judged on his merits, while, on the other, we know it would be absurd and dangerous to pretend that the threat of terrorism comes from sections of the population equally.

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