Alternate Facts and Reality

There was a news story about how Mohammad Ali JR was detained at an airport and questioned about his name and religion.

Since he is travelling under a US Passport and was born in this country you might wonder why they wanted to know those things.

I would understand if he was selected for extra screening, this seems to happen somewhat randomly, but where he got his name or what religion he is seems bigoted.

Now today the TSA said they didn't inquire about his name, only asked if he was an Arab and how he got his name.  Now, his passport was clearly an American one and maybe they suspected that it was a false one.

However, saying he wasn't profiled when clearly those are profiling questions, is another example of these alternate facts.

We have a bigot in the white house and he is inspiring more bigotry.  Its getting to be open season.

Now preventing terrorism is of course something I and everybody I know supports.  However stopping American citizens who have Islamic names or who are Muslim is not combating terrorism.

Its simply bigotry.

Can you imagine them questioning an American citizen like this if he was buying a gun?

Those same bigots would be screaming about the 2nd Amendment.

Of course due process is also an important provision in the constitution and whether this meets that criteria will be determined in court.

Reality tells us that a persons country of origin is not an indicator of potential terrorist acts.  Being a member of a terrorist organization is.

The first does not serve as a proxy for the second.

I prefer we stay with reality.