What if the shoe was on the other foot?

http://news.yahoo.com/judge-ariz-sheriffs-office-profiles-latinos-225627617.html;_ylt=AwrHgMu4JqBRxVMACQUJVux_;_ylu=X3oDMTI5OGJsdTJmBG1pdANBVFQgMyBTdG9yeSBKdW1ib3Ryb24gSG9tZSBDYWNoZWQEcG9zAzIEc2VjA01lZGlhQXR0V2lkZ2V0cm9uQXNzZW1ibHk-;_ylg=X3oDMTFkcW51ZGliBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3BtaA--;_ylv=3

     Now believe it or not, this isn't about Old Joe and whether or not he is profiling Latinos (Hispanics) or whether or not said profiling is wrong or justified.  I am not even going to touch let alone open that can of worms.  Nope, like most articles I read, most of my ire is aimed at the comments section.

     Overwhelmingly, (I read 10 pages of comments) the whole attitude is "Whoo Hoo!  Go get them!"  People seem to be okay with the idea that an entire section of people Might be being targeted just because of their appearance.  They cheer these actions even though the vast majority of the targeted group have done no crime or harm to anyone.  They seem to think it is okay to target the majority if it catches the minority.  Doesn't that worry anyone besides me?

     I very seldom if ever play the Hitler/Nazi Card because it is so often misused and overused.  However prior to and during WWII, the Nazi Party deliberately targeted a select group because they felt the group was a danger to national safety.  Though there was little if any evidence, the Jewish people were arrested and placed in Concentration Camps simply because they were Jewish.  

     Course on this side of the ocean, The US Government was just as guilty.  They rounded up 1000's of Japanese Citizens, many of which were second and third generation, and shipped them off to our own Concentration Camps even though there was no evidence that any of them had committed any crime or bore any hard feelings toward the US.  They were imprisoned simply because of their ethnic origins.  

     Moving down the line a bit, during the Racially Heated times of the 1950s and 60s, it was not uncommon for Black people to be targeted by law enforcement simply because of their race.  A Black man driving a very nice car would be pulled over by police not because he had committed a crime, but because they thought he had stolen the car.

     Moving down a bit further, we have NYPD who, with CIA training, began targeting large sections of Muslim populations even though there was no evidence that any of them had done anything illegal.  Most of them were law abiding citizens/immigrants who had no ties to any sort of terrorist/extremist groups.  They were targeted simply because of their faith.

     Lets toss some numbers out there.  According to the 2011 Census there 52 million Legal Residents of the USA not including our protectorates.  Meanwhile, the entire (Including all races and nationalities) population of Illegal Aliens is estimated to be between 7-20 million.  (Course this a number that is impossible to accurately measure since most people in the US illegally aren't just going to come out and admit it.)

     So lets take the mid-range of that estimate and say that the entire population of Illegal Immigrants is 13 (Hope I did that right, my math sucks) million.  And just for Gits and Shiggles, lets say that All of them are of Hispanic origin.  (They aren't but this is a mental exercise.)  So that is roughly one quarter of the Hispanic Population.  So ignoring the numbers and just the percentage, that means that any action targeting the whole to get to a portion would be harming a very large number of innocent people.

     So we have Jews, Japanese, Blacks and now Hispanics who have been targeted.  All of you should ask yourselves what happens when it is your group being targeted?  Will you still be cheering next year when someone in power decides that since the WBC are a bunch of inbred morons that anyone who is a White Southern Baptist should be targeted just on the chance they might be planning something dangerous.

     Selective targeting of groups is a slippery slope.  The human mind is brilliant at justifying the things we do even if those things are wrong.  I will leave you with the words of Martin Niemöll (Which have also been overused and abused lately, but seem appropriate here.)

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

     Never forget that you are always "one of them" to someone else.

End of rant