So as you probably know, Cat Stevens (former hippie singer now known as Yusuf Islam) caused an airplane to be diverted due to fears that he was a terrorist. He was flying from London (UK) to Washington, and half way through the flight the staff realized who he was and were told by the TSA that he was being denied flight privileges “on national security grounds” (more). The flight was diverted to Maine, and he's now in custody and should be deported back to Britain shortly.
Now, first of all, Cat Stevens is a dope (more). He's one of the best examples of why people should never convert to Islam or any other religion. He spent his musical career preaching peace and love and freedom. Then, in 1977, convinced by clerics that his musical career was wrong, changed his name to Yusuf Islam and moved on to life as a Muslim, ditching the Peace Train. He did a lot of good things of course, and spread a peaceful message most of the time (more), but then also donated a great deal of money to Hamas (more), and supported the fatwa calling for Salmon Rushdie's death — although he later “recanted” and said he only wanted to see literature of that type made illegal (more). Point is, after Allah came knocking at his heart (more), that he went from a peaceful open-minded love dude to a closed-minded repressive love dude with known financial ties to terrorism. In my bigotted opinion anyway.
That said…
Turning the plane around or deporting him is ridiculous. Do they really think Cat Stevens (or Mr. Islam) is going to blow up the airplane or otherwise cause a problem? The idea is laughable. Given that succubus Anne Coulter (more) has said far worse — hell, even I have said far worse — than Yusuf, I'm not even sure a convincing case can be made for denying him entry into the US (although I certainly don't blame Israel for turning him away as well). As much as Cat Stevens has become a misled or misguided fool that's an affront to the freedoms we care about in our culture, those very freedoms demand that we allow him to enter and speak freely. Whether you think Cat Stevens is enlighted or misled is irrelevant.
Last time Rachel flew she was aggressively boobie body searched. Not only that, but they even basically strip-searched Nefarious (our year and a half old daughter). However, because of racial quotas, once two had been searched, every “Middle Eastern looking” (fear the Arab menace) passenger was let on without even being particularly mag-wanded — but then to make sure “enough searches” had been done, brutal searches were done of babies, senior citizens (more), and other obvious non-terrorists. The whole thing is bullshit. It's not about stopping terrorists; it's about making a ton of money — it's not as if adding all this equipment and personnel is free.
But if you think Nefarious had a rough time getting through security, there was some poor bastard on the flight as well called Michael Moore — not the Millionaire Moore, but just a regular guy. A skinny guy too, travelling with his wife and kids — obviously not the same person. Millionaire Moore on the other hand, he's no skinny dude. However, this regular guy wasn't being allowed on the plane because he had the same name. He was almost in tears trying to get them to let him on, begging them to acknowledge that he wasn't the same Michael Moore that was on their terror watch list. Rachel had a chance to talk to him briefly and he's already filed the papers to have his name legally changed because of the hell he's gone through, including nearly daily death threats from people looking up the name in the phone book.
And in any case, why is Michael Moore grounded? Why is Michael Moore banned from flying on public airlines? Do they seriously think he's going to strap bombs to himself and take out LAX or something? Come on. They might be idiots, and they might even “hate America”, but neither Michael Moore nor Yusuf Islam are going to be flying planes into the Statue of Liberty any time soon.
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