A voice of reason that will go unheeded.

Londoner videos his bullshit anti-terror stop-and-search - Boing Boing:

""Terrorist problems" are no kind of excuse for this crap.

Imagine a situation in the US where bombs are regularly being detonated in cars and litter bins without warning; where bombs are being left in shops and bars to go off without warning; where army barracks are targeted and soldiers and police are shot dead in the street on a weekly basis; where truck-loads of high explosive are detonated in major cities; where leading politicians are full-time targets for assassination attempts and several lose their lives as a consequence.

That was Britain in the 1970s and 1980s courtesy of the IRA. In 1984 Margaret Thatcher's entire Cabinet was nearly wiped out in the Brighton hotel bombing; in 1991 John Major's Cabinet was attacked by mortars fired from a van at Downing Street. At no time did anyone suggest we needed the kind of harassing behaviour towards travellers, photographers or anyone else that's becoming routine today. That would have been regarded as "giving in to the terrorists". None of these measures would have stopped the IRA doing what they did with such deadly efficiency. So if we didn't need this then, why do we need it now?"

The obvious answer is that since the 70s and 80s, the Western world has become a culture of hand-wringing 'safety at any costs' wimps.

That, and the fact that now the terrorists are brown, which scares the shit outta the white folks. [That's right. I said it. Okay. Fine. "Some" white folks.]