No, It's Not about Political Correctness

The right seems to want to blame “political correctness” as the cause of the Christmas Underpants Bomber. All I had to do was look at my sister’s Facebook status following the news of Northwest Airlines flight 253:

Let’s ignore the fact that she’s gloating, and seems somewhat happy about the terrorist attack.

Now, listen to some of these excerpts from radio host, Mike Gallagher:

It find it exceedingly frustrating how conservatives love to tout the U.S. Constitution when attacking Obama and Democrats, but are perfectly willing to trample on our rule of law and our protection of civil liberties when it benefits their political agenda and their own sense of security.

Political correctness is not what drives Islamic extremists to commit acts of terrorism. Whatever makes radicalism towards America appealing in the Muslim world is the problem that needs to be explored and addressed. If the only thing we had to worry about was hurting Muslims’ feelings, I’d have no problem with racial profiling. But racial profiling not only undermines our legal system. As Dan Gilgoff points out to Mike Gallagher in the video above, it would turn “possibly a billion of the world’s people against the United States”. Doing so would put America at a much greater risk of terrorist attacks. Even if you throw political correctness out the window, racial profiling is a terrible idea.

The answer, I believe, to improved homeland security lies in improving the technology of our security systems at airports and other public buildings.