Steve King Quotes
This self imposed guilt about racial and ethnic profiling is idiocy.
The Congressman was a rabid foe of immigration in general and possible illegal immigration in particular (See {614687}). As his colleagues were trying to improve the methods of identifying illegal workers at the job hiring stage, they were very concerned that law enforcment and some employers would make judgments about the likely criminal status of a person based on his/her ethnicity, race or other general superficial characteristics.
Steve King, 1949-, U. S. Congressman (Republican, IA), House Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing, June 16, 2008
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This is an example of a politican exaggerating a problem by conveying the false impression that undoumented immigrants (more pejoritively "illegal aliens") are a danger becaue they murder Americans. THey do but at no greater rates, than American citiizens murder each other.
This quotation is a wonderful use of sarcasm to make an important point in just a few words.
This is a very important quotation because it is an excellent example of the statement of the logic that advocates of racial profiling use. Wording may be different but the essence of the argument is always the same. The problem with the argument is twofold. First even if the statistical predictability is true, such statistical correlations were known by the Founding Fathers who nevertheless believed that it was better for the nation for the Government to follow due process and not base decisions on officials views of statistical tendencies regardless of how valid. However, even the statistics application is flawed. The problem is that there are many statistical relationships in our complex society. The vast majority of the use of racial profiling tends to only use those relationships which tend to reinforce the discriminatory biases. For example, the vast majority and proportion of the Americans who embezzle money are white males who have a college education. Yet there are few law enforcement officials who would say that we should pick white males with college emblems on their windshield, out and stop them as they might have stolen checks, business forms or other items associated with embezzlement. But those same people will advocate stopping Black males on highways under the likelihood that they are more likely to have illicit drugs. So if society profiled on EVERY characteristic that statistically related to crime, it would not be as unfair as when society picks and chooses those characteristics as this is where racism or other prejudice come into play. However, it is NEVER a good idea because it is so inefficient as a law enforcement method. Even though people of Irish extraction tend to be alcoholics more than other groups, once you start picking up Irish people to stop impaired driving, you find that most Irish are NOT alcoholics. Last there is usually huge variability within any ethnic or other group. Native Americans have an alcoholism succeptability that is even greater than the Irish. However, if one looks at each of the many Indian Reservations in Indian Country (Oklahoma), we find some reservations where almost every adult is an alcoholic and other reservations where there is no alcoholism at all. For the power of the state to generalize, that power is brought to bear on those Indians who would not be likely to be drunk as those which are.
- Born: May 28, 1949
- Nationality: American
- Profession: Politician
Steven Arnold King is an American politician and businessman who served as the U.S. Representative for Iowa's 4th congressional district from 2003 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Iowa's 5th congressional district until redistricting.
