These are sneaky guys.
In the wake of the Paris bombings Donald Trump and Ben Carson have come out strongly in favor of monitoring immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, and, to be on the safe side, Muslims in general. I think they underestimate how difficult this would be.
Say there will be about ten thousand immigrants—or, even worse, twenty thousand or more—that’s a lot of immigrants. As soon as they get into the country legally, they can spread from one state to another, moving under cover of darkness. Before you know it, they will have contacted relatives, aunts and uncles and others, who are probably themselves Muslims and have had years to plot whatever they have been plotting. Who knows what that might be? On the surface they seem to be engaged in All-American things like cookouts and different kinds of work; but behind the scenes they are probably listening to Muslims who have secretly infiltrated American public life and appear on television. (It is rumored that these surreptitious figures are everywhere—maybe even in the White House.) And who knows just how many overt Muslims there are in the country already having ensconced themselves secretly in all walks of life. (I mean, somebody probably knows; but I don’t. I bet there are millions.)
And they’re not easy to spot. Trump and Carson may think you can just stake out all the mosques and keep track of anybody who comes out wearing a turban. They are wrong. Muslims do not wear turbans. The women sometimes wear strange-looking dresses that look like black shrouds and have little slits for their eyes to peer out, but the men dress just like you and me in order to fit in. They do not wear masks and carry black flags. They know that would make them suspect. And there are Muslim women who dress like everybody else.
The Nazis were the first to discover you can’t keep track of anyone just by looking at their clothes. If they wanted to know if a man was Jewish, they had to take off his pants and see if he was circumcised. This was not practical when you are dealing with large populations. So, they made the Jewish men wear yellow armbands with the Star of David. No matter how often the Jews were told this was just a way of keeping track of them, they took the armbands as a sign of disrespect. It is probable that if armbands were required of American Muslims, they would feel the same way.
Beards
As I understand it, beards are required for devout Muslims. Also devout Jews. And also certain counter-cultural types who tend to be into drugs. But not all Muslims are devout, just as not all Jews were beards or even mustaches. (And they may not wear skull caps or long side-burns.) Therefore, beards are just not a practical way of spotting a Muslim.
Complexion
It has been noted that Arabs are swarthy. And some Muslims are Arabs. Therefore, it has been suggested that a list of Muslims can be drawn from a larger list of swarthy individuals. However, any such endeavor is likely to include some Italians and Jewish men and women who have spent too much time out in the sun. Also Mexicans. In fact, Mexicans are even swarthier than Arabs—which is probably why Arab infiltrators have been rumored to be crossing into Texas from Mexicans. This is an error! These people who look just like Mexicans are Mexicans!
Plastic surgery
I’m afraid that with the easy availability of plastic surgery, an Islamic terrorist who suspected the feds were closing in on him could easily change his appearance into that of a Korean or a Chinese or some other currently-okay immigrant. You would think that plastic surgeons would be more patriotic, but some people will do anything for money.
Implanted computer chips
As the discussion above demonstrates, the usual ways of identifying Americans of one religion or another are simply not reliable. The obvious solution is to have all Muslims implanted with a computer chip just under the skin, perhaps on the forearm. If they entered a place commonly endangered by terrorists—such as a restaurant or a shopping center-an alarm would be set off alerting the authorities. This could be a voluntary procedure since in such a way Muslim parents could more easily keep track of their children. If this were done on-line, the government could offer to pay the fees as a good-will gesture.
Inevitably, some liberal-type individuals have complained that singling out any particular religious group for monitoring would be unconstitutional. But as Dr. Carson has said, speaking at the time of torture, in the matter of public safety, we should not be deterred by “politically-correct” attitudes. And Doctor Carson is a neurosurgeon! (c) Fredric Neuman Author of “The Wicked Son.”