Men guilty until proven innocent

British Airways has been accused of treating all men passengers as potential sex offenders after it was revealed it has banned children from sitting next to male strangers - even if their parents are on the same flight.

Anyone who doubts that men are discriminated-against group in society today should read that article. As with the new rape laws, the aim of this is to assume that men are guilty until proven innocent. Essentially this is the same as when black people in America and South Africa used to be banned from sitting where they wanted on buses and in restaurants.

Currently travelling by air is a real pain, due to the extra security checks at airports. Now, I fully accept that these checks are neccessary, but the way they are conducted is not. Last time I flew to America, in the airport I was twice asked to remove my shoes, and asked to fully empty the contents of my bag, on top of the usual security procedures. I'm white, I'm not someone who you would mistake as being muslim by birth. In addition, I have absolutely no criminal record. How many thousands upon thousands of hours of time are currently being wasted each year in each airport going through the pantomime of rigorous security checks on people who do not match the profile of potential terrorists?

"But Darren," you might say, "we cannot become more efficient and more intelligent by concentrating our security checks where they are most likely to be effective," (i.e. on those who most clearly match the profile of a potential terrorist), "because that would cause muslims *offense* and we cannot have that!"

Well, my answer to that is this: firstly, I am offended by the fact that a significant minority of muslims in surveys have been shown to support the radicals terrorist attacks on the West, and I am offended by the pathetic lack of condemnation from the vast and supposedly 'peaceful' muslim majority towards this terrorism. But more than that I am offended by the fact that thousands of hours each year are being wasted by indiscriminately checking men like me in order to NOT cause offense to muslims, yet at the same time certain airlines don't give a DAMN about causing offense to all men by their policies of assuming we are all potential child molestors.

Is terrorism on airplanes a serious problem? Yes. Is child molestation on airplanes a serious problem? I doubt it. I would think that children are vastly more likely to be molested in private. Yet in the face of the serious threat of airplane terrorists airports act inefficiently in order to protect the feelings of muslims, whilst in the almost non-existent threat of airbourne child molestation airlines assume all men are guilty and to hell with their feelings.