Michelle Malkin’s In Defense of Internment

No, I haven’t read it yet, but I know enough about it to wonder whether all of her drum-beating over Annie Jacobsen wasn’t just a way to slyly promote her book.

I’m not going to argue whether or not interning America’s Japanese population on the West Coast was a bad thing or not. I think it was, and another blogger has already taken the time to lay out in extraordinary detail just how weak Malkin’s thesis is. Go there for the facts. Go there to learn who her publisher is.

Meanwhile, another site has done some magnificent photoshopping of Malkin and her bookcover. Don’t wait; if you want a good, thought-provoking laugh, just go there. Here’s one I liked. (Update: I took down the original graphic, for fear it might offend.)

malkin2.jpg

Malkin pitches and defends her book here.

The Discussion: 41 Comments

There was a documentary quite a few years ago on the behind the scenes battles in Washington regarding the internment and its scope. One of the – very suprising – revelations was that ol J Edger was opposed to it. He insisted it was a gross violation of the constitution and would be a stain upon America’s conduct of the war.

Another suprise in the documentary was that Hoover also opposed the powers given to the FBI to fight Axis agents in the US. He wanted a seperate agency with broader powers that would dissove immediately upon the signing of the surrender treaties with the Axis.

I found both these reports somewhat ironic, to say the least.

August 4, 2004 @ 9:16 pm | Comment

Hoover thought the internment was a paranoid move on the part of Roosevelt. Can you believe it — Hoover, of all people, charging someone else with paranoia? In this case, he was correct.

August 4, 2004 @ 9:19 pm | Comment

I have always wondered, does ms. Malkin ever look into the mirror and realize that she is brown and not white. Fairly simple to mistake a Pinoy for an Arab, though somehow, I don’t think she would really have any problems if she were accosted basedly solely on the density of melanin in her skin. Heck anything is ok as long as it is for the Fatherland.

The other rich irony is her constant diatribes against immigrants (legal ones at that). I don’t see how it escapes her that if the policies she advocates had been put into place, neither her nor her parents would have been able to reap the liberties and freedoms that she enjoys today.

August 5, 2004 @ 12:17 am | Comment

this woman is either screwed up in the head or was screwed by some racist d==k..
It is apparent that she has no idea what she talks about.. if she’s trying to use controversy as her selling point, I think the heat is too hot to contain her book will burn out of existence very soon..

August 5, 2004 @ 12:57 am | Comment

I am Jewish and my wife is Japanese. So, I suppose if we had been living back then, she (and my children, perhaps) would have been interned. Perhaps I would have been put under surveillance as a potential traitor or interned with them. Who knows?

However, even granting that the internment of the Japanese Americans in WWII was motivated by racism, and wrong from every point of view, I cannot object too strongly to your use of Nazi death camp victims in an apparent attempt to “prove” that the internment of the Japanese and the “internment” of the Jews by the Nazis are somehow the same.

They were not, for the very simple reason that the Japanese survived their internment and the Jews did not.

Yes, the Japanese were deprived of their liberty without due process. Yes, it was because of white racism. Yes, it was also because greedy whites wanted to steal their farms. Yes, they suffered terribly. Yes, it is a blot on our naton’s history. You will get no argument from me on any of that.

However, even given all of that, the Japanese were not rounded up in order to be murdered, nor was there ever any danger of this happening, for the very simple reason that while FDR and others in the government may have been racists, they were not Nazis. The Nazi persecution of the Jews was for the purpose of murdering them. It was not just to steal their farms. If FDR had been a Nazi, as your photoshopping implies, none of the Japanese would have made it out of the internment camps alive.

This careless conflation of of the Nazi genocide against the Jews with other superficially similar incidents (“Well, they were both in concentration camps, right?”) cheapens the debate by making everyone into some kind of Nazi. This robs real genocide of its horror and makes it impossible to discuss these subjects rationally by lumping everything that is bad into one undifferentiated mass. The internment of the Japanese was a terrible thing. But it pales in comparison to what the Nazis did. These two things are simply not on the same level.

It is also an insult to our Jewish martyrs. They are not just symbols for everybody to use to make a cheap rhetorical point. I would appreciate it if you would stop abusing them.

August 5, 2004 @ 3:00 pm | Comment

Relax Earl, I’m Jewish as well. I see it as a political cartoon that drives home the point against ethnic concentration camps. Sorry if it offends, but it’s supposed to. The Japanese weren’t killed, but they were badly mistreated. Once we start segregating people by race and rounding them up, the potential for all kinds of abuse arises. It is a repellent concept, and the photo underscores what it can lead to.

August 5, 2004 @ 3:16 pm | Comment

Sorry, Richard, I’m not convinced. Being treated terribly, as bad as that is, is not the same as being murdered out of hand.

Also, the main reason, in retrospect, that the Japanese internment is seen to be wrong is precisely because the Japanese were, for the most part, loyal citizens.

Just as an intellectual exercise, let us assume for a moment that the Islamic community in this country does, in fact, harbor radical Islamist terrorists who are actively plotting acts of sabotage and murder aganst this country. One may argue about the degree of danger that this threat poses, but in light of 9/11 and the original bombing of the Trade Center a number of years prior to that, perpetrated by radical Islamists resident in this country, it is impossible to argue that there is no threat. One may say a number of things about it, but arguing that it is a figment of a racist imagination is to ignore the facts.

How would you propose combatting this?

And, before we start, no, I am not proposing internment, and, yes, I am quite aware that there are various homegrown white supremacst terrorist groups in the US that we need to worry about as well. I feel about them just as I feel about the Islamists.

August 5, 2004 @ 3:43 pm | Comment

I don’t claim to have a magic answer. I do know that the vast majority of Moslem Americans are not terrorists, and the very idea of internment or segregation sickens me. Hell, a lot of violent crimes are committed by members of certain ethnic groups, and far more people are threatened by them than by terrorists. Should we round them up? Sorry, it goes against what America is. The second biggest terrorist attack on US soil was conducted by freepers, and they are known to have a violent agenda. Round ’em up? Sadly, no; the best we can do is monitor them and be vigilant. If we go the Malkin route, it’s not America anymore, at least not the America in which I wish to live.

By the way, I have written about the Holocaust here before and take it very seriously; you may want to check out this post.

August 5, 2004 @ 3:56 pm | Comment

Like I said in my previous post, I am not advocating internment. I also said that I was quite aware of the freeper threat.

I read your post about the Holocaust, and commented on it.

Your points about crime are well taken. However, this is not just a body count issue or even just a law enforcement issue. I believe that the Islamists (and the violent freepers lke McVeigh) are at war against America, and I think we need to take it seriously. There is a direct correlation between certain religio/political beliefs and violence, and to the extent that a person holds Islamist or freeper beliefs, I think that, based on past experience, we can assume that such a person has a higher propensity for violence than, say, a Jehovah’s Witness.

I do believe that this is a war, albeit an unconventional one. I also think the Islamists are much more motivated, organized, and intelligent than the freepers, and are thus a much more dangerous threat.

August 5, 2004 @ 4:11 pm | Comment

I don’t disagree with anything you say.

August 5, 2004 @ 4:27 pm | Comment

Oh, and I changed the graphic. Sorry if the original one was over the top.

August 5, 2004 @ 5:39 pm | Comment

Thanks. I appreciate the consideration.

August 5, 2004 @ 5:42 pm | Comment

Having just read the “extrodinay detail” referred to above here are a couple points to consider.

“Densho” is about as unobjective as you can get in providing a source for you information. These people have gone so far as to rewrite the language of the era. It is truly Orwellian.

At the link, click down to “CLPEF Resolution Regarding Terminology”

http://www.momomedia.com/CLPEF/backgrnd.html

As for the “no proof MAGIC had an impact in the decision to evacuate” argument, this is old pro-reparations talk that seeks to belittle the role of MAGIC in general, a belief military historians no to be false.

MAGIC intelligence in its raw form was available to just ten men. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Director of Naval Intelligence Admiral Theodore Wilkinson, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall, Army Director of Military Intelligence General Sherman Miles, Chief of Army War Plans General Leonard T. Gerow, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt – they were the only men in a position to make a knowledgeable decision.

To state that no document exists that says, “WE ARE MAKING A DECISION TO EVACUATE BASED ON MAGIC” is disengenuous.

My repsonse to such a charade is “Show the document that states the evacuation was based on “racism, wartime hysteria, and lack of political will.”

Regarding the reference to the MAGIC cables in Personal Justice Denied (pp.471-475), the Commision had never even heard of MAGIC intelligence until their report was completed. Shortly after the report was released, David Lowman http://www.athenapressinc.com/ wrote an article in the New York Times that questioned the absence of MAGIC in the report. The commissioners had never heard of it!

Without any expertise whatsoever on the subject of military intelligence in general and MAGIC in particular, the commission’s staff quickly “analyzed” MAGIC communications intelligence and reached conclusions about it which were contrary to the opinions of every recognized authority on MAGIC for the last 47 years.

Not long after it was released the mistake-laden addendum so quickly written to cover the commissions ignorance was quietly withdrawn.

And hears the kicker. The mistake-laden addendum written up after the report produced by people who had never even heard of MAGIC and had absolutely no authority to comment officially on it is the same stuff being provided as “extraordinary detail” from Personal Justice Denied (P.471-475) – WORD FOR WORD!

To summarize, p.471-475 was never a part of the original report and you’ll not find it in original versions of the report. The it exists in later volumes today after the commission originally withdrew it after admitting how ridiculous it is only serves to continue to undermine the credibilty of the circus known s the Commission on Wartime Internment and Relocation of Civilians.

Now to the worn out attempt at villifying General DeWitt’s “a Jap’s a Jap” comment. First of all, DeWitt’s report was entirely for public consumption and in fact justified many of the fears that existed in the general populace. The comment was also for the consumption of the Empire of Japan, for the Americans had to justify the mass evacuation of 120,000 people without letting the enemy no their diplomatic and military codes had been compromised.

The plan worked flawlessly. The Empire of Japan immediately used the evacuation for propoganda purposes (like today’s reparations movment), but knowledge of Japan’s codes being broken was never revieled.

Unfortunatley, DeWitt’s comments are now bandied about and taken entirely out of historical context.

The reality is Japan’s knowledge that Japanese were held in America saved the lives of Allied civilians held by the Japanese under much harsher conditions. POW’s weren’t so lucky.

Out of time for now….

Want to read some cool FBI documents on Japanese-American groups?

Check this out…..

http://www.internmentarchives.com/

See ya,

Bob

August 5, 2004 @ 8:26 pm | Comment

Well, I guess we should just lock ’em up. (Do you work for Malkin?)

I hope you saw Eric Mueller’s 9-part dissection of Malkin’s screed. He tears it apart point by point over at Volokh Conspiracy — don’t miss it. Devastating.

August 5, 2004 @ 8:35 pm | Comment

No, I don’t work for Malkin. I do know more about this history than the average person.

Historians are supposed to use cold objectivity to the point of being callous.

Writing history based on emotion (as the reparations movement does and many seem to enjoy accepting) doesn’t provide much room for the historical truth.

Yes, I read that other guy’s comments. Not impressed and I’d shred him in a face-to-face debate.

Why is it so difficult for Japanese-Americans to accept that their existed within their community certain elements that chose to retain loyalty with Japan and the government (repsonsible for the security of all Americans) in a time of war took extraordinary measures to ensure that security?

This quote by Justice Stone from Hirabayashi vs. United States (6-3) sums it up pretty well and is equally as applicable today…

“THE ALTERNATIVE WHICH APPELLANT INSISTS MUST BE ACCEPTED IS FOR THE
MILITARY AUTHORITIES TO IMPOSE THE CURFEW ON ALL CITIZENS WITHIN THE
MILITARY AREA, OR ON NONE. IN A CASE OF THREATENED DANGER REQUIRING PROMPT ACTION, IT IS A CHOICE BETWEEN INFLICTING OBVIOUSLY NEEDLESS HARDSHIP ON THE MANY, OR SITTING PASSIVE AND UNRESISTING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE THREAT. WE THINK THAT CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT, IN TIME OF WAR, IS NOT SO POWERLESS AND DOES NOT COMPEL SO HARD A CHOICE IF THOSE CHARGED WITH THE RESPONSIBILITY OF OUR NATIONAL DEFENSE HAVE REASONABLE GROUND FOR BELIEVING THAT THE THREAT IS REAL.”

August 5, 2004 @ 8:50 pm | Comment

P.S. Regarding the “lock ’em up comment”.

Japanese-Americans that were not known security risks were first given an opportunity to voluntarily move to areas outside the military zones.

If plans hadn’t been made by March 25, ethnic Japanese citizens and non-risk enemy aliens were sent to relcocation centers until they could make arrangements to move east. More than 33,000 evacuees voluntarily left the relocation centers to accept outside employment. An additional 4,300 left to attend colleges at taxpayer expense.

The “lock ’em up” comment is so out of context that it is a myth. Granted one had to apply to leave a relcocation center and after June, 1942 one had to apply to enter a relocation center.

Yes it’s true. If you wanted to enter or re-enter a relocation center you had to petition and submit an application. Many did…..

They didn’t teach you that, did they?

August 5, 2004 @ 8:59 pm | Comment

Sounds like heaven on earth. I wish I could be put in an internment camp.

August 5, 2004 @ 9:33 pm | Comment

Internment camps were run by the Department of Justice and held only enemy aliens who had been deemed security risks and their U.S. citizen family members who were allowed at their choice to stay with them. Internees included 10,995 Germans, 16, 849 Japanese (5,589 who voluntarily renounced U.S. citizenship and became enemy aliens), 3,278 Italians, 52 Hungarians, 25 Romanians, 5 Bulgarians, and 161 classified as “other”. Only a small fraction of enemy aliens were interned. Japanese citizens with families were sent to Crystal City, Texas and lived side-by-side with German and Italian families. Single men were sent to internment camps in other states. Not all enemy aliens were placed in internment camps, and no American citizen was forcefully placed in an internment camp. If you were interned it was determined that you, a spouse or parent was an enemy alien and a security risk.

It should be noted that all 16,849 Japanese enemy-aliens including the 5,589 that renounced American citizenship were eligible for an apology from the United States and a $20,000 reparations payment while the Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Romanians and Bulgarians received nothing.

If you want to be in an internment camp, just make sure your in the enemy’s country when they’re at war with the United States. You’ll have your wish!

Bear in mind that American internment camps are indeed heaven on earth compared with most country’s, say like Japan…..

The Japanese had a habit of slaughtering allied civilians when they couldn’t hold them any longer and had to run…..

Had to do with that “bushido” thing. If you don’t understand that and consider their slaughtering allied civilians barbaric well, that’s just cultural insensitivity on your part…

August 5, 2004 @ 9:40 pm | Comment

Bob, I don’t pretend to be an authority on the Japanese internment, though I have certainly read about it and know about the reparations and many of the things you bring up. It’s easy for you to say that compared to how awful internment was in Japan it was heaven on earth here. Fine – I agree. Still, I’ll pass on being placed in an internment camp. I have read many sad stories about what these people went through — and please don’t respond that it would have been much worse in Auschwitz or in Japanese camp for POWs. I know that, but this is America. We’re supposed to be above that sort of treatment of our citizens — way, way, way above it.

Gotta go to sleep. Trust me, you’re not going to convert me (or, I suspect, many of my readers) into into a fan of internment based on race or religion. Sorry. So I suggest you give it up. You may love the idea and have oodles of evidence showing how sublime internment can be, but it goes against all I believe in and, quite frankly, the idea makes me sick. First concentration camps, and then….? No, that’s a road I never want to see us go down. Good night.

August 5, 2004 @ 9:56 pm | Comment

You read about the two guys arrested in Albany yesterday?

The next time you’re in a 747 with 200 other people that is hurling in a fireball back to earth, you can rest easy knowing the owners of the surface to air missile that brought it down didn’t have their civil rights violated…

P.S. There are plenty of sad stories associated with war. The evcuation of ethnic Japanese off the West Coast is on the lesser end of the scale.

August 6, 2004 @ 8:34 am | Comment

One more on the “our citizens” comment, Approximately two-thirds of the ADULTS among those evacuated were Japanese nationals–enemy aliens. The vast majority of evacuated Japanese-Americans (U.S. citizens) were children at the time. Their average age was only 15 years. In addition, over 90% of Japanese-Americans over age 17 were also citizens of Japan (dual citizens)under Japanese law. Thousands had been educated in Japan. Some having returned to the U.S. holding reserve rank in the Japanese armed forces.

Nisei born before December 1, 1924 could nullify thier Japanee citizenship by submitting formal notification to the Home Minister. Those born afterwards would lose their Japanese citizenship within two weeks of birth unless their parents registered them with the Japanese Consulate.

Thus, after 1924, older Nisei could renounce their Japanese citizenship while the parents of those born after 1924 needed only to do nothing, and their children would have no legal ties with Japan.

However by 1933, only 8% of Nisei born before 1924 had renounced their Japanese citizenship, and by then, also, some 40% of Nisei born after 1924 had been registered at the Japanese Consulate so as to acquire Japanese citizenship.

Further, in 1938, it was announced that children of dual citizens (Sansei) were eligiable for registration as Japanese subjects.

The vast majority were not “our citizens”…

August 6, 2004 @ 8:38 am | Comment

Interesting comments all around, and one of the better threads I’ve seen in a while here. Good job, Richard!

I, however, have to agree with Malkin (partially because she’s so cute, and I’d love a chance at that pinay pek-pek). The problem was that we had the wrong people in the internment camp. Historically, while the Japanese-Americans spoke Japanese or looked Japanese (their own fault, ya know), they were more supportive of the US efforts.

The German-Americans, on the other hand, should have been locked up. They were openly supportive of Nazi Germany, pre-WWII, during WWII and post-WWII. And yet, they weren’t as big a threat.

Must have been that killing Jews thing that the US somewhat agreed with that let the Germans continue to walk freely.

As for the current war – here’s a simple solution. Just wall in Dearborn, Michigan. There you go. Problem solved.

August 6, 2004 @ 8:50 am | Comment

“it is impossible to argue that there is no threat. One may say a number of things about it, but arguing that it is a figment of a racist imagination is to ignore the facts.

How would you propose combatting this?”

Well-spoken, Earl. I have yet to hear a good answer to this.

August 6, 2004 @ 8:51 am | Comment

Still, I’ll pass on being placed in an internment camp.

Oops! Who suggested that?!

Trust me, you’re not going to convert me (or, I suspect, many of my readers) into into a fan of internment based on race or religion. Sorry. So I suggest you give it up. You may love the idea and have oodles of evidence showing how sublime internment can be

You know, I’ve read his posts three times now, and I just can’t see where that’s what he’s trying to do. What’s so gob-smackingly silly about the counter-argument so far, is that if someone tries to inject some actual history, facts and all, the urge to counter it with breathless hyperbole is irresistible. Cute, but totally ineffective.

August 6, 2004 @ 9:06 am | Comment

I have always wondered, does ms. Malkin ever look into the mirror and realize that she is brown and not white.

Uh, Jing, does skin color and eye shape determine political belief? If so, I guess we can all relax and stop bickering.

I’m Irish and Czech, so lock and load, all you Pinoys, Meskins, and eye-rackies! No use discussing it!

August 6, 2004 @ 9:13 am | Comment

Sam, I said I don’t have a magical solution to end terrorism — no one does, least of all the pro-internment side. I do know, however, that I will never, ever endorse internment based on race or religion. Bob can present all the facts he wants; I’ve also seen the facts over at Volokh and Orcinus and many other sites and they grossly contradict his own. Just because someone rattles off lots of “facts” and statistics doesn’t make them right; far from it.

August 6, 2004 @ 9:35 am | Comment

Germans and Italians were interned alongside Japanese. How can that be based on race?

As for the evacuation, were Chinese, Koreans and Filipinos evacuated?

You’d provide a better argument using National Origin rather than race.

P.S. The evacuation was based on Japan waging war on the United States….

“It is said that we are dealing with the case of imprisonment of a citizen in a concentration camp soley because of his ancestory, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States. Our task would be simple, our duty clear, were this a case involving the imprisonment of a loyal citizen in a concentration camp because of racial prejudice.

Regardless of the true nature of the assembly and relocation centers – AND WE DEEM IT UNJUSTIFIABLE TO CALL THEM CONCENTRATION CAMPS WITH ALL THE UGLY CONNOTATIONS THAT TERM IMPLIES – we are dealing with nothing but an exclusion order. To cast this case in outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to the real military dangers which were presented, merely confuses the issue. KOREMATSU WAS NOT EXCLUDED FROM THE MILITARY AREA BECAUSE OF HIS RACE. HE WAS EXCLUDED BECAUSE WE ARE AT WAR WITH THE JAPANESE EMPIRE.”

Supreme Court Decision, Korematsu vs. USA
(323 US 214-248) October 1944

P.S. All the wartime Supreme Court decisions stand to this very day…

August 6, 2004 @ 9:55 am | Comment

Has anybody read the book Snow Falling on Cedars? It’s a beautiful book, and offers a very sad and touching portrait of the West Coast internment of the Japanese. What a bleak moment in our great nation’s history.

August 6, 2004 @ 10:10 am | Comment

It’s also a book of FICTION.

August 6, 2004 @ 10:32 am | Comment

“Has anybody read the book Snow Falling on Cedars? It’s a beautiful book, and offers a very sad and touching …”

Read the book. saw the movie. Live in China, see worse everyday. Sympathize. Bleak indeed. Ho-hum.

“I said I don’t have a magical solution to end terrorism — no one does, least of all the pro-internment side.”

Fine. Give one or two alternatives! It’s easy and cheap to pot-shot at the current boss, because he’s visible and easily opposable. But that’s the low-hanging polemic. Easy to pick, cheap and rotten.

Otherwise, this is just another ABB argument. “I don’t care if I don’t have any viable suggestions: I am against Bush, who is a priori evil, therefore I am right.”

August 6, 2004 @ 10:49 am | Comment

Sam, you are a piece of work. Did bush ever suggest internment? If so, I never heard a word about it. I’m against the internment of people of specific races for many reasons, and they have nothing to do with bush. For you to say that you’ve seen worse in China is telling. Did you forget, we livein America, where people go to escape the miserable lives they endured elsewhere? Where it’s not supposed to be at all like that? Where you aren’t supposed to be put in camps behind barbed wire with machine-gun watch towers??

I can take as many pot shots at bush as I’d like. That’s part of being president; you get watched and criticized. Sorry you don’t like it. If these things are so important to you, why aren’t you posting about them on your own blog instead of spending so much time here? I’m flattered, but you know where I stand and I know where you stand and we’re never going to see eye to eye.

August 6, 2004 @ 11:04 am | Comment

It’s also a book of FICTION.

Just like Malkin’s.

August 6, 2004 @ 11:05 am | Comment

So I repeat: Suggest some alternatives. Anybody can criticize the boss. I do it too. But anybody can be “ABB”. Here’s an example:

$10.00 an hour is a terrible wage: I should be making more!

Fine. How?

August 6, 2004 @ 11:45 am | Comment

An alternative to internment? Are you crazy? Everything’s a better alternative to internment. There is no argument — internment will demolish anything left of America’s reputation and exacerbate racial tensions and fears everywhere. I have never heard a single member of government seriously suggest racial internment because it’s so fucking crazy. You’re talking as though it’s a serious suggestion and not a delusional fantasy of an emotionally disturbed right-wing Philippine exhibitionist. It’s not an issue that’s on the table, there is no proposed legislation mandating it — so why on earth should I have to come up with alternatives? As I said, everything’s better, aside from legislating random murder of Moslems, not matter how much Charles Johnson would love to see it.

August 6, 2004 @ 11:56 am | Comment

An alternative to internment? Are you crazy? Everything’s a better alternative to internment

So that’s the platform? “Everything”? I hate to predict elections, but I think the Dems are going to give this one away, because they have nothing to replace the current admin with but “Anybody but Bush” or “Any policy but the Republicans'”

I really think the Donks had some grand chances to get a leg up. Everything from faulty intelligence to over-spending. Instead, they’ve squandered their opportunities by wasting their energies on being “anti-“. What’s Kerry’s plan?

August 6, 2004 @ 12:10 pm | Comment

P.S. Who the hell is Charles Johnson?

August 6, 2004 @ 12:12 pm | Comment

He runs Little Green Footballs

August 6, 2004 @ 12:14 pm | Comment

Kerry has laid out his plans in a book. Have you read it?

Actually, his plan against terrorism is quite similar to bush’s. There’s no magic answer. It will take time, intelligence and cooperation with our allies.

I am more interested in getting bush out than Kerry in, and I’ve never said otherwise. And that’s completely legitimate, even though you may not agree.

August 6, 2004 @ 12:18 pm | Comment

A quick note: I’ve been having some problems with a couple people spamming my comments today. If you want to argue in favor of rounding people up and putting them behind barbed-wire-enclosed camps solely becuase they belong to a certain ethnicity or religion it is your freedom to do so. I don’t have to host your viewpoints on my site. It’s wonderful to live in a free country where you can set up your own blog anytime and advocate just about any crackpot, sickening idea you’d like. Thanks for your understanding.

August 6, 2004 @ 1:19 pm | Comment

I haven’t read the other blogs or the book but internment does work IF it is targeted.

Mass internment is daft and actually causes ordinary people to drift over to extremist ideas (see the middle east) when they wouldn’t otherwise have done, screening is the key.

Rosovelt did the only thing that he knew and probably saved a few people from being beaten by angry mobs, but he left the policy unchanged and didn’t screen out patriots and bystanders.

In the modern age though we have to be more carefull as untargeted internment will turn moderates into extremists and will be used to raise hatred, “look at those brutal Americans, they speak oabout freedom but lock up women and children”.

There are no easy anwers, and we must sometimes compromise our value of liberty to a few in order to protect the mass, but we shouldn’t go too far.

August 6, 2004 @ 8:38 pm | Comment

It’s still a very tricky business. Hitler really believed the Jews were a threat — he really believed they were a “bacillus” that threatened to infect and undermine good Aryan society. He was at least sincere about this one thing. But this sincerity led to catastrophe. So deciding who is a true threat can be really tricky. What are our parameters? Is it constitutional? I’m sorry, I am terribly uncomfortable with this, especially as a member of a couple of minority groups, both traditionally oppressed throughout history. In the eyes of Rick Santorum, I consititute a real threat. A dire threat. First we inter Moslems. Then….? No, I’ll never buy it.

August 6, 2004 @ 8:51 pm | Comment

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