Total lack of historical knowledge, anyone?
Radical Islam, sometimes accurately called Islamo-fascism, has all the “advantages” the Nazis had in Germany in the 1930s. The Islamo-fascists find a Muslim population adrift, confused and humiliated by the dominance of foreign nations and cultures. They find a large, youthful population increasingly disdainful of their parents’ passive habits.
Just as the Nazis reached back to German mythology and the supposed Aryan origins of the German people, the radical Islamists reach back to the founding ideas and myths of their religious culture. And just like the Nazis, they claim to speak for authentic traditions while actually advancing expedient and radical innovations.
Now, wait a minute — weren’t the Nazis appealing to a sense of supposed tradition and rightful ownership of Germany, that Jewish and other non-Aryans couldn’t possibly have had? As far as I know, Nazis weren’t an immigrant group, they were quite the opposite. So… wouldn’t it follow that an immigrant group couldn’t really pull that card outside of their own country?
Well, we’ll just ignore that little problem and move right along, because, Nazis or not, these Muslims are really becoming an issue. Luckily, Tony Blankley has a solution : That’s right, it’s another WWII!
World War II was good, despite the millions of deaths, the limitations on daily lives, the encroachment on peacetime liberties and the arduousness of wartime life. The war was good because the sacrifice was for a noble cause, for the perpetuation of America and the American way of life.
The struggle against Islamist terrorism is an equally good war — and for the same reasons. We have just as great a responsibility to win our struggle against insurgent Islamist aggression as our parents and grandparents had to win World War II.
Wait a minute… how was WWII about America and the American way of life? I mean, sure, it involved America — let’s be honest, we were a pretty key player in the whole thing. But summing up the war as “about America” is a little short-sighted, no?
So how do we start this war on brown people?
Just as their generals and admirals made no compromise to the imperative of total victory on the battlefield, so British and American political leaders, courts and popular opinion let the requirements for victory define the powers of their government on the home front.
Prior to America’s entry into the war, Congress passed laws that, collectively, authorized President Franklin D. Roosevelt to instruct the FBI to investigate suspected subversive activity.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, the Smith Act of 1940 and the Voorhis Act of 1941 were the grounds for Roosevelt’s wartime domestic surveillance of American citizens whose political activity might lead them to serve the interests of opposing nations.
And we all know what comes after that:
During World War II, the country was faced with the prospect of large numbers of people — again identifiable by ethnicity, not conduct — who were real or potential enemies.
The logic of the Supreme Court’s opinion is applicable to the situation we face today. The court held that people ethnically connected to the war-makers are more likely to support them than are others — and our country at war has a right to protect itself from this presumed higher risk of danger.
This is true regardless of the personal innocence of particular individuals. The term we would use today is “ethnic profiling,” and 200 years of American law and practice during wartime permits ethnic profiling for the common defense.
Forget that the Supreme Court opinion mentioned has been re-visted and deemed a big huge awful mistake. Forget that a former president made a formal and financial apology to the people affected by that big huge awful mistake. Let’s just jail the brown people.
And heck, while we’re at it, let’s stick liberals in there, too:
But back then, as now, we were a nation of newly arrived immigrants, threatened from abroad and bombarded with destructive ideologies. Then, it was communism and fascism. Today, it is multiculturalism, political correctness and, among the Muslim population, radical Islam.
Multiculturalism and political correctness are destructive forces on par with communism and fascism? Ok, I can see that. Like when I say, “You know, Tony, it’s a little politically incorrect to assert that all Arabs should be indefinitely detained because of their ethnicity,” that’s a danger akin to Stalin’s Soviet rule. Because hoping that people won’t be racist is as bad as authoritarian governments that kill tens of thousands of people and forcibly re-settled and detained millions. At least they got the forced detention thing right, eh Tony?