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I think my soul just died a little bit

Jill

After reading this.

Now, we all know that Pamela of Atlas Shrugged isn’t exactly a shining star of reason, intelligence or humanity, but good God — did the woman really just defend Japanese internment and suggest that Muslims should be next?

Why is CAIR making pilgrimages to internment camps? WTF? What do they know that we don’t know? All this hand wringing about intermenny camps. A country does what it has to do to survive when it is under existential threat. The Japanese wanted to take out America, America took no chances. The left cannot bear the thought of America defending herself. Every savage in the world? No apology necessary. Full benefit of the doubt and then some. America? Off with her head!

But what’s this bullshit CAIR is pulling down? Do you suppose that after Islamic jihad drops the big one or the giant war starts that the rubber-band is going to boing in America and intern camps might be considered? Think CAIR knows this and is attempting pre-emption (something they deny America.)

Um.

She goes on to refer to FDR’s Executive Order 9066, which called for the internment of Japanese Americans, as “smart.” When the article she quotes points out that of the 120,000 Japanese Americans interned during WWII a grand total of zero were ever charged with espionage or sabotage, Pamela opines that, “Perhaps the internment camps were an effective deterrent.”

Who needs evidence when we can just make wild and ridiculous statements in favor of locking people up based on their ethnicity or religion?

Just go read her post. I can’t do it justice.

I understand that Pamela has an unbridled, foaming-at-the-mouth hatred of brown people, and particularly of Muslims. That isn’t exactly unheard of in conservative circles, and has pretty much been a staple of right-wing movements for the past few decades. But we did the internment thing — in hindsight, it was a huge fuck-up. And, as a general rule, when you hugely fuck up, you don’t propose doing the exact same thing two generations later.

Unless you’re a blithering borderline-fascist racist ass. Which Pamela is.

Of course, it’s not like this is her original idea — conservatives have had the internment corner staked out for a few years now. But this can’t possibly be the mainstream conservative view, right? I mean, it’s not like people who espouse these ideas are embraced by the right-wing media machine, right? It’s not like they run some of the most popular conservative blogs on the internet, right?

…right.

I’d like to see conservatives do what they always demand moderate Muslims do: Distance yourself from the extremists. Michelle and Pamela are suggesting that we intern people based on their nationality and/or religious beliefs. And all I hear from conservatives is, well, crickets.

Thanks to Auguste for the link.

57 thoughts on I think my soul just died a little bit

  2. I never understand why people think that internment (then or now) was a good idea.

    All it did was destroy the lives of hard working Americans, who happened to be of Japanese descent.

    I am from the Central Valley of California and I think about how my life would have different had internment never happened, how different my friend’s life would be if her mother hadn’t been interned.

    I have seen the harm internment did to families and individuals on a personal level.

    It is soul killing to consider how much harm we have done as a country and continue to do because we fail to embody the promises of liberty and equality we espouse as our values.

    People like Pamela and Malkin make me ashamed to be from the United States.

  3. Read David Niewert’s Strawberry Days. It’s a wonderful book about one particular Japanese community in Washington State. I’ve been using it in my race and ethnicity classes for the past couple years as well.

  4. I don’t think it’s mainstream conservative thought that internment was a good idea. I do think that it’s mainstream conservative thought that it’s easy to understand why it happened and not judge it too harshly.

  5. I don’t think it’s mainstream conservative thought that internment was a good idea. I do think that it’s mainstream conservative thought that it’s easy to understand why it happened and not judge it too harshly.

    I’d think that mainstream conservative thought would frown on taking people’s private property away from them without compensation, but I guess that’s not nearly as problematic when it happens to people who aren’t white, huh?

  6. Based on their extensive record of terrorism and support of terrorism, I propose we intern all pro-lifers.

  7. A country does what it has to do to survive when it is under existential threat. The Japanese wanted to take out America, America took no chances.

    Of course! And Germany was only protecting it’s people from the Jewish Conspiracy! Those Jews had already cost Germany the first World War, and they weren’t gonna take any more chances!

    (Sorry for breaking Godwin’s Law here, but since we’re talking about WWII, I think it’s applicable.)

  8. Just drove by Manzanar last summer, plenty of room left, there still.

    How bout it Pamela, down for being locked away and having everything you own stolen from you while your son fights in the front lines against the enemy your country is associating you with?

    It is in a beautiful part of California.

  9. It’s really hard to be a brown Muslim and know that these people hate you, personally, for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

    I just want to look them in the eye and ask, “Why do you think that I am a threat to anyone? I’m more peaceful than you.”

  10. Pamela Geller Oshry is a disgrace, but a disgrace with a large readership and connections in high places. She got a one-on-one interview with John Bolton last summer, when Bolton should have been occupied with more pressing things like…oh, I don’t know..the Israel-Lebanon War, the Iraq War, Darfur…….

    It’s too bad “fascist” has become used so much and so incorrectly that it no longer has the sting it once had. For lack of a replacement term, Oshry is a fascist.

  11. This thread makes me want to quote Office Space, so I will

    Samir: No one in this country can ever pronounce my name right. It’s not that hard: Samir Na-gheen-an-a-jar. Nagheenanajar.
    Michael Bolton: Yeah, well at least your name isn’t Michael Bolton.
    Samir: You know there’s nothing wrong with that name.
    Michael Bolton: There was nothing wrong with it… until I was about 12 years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
    Samir: Hmm… well why don’t you just go by Mike instead of Michael?
    Michael Bolton: No way. Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks.

    Look people, mainstream conservatives don’t go around refuting the rants of Michelle and Pamela because frankly we don’t care what they have to say, and neither should you. Internment camps? Give me a break. If you want to know about conservative thought read about Edmund Burke, who was laying the foundations for Conservatism in the mid 1700’s, not the inflammatory blogs of some extremist hate mongers who have managed to sell a few books and attract an audience in our drama addicted society. It really brings you down when you let them get you all riled up, grow some thicker skin.

    I’d think that mainstream conservative thought would frown on taking people’s private property away from them without compensation, but I guess that’s not nearly as problematic when it happens to people who aren’t white, huh?

    Come on, implying that all conservatives are racist? ¿Are you serious?

    For all these shoddy depictions of cold hearted, uncaring conservatives I see very little actual data to support the idea. Quite the contrary (with commentary here). So the The liberals may sit down and stop squawking about “caring”; at least until their arms grow longer and their hearts match their rhetoric. Wanna make broad generalizations? Heres one for you, the typical American liberal doesn’t care about anyone but themselves, they just think someone else should. Bravo.

  12. If “extremist hatemonger” right wing bloggers have no impact, why is Michelle Malkin on Fox News?

  13. Hokay mister (or ms.) conservative, Edmund Burke has been dead for, oh, 210 years, so i don’t think he’s really quite as relevant to modern conservatism as, you know, modern conservatives.

    And despite what you say, the modern conservative movement embraces the likes of Malkin, as evidenced by her multiple appearances on FOX News. We care what they say because they have a tremendous amount of influence on our discourse. When they are truly marginalized–something that can’t happen as long as the conservative movement either renounces them or at least shuns them–we cannot afford to ignore them.

  14. iConservative, I hear what you’re saying and I appreciate that you don’t support Malkin et al, but the fact is that Malkin’s blog has the second highest popularity in the blogosphere — right after Instapundit, who isn’t much better than she is. Atlas Shrugs is also very popular — as a previous commenter pointed out, she got an exclusive interview with John Bolton. Malkin is a regular commentator on Fox News, a widely syndicated columnist, and a celebrity in conservative circles.

    So whether or not you agree with them, they fact is that they are embraced by mainstream conservatives and the Republican machine. Do average Republican-voting Americans fall in line with Pamela and Michelle? I doubt it. But they’re still people with notable access to power, and they’re still the voice of conservative America. And other media conservatives are backing them up. That’s a huge problem.

  15. I agree with what Jill and others just touched on. I know many conservatives who are appalled by the likes of Malkin and Coulter. They literally cringe when those names are even mentioned.

    However, it is a sad commentary on the conservative movement when the most notable proponents of it are in fact the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters.

    I don’t think you can name me one current conservative political leader or serious thinker that has wide-ranging name recognition or an ability to speak for the movement. This was evidenced last night during the Republican debates when all the candidates vied pathetically for the title as the new Ronald Reagan.

    Reagan is dead, Burke is dead, Goldwater is dead, Bush is not the conservative leader you all thought he would be. You have no true conservative leaders, all you have are the Ann Coulters. Instead of trying to raise the dead, so to speak, why not trying moving forward?

    While liberals may need to grow a “thicker skin,” you guys need to come up with some credible people if you don’t want to continuously be tied to the racist corrupt pigs that currently dominate your party/movement.

  16. Bugger. What i meant was…

    When they are truly marginalized–something that can’t happen until the conservative movement either renounces them or at least shuns them–we cannot afford to ignore them.

    I shouldn’t comment past 10:00 PM.

  17. I don’t think you can name me one current conservative political leader or serious thinker that has wide-ranging name recognition or an ability to speak for the movement. This was evidenced last night during the Republican debates when all the candidates vied pathetically for the title as the new Ronald Reagan.

    You don’t need to limit yourself to one when they all spout the same talking points, just tailored for their particular persona they’re selling.

  19. Look people, mainstream conservatives don’t go around refuting the rants of Michelle and Pamela because frankly we don’t care what they have to say, and neither should you.

    And yet these are your spokespeople, which is why they keep turning up on CNN and MSNBC and Fox News. They are your public representatives. As far as most Americans are concerned, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh represent modern American conservatism.

    Come on, implying that all conservatives are racist? ¿Are you serious?

    When you have mainstream conservatives talking about how internment was perfectly fine, even though they know that American citizens had their private property stolen from them as they were locked up in armed camps by the federal government, one can’t help but wonder why they’re excusing actions that would have them up in arms if those actions were taken against their own families.

    I thought that the right to private property was one of the founding principles of American conservatism … unless you’re Japanese-American, of course, or now Muslim-American. Then you can take their property away and lock them up without due process whenever you want and it’s perfectly fine.

  20. That woman and her following are still around? Jesus, what does they think the last line of the national anthem is, anyway? “Land of the jailed and home of the scared?” These people are such sissy cowards, it’s unbelievable.

  22. If you want to know about conservative thought read about Edmund Burke, who was laying the foundations for Conservatism in the mid 1700’s, not the inflammatory blogs of some extremist hate mongers who have managed to sell a few books and attract an audience in our drama addicted society.

    Shorter lConservativel: “The only good conservative is a dead conservative.”

  23. And according to our friend’s logic, the only really good kind of conservative is someone who’s been dead for centuries. That way they’re virtually irrelevant and thus difficult to criticise (anything to take the heat off the shining spokespeople for the modern conservative movement. If this lot don’t represent your values, shouldn’t you guys consider repudiating them?).

    Reagan is jello pudding. Burke is triple chocolate mousse with whipped cream and fresh strawberries. As to what dessert the above analogy would make Limbaugh or Coulter, I will leave that to your imagination.

  24. The title of that blog is enough to make me avoid it. Fuck Ayn Rand.

    Word. Gotta love a blog named after a rape apologist.

  25. Yes, let’s lock everyone up! No one will ever, ever hurt us again if we do that!

    I think this ties into a post Glenn Greenwald wrote over at Salon entitled “The right’s explicit and candid rejection of ‘the rule of law.'” Basically, you have political thinkers (as in Harvard professors) proclaiming that the president is above the law. It reads like a bizarre homage to the divinity of kings/presidents. Nevermind that it contradicts the principles of the founders, who, I’m fairly sure, rejected the idea of a monarchy (Hamilton not withstanding). Sigh. I’m not usually prone to mope over politics or the state of the world, but that post did it for me.

    p.s. I’m still trying to figure out who I write to to complain about Guantanamo, besides “the commander guy” (suggestions welcome).

  28. “I don’t think it’s mainstream conservative thought that internment was a good idea. I do think that it’s mainstream conservative thought that it’s easy to understand why it happened and not judge it too harshly.”
    Henry, you’re in the military, right? You do know that hundreds of Japanese-American men served honorably in the military and their families still got locked up and treated like garbage?

  29. And why weren’t all Italian-Americans and German-Americans (as well as Americans of other Axis-allied European countries) also locked up? I do realize that some were, but certainly not in the numbers that Japanese-Americans were. I would have been interned, because I am Japanese-American, even though I have never been to Japan and don’t speak Japanese.
    The real lesson is that in the eyes of these people, if you look like a foreigner you always will be a foreigner, no matter what.

  30. exangelena, I had a book as a kid about WWII and the internment – I think it was called “The Moon Bridge,” set in California and told by a girl whose friend was locked up. And at one point the girl’s teacher makes the same point you did – kids are getting all pro-war and anti-Japanese in the classroom, and the teacher goes “So-and-so’s German, such-and-such is Italian, should we send their families away too?” Looking back it’s unrealistic, but it was cool to read.

  32. Henry, you’re in the military, right? You do know that hundreds of Japanese-American men served honorably in the military and their families still got locked up and treated like garbage?

    Yes, I’m aware. Again, I didn’t say that in hindsight it was a good idea. What I said was that it was easy to understand why it happened, and it’s a little arrogant to second-guess the people who were there. Pearl Harbor caught us off guard and completely unprepared, and people were frightened. There was actually legitimate concern of the Japanese invading the west coast. We have this air of invincibility now that we didn’t have then, so in people’s minds it was conceivable we could lose to the Japanese. And to top that all off, we were intercepting a lot of communications indicating that the Japanese had an extensive espionage and sabotage network operating in Hawaii and the west coast. Fear is a powerful motivator, especially when it’s justified.

    Add to all of this the fact that it was a different time then, when Americans (or anyone else, for that matter) weren’t nearly as concerned with cultural sensitivity. It’s easy to judge people who came before you by standards you’ve been raised your whole life with.

  33. Close your eyes for one minute if you will, and imagine that the members of the Neo-Nazi groups or the KKK had brown skin and nothing changed in their hate rhetoric but switching the pronoun “white” to “brown skinned” and where reference to brown skinned people (and related epithets) changed to ‘white people’ and related epithets.

    Think the wingers would rally around their freedom of speech? How long ya think it would take for them to be rounded up and shipped off to who know’s where?

    Ideas?

  34. What I said was that it was easy to understand why it happened, and it’s a little arrogant to second-guess the people who were there.

    It happened because of racism. People were irrationally afraid of Japanese-Americans because of racism. Nothing has changed.

  35. Whenever anyone tries to justify the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II, I ask them why similar measures weren’t taken in Hawaii, which 1) had, by proportion, many more residents with Japanese ethnic roots and 2) was subjected to an actual attack.

    Of course any person with common sense knows the answer. Due to their numbers, Japanese-Americans in Hawaii had enough political clout to refuse to allow themselves to be mistreated.

  36. So she’s combined Malkin and Coulter’s schtick into a moronic whole. someone hit the wingnuts, they’re skipping.

    Pearl Harbor caught us off guard and completely unprepared

    Only if “off guard” and “completely unprepared” are some crazy japanese words for “we’d been selling them arms for the past decade, and their rather obvious expansion efforts kinda required them to at some point expand their currently ongoing war to include us, and they struck the big fucking military base we’d need to fight a war in the pacific and where we were currently keeping an extremely large naval force.”

    I suppose what you mean is “The people back home didn’t understand what our government were doing, and they were all racists, ergo and in that cultural context, the internment camps seemed like a reasonable thing at the time.”

    Which is fine and dandy, until you extend that logic to it’s inevitable godwin’s law breaking conclusion of saying:
    “The good people of germany really did think that the jews really were all pedophiles and sluts who really were responsible for everything that had gone wrong with germany, ergo and in that cultural context, the concentration camps and ghettos and nuremburg laws and krystal nacht seemed like reasonable things at the time.”

    Which of course is undeniably perfectly true. The trouble is that “reasonable” or “understandable” – when you’ve expressly constructed a moral and ethical framework in which anything that emerges from socialally normative racism, hatred and ignorance is, because it’s socially normative, “reasonable” – isn’t the same thign as “good” or “right” or “something we should look on with anything other than shame and remorse”.

    And the further difficulty is that, no matter your intentions (which no one cares about btw), constructing such an ethical construction so that you can point out how the internment camps, or the contration camps or gitmo or the illegal internment and harassment of illegal immigrants, was somehow perfectly acceptable given that the americans or germans or whoever of that particular time period were all stupid bigots with no moral fibre, will always, under all circumstances, sound suspiciously like a huge apologetic for what you’re talking about.

    FYI.

    When you have mainstream conservatives talking about how internment was perfectly fine, even though they know that American citizens had their private property stolen from them as they were locked up in armed camps by the federal government, one can’t help but wonder why they’re excusing actions that would have them up in arms if those actions were taken against their own families.

    Well waht’s more interesting is that the government is resurrecting the internment camps for illegal immigrants, and has been siezing property and splitting up families and expressly targeting christian minorities for such harassment and abuse, for the past couple of years and all those conservatives appear to be quite remarkably ignorant of such things, if their silence is anything other than explict/tacit acceptance and agreement that the government has the right to abuse power it doesn’t legally have and do everything that was done in the internment camps (and torture and murder people as well) to modern day hard working christians (who happen to be immigrants, or who happen to be muslims or who happen to be liberals).

    Which is impressive for a bunch of people who thin that they’ll all take up arms should the government ever over step it’s boundaries, because it makes one wonder where exactly those boundaries are, from the conservative point of view?

    Or maybe it’s more a question of who exactly they have to come for because they’ll break their vow of silence.

  37. “Add to all of this the fact that it was a different time then, when Americans (or anyone else, for that matter) weren’t nearly as concerned with cultural sensitivity. It’s easy to judge people who came before you by standards you’ve been raised your whole life with.”
    I know, personally, dozens of relatives who were interned during the war and they certainly didn’t think it was justified at all. Many of them were property owners who never recovered financially from being carted off and locked up for several years and of course their lives were affected by the fact that most Americans hated them because of their race.
    It’s not called a lack of cultural sensitivity. It’s called racism. I think I have every right to judge harshly racists who would probably want to beat me up or even kill me, and certainly would be happy to take away my civil rights.

  38. Only if “off guard” and “completely unprepared” are some crazy japanese words for “we’d been selling them arms for the past decade, and their rather obvious expansion efforts kinda required them to at some point expand their currently ongoing war to include us, and they struck the big fucking military base we’d need to fight a war in the pacific and where we were currently keeping an extremely large naval force.”

    By “completely unprepared” I mean the US was unprepared to fight a major war. That’s all, and it is correct.

    Which of course is undeniably perfectly true. The trouble is that “reasonable” or “understandable” – when you’ve expressly constructed a moral and ethical framework in which anything that emerges from socialally normative racism, hatred and ignorance is, because it’s socially normative, “reasonable” – isn’t the same thign as “good” or “right” or “something we should look on with anything other than shame and remorse”.

    You act like racism is some new, American invention. Up until very recently, racism, in some form or another, was the natural order of things, just about everywhere, in every culture. It’s only recently civilization has decided that racial predujice is a moral evil.

    Which is fine and dandy, until you extend that logic to it’s inevitable godwin’s law breaking conclusion of saying:
    “The good people of germany really did think that the jews really were all pedophiles and sluts who really were responsible for everything that had gone wrong with germany, ergo and in that cultural context, the concentration camps and ghettos and nuremburg laws and krystal nacht seemed like reasonable things at the time.”

    Statements like this is why Godwin’s Law exists. As awful and distasteful as the interment was, there’s no comparison to what happened in Germany. There were no death camps for Japanese, or Germans, or Italians, and no one suggested them. The outrage meter doesn’t always have to be turned up to 11.

    I’m not apologizing for the interment, since the government’s already done that, with money even. I’m also not suggesting we start rounding up Muslims and put them in camps. I’m just saying it’s very easy to feel morally superior when you have the distance of history and years of social evolution to insulate you from the situation at the time. To assume you’re better than all those people without having to experience what they went through is childish.

  39. We are required to be non-judgmental about other cultures, those existing today. Say that’s “horizontal” non-judgmentalism. How about “vertical” non-judgmentalism. Seems to me that the first requires the second. If we are not allowed to judge some cultural practice someplace in the world, we ought not be allowed to judge some cultural practice which once existed. Both or neither. I’m in favor of judgmentalism on both axes.

    Having said that, see Steinbeck’s “The Moon Is Down”, a short novel written during WW II which presumed the Japanese won. Or Benet’s “Judgment of the Mountains”, which presumed the Germans won. In either case, we were occupied.
    Not having won WW II at the time, there was no guarantee we were going to win WW II.
    People were scared.
    The Spanish Civil War, and certain parts of the pre-war German aggression against their neighbors took advantage of Fifth Columns, some ethnically distinct from their more numerous neighbors.
    We should not have interned the Japanese Americans. But we, today, ought to be a little humble about judging those who did.

    Also, claiming the internment was doubly unjustified because the Japanese Americans did nothing wrong is a problem. Say it three times fast and you will begin to sound as if internment would be okay if there had been violence, sabotage and espionage committed by members of their community. If that matters, then its reverse would matter.
    And we already have violence committed by American Muslims. So perhaps we should go a little easy on the JA internment and “they never did anything.” Because the logical reverse is, if the do do something….

  41. We are required to be non-judgmental about other cultures, those existing today.

    If you can point me to where anyone ever said that, the rest of your comment will make sense. That certainly isn’t my view.

  42. Um, some of you people do know that Japanese-Americans read this board? I know real people who had their lives completely derailed by the internment and who had to struggle (and still do) with the hatred and racism poured on them after the war. But I guess that we have to have sympathy, understanding and humility towards racists who hated us and wanted to take our civil rights away. (BTW anti-Japanese sentiment did not materialize overnight, it had been around a long time even when Japan was friendly to the US.) The racists are the real victims.

    zuzu, MAJeff, Mnemosyne, prairielily, Tony, Nomie, Sniper, Bitter Scribe, R. Mildred, Jill and anyone else I may have missed – Thank you 🙂

  43. Jill. Try making a negative comment about some culture other than ours. I leave out the French eating snails. I once was discussing the forced marriage of prepubescent girls in, of all places, Latin America, on a liberal but not feminist board. I was against it. Nope. Not my business. Who am I to judge? Let them alone. Girls there mature earlier. How do I know the girls really are having to be forced? If it hadn’t been for the overall tone of the board, the people giving me a hard time would have been thought to be misogynistic Victorian pseudo-anthropologists. It gets to that, if you have a position to defend.

    The western concern about FGM is laudable, but I do recall a couple of decades ago when people said, uncomfortably, things like who are we to judge and after all, we have lynchings, and we just don’t know….

    Don’t pretend cultural relativism is a fiction. My point is that whatever one does in support of cultural relativism about other cultures today ought by the same logic apply to earlier cultures. Both or neither.

    So, if one is going to give the US ca 1942 a hard time about internment of JA people, there are current issues which are worse and, as it happens, getting too little attention.

  44. Girls there mature earlier. How do I know the girls really are having to be forced?

    Oh, HEY, Richard! Nice threatening email you sent me the other day.

    A copy has been forwarded to your place of employment. Maybe next time don’t send death threats from work?

    Have a nice weekend!

  45. Richard, this is a post about internment camp apologists, not FGM. Try not to completely derail the thread all at once. We are perfectly capable of criticizing the ridiculous, appalling, and racist things perpetrated by the U.S. and by other nations. Not mutually exclusive past times, I assure you.

    It’s just that at the moment, we’re talking about the level of insanity required to defend internment.

    P.S. I am reminded of the kinds of comments people are inclined to make about whites and slavery in the antebellum south. The “Oh, well, some people objected to slavery, but everyone was racist back then,” line suffers from the same problem that I’m seeing in the internment defense. It assumes that everyone relevant is white and that their views are the ones that count. I am very confident that people who were enslaved or interned (not attempting to compare the two, mind you) objected mightily. Their views just didn’t count.

  46. Bye, Richard. You’ve been banned once already, you’re out again. Particularly if you’re sending death threats to ilyka.

  47. And to top that all off, we were intercepting a lot of communications indicating that the Japanese had an extensive espionage and sabotage network operating in Hawaii and the west coast.

    Er, but we weren’t. Didn’t happen. There’s about one person who says that there’s evidence of that, and that’s the only person Michelle Malkin talked to when she wrote her book.

    Most actual scholars say that the evidence of “extensive” networks was completely trumped up to justify the internments, which were primarily pushed by West Coast politicians.

    Pearl Harbor caught us off guard and completely unprepared, and people were frightened.

    It may have caught the general public off guard, but it sure as hell didn’t catch the US government off guard. The government had been preparing for war and quietly arming our allies (including England and China) for years before Pearl Harbor.

    In other words, the US government let themselves be swayed by public sentiment even though they knew it was all bullshit and there was little to no danger from Japanese-Americans, especially those who were born here.

    Yeah, that’s something to be proud of. Pardon us if we’re trying to prevent our government from making the same mistake twice. Those who don’t learn from history etc.

  48. evil fizz – thank you 🙂
    I think that we can definitely see the logic behind those actions (slavery and internment), because they occurred in times where racism was much more socially acceptable and legally sanctioned than it is now, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t call it BS.

  49. Jill and all, yes, you are right. I don’t have any modern conservative role models. I just get upset seeing the only attention conservative ideas get be related to people like Malkin (not even the worst of them). I’d post more on this but it’s a little off topic at this point.

    So yah, internment camps are a bad, k, seems like everyone here is in agreement on that at least.

  50. I suppose I can see the argument for not being too harsh on the U.S. circa the 1940s. I don’t necessarily agree, but I can kind of understand it.

    But that’s not the point. The point is that we have somebody saying that the internment camps were a great idea as of two days ago and pretty heavily implying that we should set them up for Muslims when another attack happens. Which… is CRAZYPANTS.

  51. Again, the question of why German and Italian-Americans on the East Coast weren’t interned must be raised. Because if you ask your older East Coast relatives about the war, they’ll tell you that there were nightly blackouts and watches, that German U-boats were patrolling off the coast of New Jersey, etc. etc.

    The most retribution against Germans I ever heard about was the kicking of dachshunds for being a German breed (though not German shepherds — weiner dogs being a lot less likely to kick back) and the changing of the pronunciations of certain towns named after German cities. Such as Berlin, CT, which went from being Ber-LIN to BER-lin. And, IIRC, that was during WWII.

    You’d think, after all, that white German-Americans would make better spies, being able to blend in and all, than Japanese-Americans (or even Italian-Americans, since they were pretty suspect back then). So the whole “spy” justification fails.

  52. The most retribution against Germans I ever heard about was the kicking of dachshunds for being a German breed

    Oh, there was quite a lot of retribution against Germans. It’s plain they were not interned because they were white, but there was plenty of hostility and vigilantism directed towards German-Americans.

    Pamela’s probably just thinking that if it worked for Malkin, it might work for her. She hasn’t grasped that the novelty of “but she’s Asian too!” (since wingnuts are clueless about the fact that ‘Asian’ is not a monolithic lump) is what made Malkin a favored pet.

  53. There were internments of both Germans and Italians, but obviously not anythig approaching the scale with the Japanese. Of course, I’m not trying to say that the non-whiteness of the Japanese wasn’t largely the reason for the added scrutiny. German and Italian communities were likely viewed as more assimilated and therefore less of a threat.

    Incidently, 9 Germans were also tried in miltary court and executed for espionage/sabotage.

  54. When the article she quotes points out that of the 120,000 Japanese Americans interned during WWII a grand total of zero were ever charged with espionage or sabotage, Pamela opines that, “Perhaps the internment camps were an effective deterrent.”

    Ai ai ai. You have to love that circular logic. Apparently the ends DO justify the means, and if a pleasant end occurs, the unpleasant means MUST have been responsible for it.

    Life isn’t that simple. We don’t know what’s to come, and we can’t ward it off with magical thinking, which is what this sort of idea (internment of a race or class) smells like to me. All we can do is hold to high principles in the present, and hope. Scrabbling in our own history for an excuse to act out of fear, ignorance and hatred is really appalling. As if we are under no moral obligation to learn from our mistakes, to improve, to become better and more moral as a nation over time.

  55. Hmm. To quote the fabulous and wonderful Mr Watterson…
    “You mean you can govern with dictatorial impunity?
    Exactly.
    In short, open revolt and exile is the only hope for change?”

    Yeah. Alienating the rational everyday members of a group that already has a violent and antagonistic relationship is not smart. It is more likely to escalate violence than dampen it.
    Anyone who advocates internment for muslim emigres is reallyd amaging their own credibility and smirching their ability to read and comprehend. Sad.

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  57. Henry, the Germans you’re referring to were from Germany, landed here by submarine during the war to spy and commit sabotage. I think you’ll agree that that’s a different case from what we’re discussing here.

    Incidentally, once they were caught, the Germans argued (through their lawyers, of course) that they should be tried by a civilian court, not a military tribunal. The Supreme Court case rejecting that claim, Ex parte Quirin, held that as “unlawful belligerents” they were subject to military jurisdiction and outside the protection of the Sixth Amendment. You guessed it—that’s the precedent Alberto Gonzales & Co. relied on to justify Guantanamo.

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