In Defense of Internment
January 2nd, 2005
Rep. Bob Matsui died last night, and I couldn’t help but take notice of the mentioning of Matsui’s personal history—more specifically, the time he spent in a Japanese internment camp.
In Nancy Pelosi’s statement on Matsui’s death, she said,
“In over 30 years of friendship, I deeply admired Bob’s personal courage. Despite being imprisoned in an internment camp as a very young boy, Bob always had hope in the promise of America — taking from his experience empathy for others, a belief in civil rights, and a passion for excellence which was expressed in his public service. Time after time Bob’s community elected him to serve as their Representative in the U.S. Congress, where he rose to national prominence as a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, a national spokesman for Social Security, and as the first Asian American in the leadership of the Congress. [emphasis added]
Playing right into the misperception of what interment during WWII was like, Pelosi inserted that line about Matsui’s history. I was a bit taken aback by it. Having read Michelle Malkin’s book In Defense of Internment, I couldn’t help but cringe. I won’t personally attempt to explain Malkin’s “defense” of Japanese internment, but I do advise everyone who hasn’t done so yet, to get her book and read it. It is hard to predict what liberals will ultimately do in the wake of Mitsui’s death, but I would not be suprised if internment becomes the issue du jour, and based on Mitsui’s role in passing legislation officially apologizes for the United States’ internment policy during WWII and providing compensation for those who experienced internment.
Read Malkin’s book. There’s a lot more to the story of internment then you might think.
January 3rd, 2005 at 1:16 pm
Who would have thunk it? An obituary to Matsuit would mention internment, given that he spent the first 3 1/2 years of his life in an internment camp, and that he spent a great deal of his life speaking out about it. What will those liberals do next, mention civil rights in an obituary to Martin Luther King, Jr? Oh wait, that’s all true. Damn.
Gee, there are so many misperceptions about internment. If we listened to liberals onlym, people may have the following misperceptions: One would think that loyal citizens who had lived in the United States for several generations were deprived of their liberty for years without any process whatsoever on the basis of their ethnic background alone. . . . One would think that it led to an opinion of the Supreme Court that has been recognized by all legal academics, on the right and left, and all who presently sit on the Supreme Court, as the lowest point in Supreme Court jurisprudence since Plessy and Dred Scott. . . . One would think that Presidents Reagen and Bush personally (note, not with an automatic pen) signed letters of apology to all survivors of the internment camps. . . . One would
January 3rd, 2005 at 3:24 pm
Joe - very good point. Don’t forget to mention that it was a Democrat loaded Supreme Court packed by Roosevelt to approve his “New Deal” legistlation and that the Supreme Court has also decided to ignore the true intention of the 2nd Amendment - which they believe is the ONLY part of the Bill of Rights that does not describe an individual right.
January 3rd, 2005 at 5:30 pm
“Joe - very good point. Don’t forget to mention that it was a Democrat loaded Supreme Court packed by Roosevelt to approve his “New Deal” legistlation and that the Supreme Court has also decided to ignore the true intention of the 2nd Amendment - which they believe is the ONLY part of the Bill of Rights that does not describe an individual right.”
There is no point in mentioning any of that because I do not believe that internment is a partisan issue at all (it’s not like the Republicans were denouncing Roosevelt for doing it). I don’t think there can be ANY doubt that it was wrong — and Michele Malkin’s book has been thouroughly debunked. Moreover, it is obvious that Malkin only wrote that book to stir up controversy to make a name for herself, which it did.
I would say one thing about internment — I do recognize we view it with 20/20 hindsight and while I hope that I would not have supported it then, I am honest enough to admit that I can’t say that for sure.
I don’t want to get into a second amendment debate but let me just say this: I am a centrist democrat, and I generally agree with an individual rights point of view of the Second Amendment. There are, however, many scholars and jurists on both sides of the political spectrum who take the collective rights view. And it is not the only part of the bill of rights that people believe does not confer individual rights — pretty much all agree the 10th Amendment confers rights on states, not individuals, and there are some, most notably on the right, who simply do not believe the 9th Amendment means anything, let alone that it confers any individual rights (See Bork’s famous statement that it was a “inkblot”).
January 3rd, 2005 at 7:42 pm
CON-SERVATIVES IN ACTION
Behold the face of the modern conservative movement.
From Muslim persecutor, Daniel Pipes.
Lets extend Pipes’ logic. If searching for bigots, one looks only at the Reich Whinging Rube population. Hey, maybe he’s on to something.
From Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.
Not surprisingly, the Reich Whingers, who issued a fatwa against James Wolcott a few months ago for making a sarcastic comment about cheering for the hurricanes that hit Florida, have suddenly gone silent when it comes to this bit of cheerleading for death by natural phenomenon. If for no other reason that they can’t kill the darkies themselves.
And finally, from the small dead mind of Kate McMillan.
I think what we really need are institutions to lock up con-servative whores like Kate who are obviously suffering from tertiary syphilis infections from their fathers.
For anyone who still wonders why Canadians recently chose to put the Liberals back in power, despite the many scandals surrounding them, the answer is because the alternative was people like this. Don’t think for an instant that the Conservative and Republican parties are not dominated by people who hold these exact same attitudes, because this is what you’ll get if you vote them into power, as we’ve all clearly seen happen in the vast wasteland south of our border.
January 4th, 2005 at 1:58 am
Joe - your comments are well taken. Thanks. But the Justice Department just finished an exhaustive review that holds that the 2nd Amendment was intended as an individual right while acknowledging that jurists have chosen to refuse to interpret it that way. But when I read the left wing rants of people like Robert McClelland above, I am truly frightened by the prospect of their warped views gaining power. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution should have protected the Japanese-Americans. But people who believed they were right chose to interpret it in such a way that it did not.
The Nazis thought they were right. The Soviets thought they were right. The Red Guards thought they were right when they denounced anyone and everyone they saw as “reactionary”. The Khmer Rouge thought they were right – and they were even smug in their rightness as they murdered millions. The KKK was so sure they were right every time they hanged a black. The Constitution was written by revolutionaries and the Bill of Rights was added because the people would not accept it until those rights were guaranteed. Though it may seem that Dred Scott, and abortion, and internment, and guns rights are unrelated, they are exactly related in that they all depend on the definition of a single word or understanding. Blacks were not people, so rights didn’t apply. Unborn babies are not people so rights don’t apply. Asian Americans can’t be afforded the same rights as “real” people. The people would never need guns because the government and the Constitution is there to defend them – unless of course they happen to be black, Asian, or unborn. I can not accept the lessening of any of these rights by people who, I’m sure, are so completely sure that they are right.
January 4th, 2005 at 4:15 am
Nor are they now! Shiftless, chicken-eating, neaderthal motherfuckers!
13th amendment sucks!
January 4th, 2005 at 8:55 am
88 - a person of your mental stature couldn’t aford to keep slaves anyways.
January 4th, 2005 at 11:48 am
It so happens my father and his family were uprooted from their B.C. homes and placed in an internment camp here in Canada. My father was 4 years old at the time. While I don’t know exactly what the US Japanese went through, but here it was utter devastation of entire families. Economically destroyed them, and socially put them back 200 years. I do know for sure, however, that there was no bullshit about how Canada had all these enviable freedoms and that good government crap.
January 4th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
Todd, people in the US are just as horrified by the Japanese internment as those in Canada, and our Japanese internees basically lost everything. Only very recently when this Michelle Malkin decided to make a name for herself by stirring up controversy on a wholly uncontroversial subject did anyone recently question that what we did was a mistake. See e.g. Presidents Reagan and Bush I.
How this Matt Margolis can defend what happened to Bob Matsui who was taken into custody with NO process when he was six months old along with his parents who were native born US citizens and deprived of their liberty for three and a half years baffles my mind.
As Rep. Matsui said, this is a great country because we can, in retrospect, recognize our mistakes and apologize for them. Malkin seems more interested in making money than in helping out this country and her book is an abomination.
And Kahn your comparisons of those who disagree with your (and my) interpretation of the Second Amendment to Nazis, Communists, KKKers, etc. is reprehensible and unworthy of attempting to respond to as you seem to be uninterested in logical discourse and reasoned argument and more interested in throwing around names.
January 4th, 2005 at 5:40 pm
Matt sees things through redwhiteandblue colored glasses. Not much different from the Duff glasses from The Simpson’s fame. Neat frame of mind eh? US + Canada take away all their possessions, they’re money, they’re entire lives, and somehow it’s a triumph for democracy. Like how the US tries to create peace but always seem to bring bombs to the negotiation table.
January 5th, 2005 at 3:26 pm
Joe - the 2nd amendment was meant to protect us from people like I listed. It was not meant to compare the liberal elite to those groups except for one small aspect. Members of those groups thought they were right in their actions. Witness the fact that so many were unrepentent later. I’m sorry you can’t get that.
This week in California they outlawed .50 cal. rifles. Guess what - none, nada, not one has ever been used in a crime. Not one single crime. So, why outlaw them? Because they are scary? To the ignorant, I guess so. But they are massive and expensive and loud. That is why no criminal has EVER chosen one for a crime. But yet, there is the law and there is the Governator signing it. Why? Surely they think they are right (this is the same state remember that sent more Japanes to the camps than any other). But what are they right about? That is my point. You arrogant prick.
January 5th, 2005 at 4:25 pm
Malkin is wrong about the internment. I do note that the leftwingnuts here seem to ignore that it was Earl Warren who was instrumental in sticking the Japanese into courts and FDR who bears the final responsibility. How Matsui could be a Democrat is beyond me since the Democrats were responsible for this affront to democracy.
January 6th, 2005 at 12:07 am
Thomas - agreed on all points.
January 17th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
Malking is wrong about the internment.
A witch hunt is a witch hunt. This is no different than the ‘communist’ scare in the 1950’s. But this time Mr. Malkin and his tribe on are the other side of the issue. Hypocrites with a capital H.