Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there is such a thing as progress. Whatever else is being proposed in the name of “security” these days, this certainly isn’t. Let’s keep it that way.
http://www.allegiancemusical.com/video/never-forget-never-again
Nob Akimoto
Nob Akimoto is a policy analyst and part-time dungeon master. When not talking endlessly about matters of public policy, he is a dungeon master on the NWN World of Avlis
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Amen, brother.Report
It’s worth noting this country didn’t learn very much from its internment of the Japanese and some Germans and Italians, too. We reverted to our true form after 9/11, passing the PATRIOT Act and continue to treat our Arab citizens with disrespect.
The veneer of civilization is very thin. Fear is not only the mind-killer, it is the soul-killer. When we no longer see our fellow human beings as individuals, deeming our liberties less important than the illusion of safety, we are lessened as a people and a nation.Report
I am going to have to disagree. As one who is not a Patriot Act fan, and who despises the way Muslims have been vilified for political reasons, we have done nothing the comes close to the internment camps.Report
Sure we have. We’ve done far worse. The internment camps were remote, but they were at least on our shores. Gitmo and the secret camps, which we’re still running, those aren’t, for the sake of modesty I suppose and something the lawyers and judges call Venue.
We routinely spy on people without warrants and that’s everyone these days, not just the heathen Nipponese and beastly Nazis of yore. There’s no restriction on what these bastards can do. At least FDR signed an executive order. Who the hell dreamed up the FISA warrant, where you can’t even discuss it?
Yeats:
We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart’s grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.
Report
Again, I don’t want to come off as supporting things I abhor. But Gitmo, wretched as it is, is a place we put terrorist suspects. The internment camps were places we put people of a certain ethnic background.
I see both as wrong, but not as equal.Report
I see them as a terribly troubling development. No two crimes are exactly equivalent. The internment camps were pretty bad all right. But Gitmo and the secret camps show we no longer trust our justice system to deal with criminals. We tried the Blind Sheikh when he went after the WTC.
What changed between then and now?
Let’s face it, the 9/11 Boys were just crooks, guilty of murder and air piracy and a host of other crimes. Our war against OBL was really nothing more than a glorified law enforcement operation at heart. Gitmo and the secret camps and the FISA warrant and all the rest of the PATRIOT Act abrogations reveal something’s gone terribly wrong with our own self-image as citizens of a free nation. Sad part is, we view the internment of the Japanese as a greater evil. Maybe that’s because we have the luxury of a longer distance, better parallax, it’s all over including the apologies and the reparations and the erection of monuments. I content we view the abrogations of our rights today as a lesser thing, a somehow necessary thing…. and I’m not applying this to you specifically, I get your drift and I’m trying to respond to it knowing you’re only trying not to lump in two different sorts of tyranny.
But I see them arising from the same lump of fear and ignorance and lack of spinal calcium. As such, they are substantially worse than the internments, for in those days, we could, like Bonhoeffer, say it wasn’t me they were coming for.
Now it’s us.Report
bububububub they’re American citizens
(who were in a foreign country)
(acting as part of a military or at least militaristic organization)
(which was actively fighting uniformed, identified US armed forces)
(but still)Report
Oh Duck. Back when we still believed in the rule of law, things were handled a Little Differently, as with Ramzi Yusuf and the Blind Sheikh.
It doesn’t matter really. Inter arma silent leges. That’s Latin for “If anyone wonders why we run secret prison camps, wave your arms around and shout WE’RE AT WAAAAARRRRR!”Report
Yeah, it’s not like Japanese-Americans went to concentration camps. Everyone got home OK, right?
Speaking of Muslim-camps, if you crush enough testicles, you’ll find your terrorists.
Besides, after enough mistreatment, any reasonable person would become a terrorist. Then the torture is justified after all. You can also justify killing those people because they have very good reasons to become terrorists.
We KNOW we’re stupid about other cultures and we always get played by the natives. That’s why we must be tough enough to destroy people who aren’t covered by the Bill of Rights or the Constitution and not flinch like a bunch of liberal pussy fags that care about people. Look at how Genghis Khan subdued Afghanistan. Genghis Khan would have massacred the liberal fifth column if that’s what it took to win.
Anyone who makes us uncomfortable must be subdued or eliminated. How can we be free if someone is trying to kill us?
Ok, knuckle-dragging moral logic aside, you’re right that Gitmo is not as bad as the internment camps or the concentration camps. Just different. I doubt any Gitmo survivors will be having reunions like the Manazar Mountain Association.Report
“We routinely spy on people without warrants…”
…and this has happened since the invention of the telegraph, and probably before that. And there have been results from it, results like Magic Intercept #44.
That doesn’t excuse how the whole thing went down, but it’s not like this was entirely the result of some horrible spasm of bigotry that resulted from the inherent racism/nationalism of White America.Report
SOMEONE gave the NSA their christmas list. You know, the christmas list that NIXON said no to?Report
But. Every sentence with “but” in it might as well start out with “No”. Keep that in mind.
Here’s what really happened. This country has been run by a collection of fearful weasels who are big on the Constytushon when they’re on the stump. But once they’re in office, their little sphincters squinch up tight enough to the point where the Rule of Law and the Fourth Amendment no longer apply, sorta like information inside the Schwartzchild Radius of a black hole. Only this is a Brown Hole.Report
I’m sorry, did I accidentally click on Balloon Juice by mistake?Report
I dunno. You were the one talking about Spasms.Report