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January 4, 2003

I sure as hell didn’t know that. From the Washington Post:
From 1942 onward, the United States abducted some 3,000 people of Japanese, Italian and German ancestry from Latin America, shipped them to the United States and placed them in internment camps. These prisoners were never charged with crimes.
Kevin Drum comments on this:
This is why I think it’s important not to romanticize the past: it prevents us from learning from our mistakes. Yes, interning those people was wrong, but it’s different today. Don’t you understand that the world is a far more dangerous place than it was in our parents’ day?

No it’s not. And if in hindsight something was wrong 60 years ago, it’s also wrong today.

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Comments on I sure as hell didn't know that.:

Randy Paul ::: (view all by) ::: January 04, 2003, 10:22 PM:

I didn't know about it either and I was really shocked when I read it and posted on it. I figured Kevin would have a cogent thing to say about it and I passed it on to him.

Avram ::: (view all by) ::: January 04, 2003, 11:39 PM:

I blogged about this a couple of years ago.

James D. Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: January 05, 2003, 09:24 AM:

Yet Ashcroft is using the WWII internments as the legal precedent for the currently proposed detentions and internments of civilians in the "war on terrorism."

Trent ::: (view all by) ::: January 06, 2003, 11:48 PM:

I agree the news is shocking.... though, regarding "if in hindsight something was wrong 60 years ago, it's also wrong today," I'm reminded (pardon my Reagan impersonation by refering to a film) of the James Stewart western _Broken Arrow_ in which Jimmy plays one man befriending an Apache. I'm not sure how well I'd have stood up under such pressures. Would I have caved in? Or would I have been strung up? Considering my history of voicing opinions, probably strung up, but it'd be tough to blame a fellow for caving. We'd have to convict every nation on the planet.