Dale,
You think, "The Constitution doesn't flex, bend or turn various parts on or off to meet some notion," but in fact it does. It is in fact a very flexible document which expands and contracts with the times. I'm surprised you don't know this (edit: no, I'm not). The Commerce Clause has been widened over the past 40 years enough times to accomodate several 747s, all in the name of squeezing in some "rights" or "outcomes" which 9 appointees thought appropriate at the time. Similarly, even without a Constitutional Clause to hang their reasoning on, the 9 appointees decided first in "Griswold" that the Constitution must have somehow concieved of a constitutional right to "privacy" (a word and concept which does NOT exist in the Constitution) and later that there must be a "penumbra" of privacy which existed in the either the 14th or 9th amendment and which had to extend to a woman's right to terminate a foetus' right to life in the first trimester of life. It's odd that the Supreme Court could not find a "penumbra" for that creature most in need of one, the baby in the shadowed womb. And, the Constitution prohibits compelled self-incrimination, but does not say that confessions are automatically compelled without proof of a knowing waiver of rights. "Miranda" created a constitutional presumption of such compulsion in every case of custodial interrogation, despite it not having any sort of Constitutional pedigree.
So, in short, you're wrong. Again.
As for "Your facts are wrong about history - the US was targeted directly in WW2 on land in Hawaii and just off our shores up and down both coasts. Many merchant seamen died in sight of land. We rightly see that internment of Japanese-descent people arbitrarily then was wrong." I never said the U.S. wasn't a one off military target, nor that U.S. ships weren't sunk. What I said was "Unlike any previous conflict the U.S. has been involved with, you . . .are now on somebody's hit list." Let me make that as plain as the 1998 Fatwa: Myrtle Greenwood walking to church in Alpharetta, Georgia is an actual, live, walking, living & breathing target for these guys. Not just some ensign on the USS Cole, not some Marine on Parris Island, but Myrtle, her 86 year old father, her 3 year old granddaughter--everyone who dies in the name of Holy Terror is a desired casualty of their campaign.
And not so fast with your history lesson, Dale. Pearl Harbor was a military target and the total number of civilians who died was 48. Many, if not most died from "friendly fire" in the form of exploding munitions. The Japanese fighters were not strafing the apartment buildings on Oahu in the name of the Emperor. Merchant ships flying the U.S. flag were sunk by the enemy, yes. The West Coast attack was limited to a couple of "fire balloons" if my memory is correct. But if you think 9/11/01 and events following are anything like 1941, then you are a complete maroon.
And the Japanese internment, like the A-bomb, is one of the more misunderstood and misinterpreted actions undertaken in the war. First of all, you have to somehow put yourself back in time to 1941, not at all easy to do. And I mean put yourself back entirely into the entire mindset, demography, history of the era. Dale, I know you will have a lot of pat answers to everything and I don't expect you to really comprehend what that means (this is because you have a limited mind, I'm afraid). And you have to understand the magnitude of what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor. Now you have to understand that these Japanese Americans (only some of whom were citizens) suffered economic harm, and being in an internment camp was no picnic, but they were not tortured, punished or otherwise abused. Compare, please, with the Japanese who were in the process of massacreing 300,000 Chinese civilians in China, or performing their vivisection experiments on U.S. prisoners of war. Compare, please with what went on in Nazi Germany in the concentration camps. Penultimately, recall that this internment policy on the West Coast, undertaken for a number of reasons, did in fact safeguard Japanese Americans from the chaos which might have ensued each time a U.S. ship went down, or somebody received a letter from the Secretary of War about Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal. Finally, think about not only all the Japanese American lives which were saved by this "cruel action" but all the other Asian American groups (Chinese, Korean, Philipino, etc.) whose property and lives were safeguarded as well, because when an ugly mob started on a rampage it wouldn't much matter whether your name was Wakamoto, Wong or Woo. So, Dale, "we" don't necessarily "rightly" see the internment as "wrong." After the internment, since there were no Japanese Americans to target, the rest of the groups were saved as well. The incessant self flagellation over the Japanese internment is a direct product of the 1963-2001 politically correct it's time to hate America era and, guess what? It's over. Puhleeze don't start in with "well, the police just should have been able to handle it" nonsense. It was unfortunate, yes, but you know war makes for a lot of unfortunate circumstances. Ask the 300,000 soldiers and sailors who didn't come home from WWII, or the 6000 cremated in the WTC.
Finally, once again you misstate my encomium for China's clearheaded response to terrorism by putting the pain and the shunning on the states which have failed to fulfill their responsibility as "praise for a Communist dictatorship." Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while, and even a dictatorship such as China (one could hardly call the current PRC "communist") you despise and I simply loathe might get it right on occasion.
Finally, there is nothing extreme about enforcing to the letter, INS regulations concerning visas and entry into the U.S. Nowhere does the Constitution require us to treat all foreign visa requesters with equal protection or due process.
9/11/01 marks a new world; if you're simply too dense to see that it doesn't matter--you will experience it soon enough.
Kb |
