"Below is part of a post by Dithers analogizing Iraqi Americans of today ... with the Japanese Americans during WWII, who, Dithers believes, were justifiably, and to the benefit to our country, thrown wholesale, on the basis of race, into the camps.
I'd be interested in seeing what others have to say about that."
I'll be happy to oblige and offer up an opinion.
I've read the exchange between you and JC on the GWB thread and can only conclude that you have totally misconstrued JC's comments about the interments. It is clear to all that you want everyone else to stand with you in condemning the American people and their leaders for the interment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. Why it is so important to you that we condemn a whole lot of people who, for the most part, are now dead, I can't imagine. But it should be clear to you by now - after all, you've been pestering him about this for about two weeks now, if not longer - that JC is not willing to join your historical lynch mob.
Yet you keep insisting - even putting words in his mouth, claiming he condones the WWII interments, and even implying he would favor some similar kind of action against Iraqi-Americans.
At the risk of being pestered by you about this for the NEXT two weeks or more, allow me to explain what I think to be JC's position as my view is essentially the same as what I think JC has been trying to explain to you.
JC is obviously a serious student of history and as any serious student of history knows, you can't fairly judge figures in history or their actions from a perspective so far removed in time and circumstances as we are now from the events of WWII. You can only judge them fairly if you can detach yourself entirely from your 60+ years later perspective and put yourself in the shoes of FDR or the average citizen of the time who was living in mortal fear of Axis attack.
Similarly, you can't fairly judge slave owners of 150 to several thousands of years ago based on modern perceptions of slavery, can't fairly judge pre-columbian cultures in the Americas who practiced human sacrifice based on our modern abhorrence of the practice, and can't even fairly judge ancient Spartans who engaged in homosexual pedophilia based on modern revulsion over such behavior.
You can only judge these things in the context in which they occurred. Yet some people find it impossible to detach themselves from their modern perspective on historical events, become outraged that such things could ever have occurred, and insist that anyone who doesn't join them in their condemnation must, therefore, condone those actions. This is exactly what you have done with WWII interments and JC, as the quote above from your post shows. |
