With the US and most of the world in conflict with radical Islam, is a federal database of US Muslims really so out of line? Such databases are already no doubt available for commercial purposes, so why would a federal database be so objectionable?
During the Cold War, US conservatives -- including National Review -- strongly supported stringent internal security measures and disagreed with the eventual voiding of many of them by the US Supreme Court. One of Bill Buckley's earliest books was even a robust defense of Joe McCarthy -- a position that Buckley never repudiated.
Notably, a wartime FDR even approved the internment of Japanese immigrants and their citizen offspring due to well-founded internal security concerns. Radio intercepts showed that a dozen or so Japanese spy and sabotage rings were operating on the US west coast and the FBI was unable to locate them. The internment of the Japanese though shut every one of them down.
Yet in fact Trump did not call for a database of Muslims or for the internment of Muslims, and the larger point is what kind of President Donald Trump would be. Trump, a New Yorker to the core, would be much like the last Republican President from New York -- Teddy Roosevelt -- in his zest for controversy, assertion of American national interest, and build up of military strength.
In domestic policy, unlike Teddy Roosevelt, Trump's business background would put him on the side of growth, jobs, low taxes, and free markets. On Obamacare, Trump is like other GOP candidates: get rid of it. There is no sound basis on which to think that Trump would disregard the constitution -- unlike the US Supreme Court, which seems to do so regularly.
Is there anything about Trump to worry over? Well, like Teddy Roosevelt in his day, the GOP establishment hates him, and he is not from within the conservative clubhouse.
On the plus side, these attributes and Trump's outsize personality have made inroads among blue collar Democrats, Blacks, and Hispanics. Most of all, Trump opposes illegal immigration and means it. This a winning issue politically and a fight that must be won if the US is to survive as a self-governing constitutional republic.
Otherwise, the massive tide of immigration and coming fiscal crisis will tilt the country Left more or less permanently. With the GOP establishment dominated by cheap labor interests determined on an open borders policy, the anti-establishment Trump may well be the best hope we have, not just for winning in 2016, but for being able to win at all in coming elections.
Bump. And it was a position that was 100% vindicated by the release of the Venona materials, which documented and nailed to the floor the truth of McCarthy's allegations about the "253 names" -- except that McCarthy was short a few dozen.
As documented by Ann Coulter in Treason, the people accused by McCarthy were in fact Soviet informants and agents and couriers, including the liberal newspapermen's favorite "poor honest colored lady", a DC resident who was purloining classified message traffic and giving it to the KGB. I'd like to have a dollar for every time "Tail Gunner Joe" was accused by the Usual Suspects of racism in that case; I could probably buy a new car.