CA: Senate joins Assembly in urging congressman to resign post

Sac Bee ^ | 6/2/03

[NormsRevenge]

The California Senate joined the state Assembly on Monday in urging Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., to resign as chairman of a congressional subcommittee because of his comments rationalizing the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

Coble, a North Carolina Republican who heads the House Judiciary subcommittee on homeland security, said during a Feb. 4 radio show that the internment was for the Japanese-Americans' own protection.

[NormsRevenge]

Note to Senate and Assembly..

The state is in dire financial straits (caused by all of you, as a matter of fact!)

And all you have time to do is re-fight WW2. Geesh!

[steplock]

"We were at war," Coble said. "For many of these Japanese-Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street."

He also said that some Japanese-Americans "probably were intent on doing harm to us, just as some of these Arab-Americans are probably intent on doing harm to us."

---

The truth hurts! It's about time we are getting rid of "Political Correctness" in Washington and elsewhere.

The left-wing radical extremists can't abide with honesty and the truth.

[LS]

I don't get it: this is EXACTLY what I tell my students in Western Civ. In wartime, all bets are off and national security comes first.

[thatsnotnice]

Assemblyman George Nakano, who was interned at age 6, said Coble's comments amount to rewriting history.

My understanding, and I’m sure someone will correct any confusion on my part, was that the Japanese were first given the chance to relocate off the coast.

I remember hearing that, plus I was in Oklahoma once and met a Japanese guy that had a nursery. I asked him how a Japanese family ended up with a nursery in Oklahoma of all places. He told me that his parents and grandparents once lived in San Francisco (Seattle? – somewhere on the west/northwest coast) and were told to either leave the coastal area or else. His family chose to leave and ended up in OK at some point. I thought that was interesting.

Also, wasn’t habeas corpus suspended at some point (constitutionally?) that allowed for people of Japanese ancestry to be specifically excluded (and removed) from certain areas designated by the military to be sensitive?

I have this one snippet. I don’t know where it’s from:

"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

At any rate, my understanding is that they were first offered the chance to leave and some did. Those that refused were legally (and constitutionally?) interred. I’m sure a million other people have a million other snippets that say otherwise though…

[TheDon]

LOL! You knew by the title that it wasn't a Democrat, if so, they wouldn't have said a word.

[ARCADIA]

Who cares what these idiots think. Most of them will be flipping burgers in a little over a year.

[conservative_2001]

Why don't these idiots encourage their own Lt Governor to step down for using the N-word? It figures that a group of California liberals are more concerned about a North Carolina Congressman than a California Lt. Gov.

[Kuksool]

When I first read the title of the article, I thought they referring to Sen. Rick Santorum. No doubt in a few weeks given the lunacy of CA RATS, I expect the CA General Assembly to begin impeachment hearings on Rick Santorum.

[NormsRevenge]

LMAO --- You make a damn fine point! Their stupidity, not to be outdone by their audacity, crosses state lines with impunity.

[LdSentinal]

Where's the outrage that, FDR, the great Democratic icon, was the president who put the Japanese into concentration camps?

[NormsRevenge]

That is an irrelevant fact to demRats, we all know that . ;-)

[Political Junkie Too]

And all you have time to do is re-fight WW2. Geesh!

And worse than that, the CA legislature is fighting NC politics. They should stick to their own state's business.

-PJ

[risk]

This criticism of rep. Howard Coble is a revisionist nightmare. I don't think we're proud of interning the Japanese, but we felt it necessary to do so, and so we did it.

It's quite arguable that the Pacific war was the most bitter and violent conflicts in the history of mankind. Few enemies were as brave and determined as the Americans and the Japanese were. The island-hopping war was merciless. And millions more could have died if we had not used the atomic bomb. After the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Wake (where my uncle fought as a Marine and was captured), the Philippines, and other Pacific territories taken by the Japanese, we were terrified by the possibility of a fifth column. By 1942, Japanese were sending balloon bombs to our shores, although they were mostly harmless. We just didn't know whom from the Japanese community we could trust. Certainly some Japanese Americans served in our military, and served well. Perhaps the most tragic outcome was the loss of Japanese owned property and businesses, a very anti-capitalist result.

But few in the modern day understand how fearsome those years were. My father enlisted to save his older brother, who would spend 44 months in slave labor, starving, being beaten, and living in cold and wet conditions first in Manchurian and then Japanese mines. The yellow peril was real to him, and anyone who fought them understood it. Just as we terrified the Japanese, they terrified us. Nothing can change that fact.

I see that we won the war. I see that the seep of Japanese imperialism was stopped brefore it could enslave the entire Pacific rim. I see that most Japanese Americans are successful and patriotic members of society today. And I see that no war can be fought without a heavy price regardless of where the front lines are.

Let's be proud that we fought a brave, powerful foe and defeated him. Let's be grateful that no more damage was done.

I don't know rep. Howard Coble well. But he spoke the truth on Monday. I think we should stand by him at this time and offer our support.