[Barney Gumble]

This, of course, got blasted to the front of AP stories. Watch in the next few days. Every major news source will pick up on this. People will be screaming for apologies. Of course, where was the big coverage about Patty Murray?

Now people forget some history regarding this. Some Japanese were spies and out to get us. There were several spies in Hawaii in the months leading up to Pearl Harbor. What he said was the most Japanese-Americans were good, but some were out to get us. True? Why should he be apologizing.

However, debating the internment camps isn't why I posted this. It's because it's being blasted to the spotlight of the media because the congressman is a Republican, yet Patty Murray's praise of Osama went generally unreported. The same thing with Trent Lott versus Robert Byrd! The double standard continues!!!!

[Station 51]

A congressman who heads a homeland security subcommittee said on a radio call-in program that he agreed with the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

Not For Long!

[ambrose]

Interesting that a Republican can get in trouble for agreeing with a Democrat policy.

[amused]

[sigh] Foolish man who does not even know the history of internment camps and who authorized and pushed for them (hint: Warren and FDR)

[staytrue]

Some Japanese were spies and out to get us

There are/were/ and will be plenty of white people who are spies in the US (then, now and in the future). I don't see any calls for interning white people. Plus, I would like to know all the WWII spies who were actually convicted of something.

But on the subject of a double standard. I don't care that republicans are held to a high standard, we should be. The dems should be held to a high standard too but if they are not, then let them wallow in defeat at the ballot box. If they refuse to clean house, we will do it for them.

PS. The Japanese internment was as much about taking their property in California as anything else. It's not like any trustees were appointed to oversee their stuff until the war was over, it was basically "you have 1 week to sell all your stuff for whatever you get".

[joesnuffy]

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

After the news of Batan ....The Death March...the rape of the nurses and missionaries... The Japanese Americans that were interned probably had their lives saved... To confiscate their property however, was evil imo

[DoughtyOne]

In times of war, where you aren't really sure if you're going to come out on top or not, you have to make some tough choices.  We took a hell of a beating at Pearl Harbor.  Our leaders had a duty to ensure as best as they could the safety of the west coast and military assetts.

We interned our Japanese American citizens.  I'll take a neutral stance on that for now.  What disturbs me more than anything is that we confiscated their assetts.  Their homes, businesses and vehicles were liquidated.  As far as I know, they never got them back or adequate financial restitution.  That makes me mad. $20k would have likely taken care of the assetts in the age when they were taken.  By 1985 standards, it was a drop in the bucket.  Still it was something.

It's one thing to do something unpleasant for national security.  It's another to do it without taking care not to do mental, physical or financial harm to the subjects.  Why didn't we liquidate assetts, but them in bonds and hold them in escrow for the interned families?

Some families were split up.  Dad was sent to one camp, children and mothers to another.  I'm not convinced that was necessary.

My main beefs are the inhumane ways some of this was carried out, not so much that it wasn't called for, or should be outside the bounds of reasonable reactions to a war-time setting.

The left will always be yapping around like a bunch of terriors.  Big deal.

[T'wit]

I have long favored an internment camp for congressmen.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Round them up and expell them.

[taxed2death]

I'm all for it. We could start filling them with the 9 million illegals.

[Fred Mertz]

Still, Coble said, Roosevelt had to consider the nation's security. "Some probably were intent on doing harm to us," he said, "just as some of these Arab-Americans are probably intent on doing harm to us."

Makes sense to me.

[CounterCounterCulture]

Related threads...

N.C. Congressman Says Internment of Japanese-Americans During World War II Was Appropriate

Lawmaker's defense of internment called `preposterous' and `ignorant'

And here's a classic...
60th Anniversary of Japanese Internment by FDR - Executive Order 9066

[TheMole]

Coble's comments were dumb dumb dumb. He could at least have mentioned the participation of Japanese-Americans in the U.S. armed forces in WW2 (in rather stark contrast with the expressed attitudes of Muslim Americans today). He might have spoken a little more knowledgeably of the Republican Party's historical positions, which stand up quite favorably today. And speaking of Republicans, yes of course they're held to a higher standard than Democrats. Yes of course it's because the media and academia hate Republicans, and of course it's an unfair double standard. But, you know what? It's a good thing. It means sleazeballs and buffoons among the Republicans are eliminated from positions of authority, and that stands in bold counterpoint to the situation with the Democrats. This is slowly sinking into the electorate.