posted
Or so said Peter Kirsanow, a Bush appointee to the Civil Rights Commission no less.
Kirsanow made the statement during the Commission's monthly meeting which was held at the Omni Hotel in Detroit. The Commissioners heard testimony from the Arab American community relating its experiences following the Sept. 11 but instead heard Kirsanow bring up the idea of detention camps.
quote:Kirsanow raised the possibility of internment camps for the mass detention of Arab Americans at a Commission hearing in Detroit on July 19. He did not condemn this idea, but raised it as a serious and reasonable possibility in the event of future terrorist attacks against the United States. He also stated that if the perpetrators of any such attack "come from the same ethnic group that attacked the World Trade Center, you can forget about civil rights."
quote:If there's another attack by Arabs on U.S. soil, "not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops, more profiling," Kirsanow said.
"There will be a groundswell of public opinion to banish civil rights. So the best thing we can do to preserve them is by keeping the country safe."
[ July 26, 2002, 16:09: Message edited by: Jay the Obscure ]
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
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"If there's another attack by Arabs on U.S. soil, 'not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops, more profiling,' Kirsanow said."
Except maybe the Arabs? Oh, sorry, I forgot. They're not people. How silly of me.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
One totalitarian police state, coming right up.
Registered: Nov 1999
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Ahhhh; America. The land of freedom and justice for all...
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Given how citizens of the US generally respond to being attacked, you'd be silly to presume otherwise.
There were plenty of people who, while the events of September 11th unfolded and immediately afterwards, would have happily used the power of the Douwd, had they had it, to destroy all the Husnock, everywhere. For a few hours that day, I was one of them. Fortunately, I snapped out of it. I don't expect as many people to be able to do that.
He's talking about how the American PEOPLE would react, not the government, you dupes. If you think that what happend with the attacks on the Arab community post 9-11 was bad, it won't be anything compared to what could happen after a second, similar attack by a cell in the US. People will see a threat in their midst, and act on what they think they see, whether it's real or not. They will assume any Arab could be in cahoots, since the government wasn't able to catch them all. They won't CARE that it's a totally wrong presumption, because scared angry people don't act rationally.
I'm actually worried for my new boss... she's Lebanese.
So are you telling me they want this guy out because he told a goddamned unpleasant TRUTH?
Man, you people need thicker skins.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Glock 23, a .40 cal handgun, isn't that expensive, and it's fairly compact. They run $550 or so ... tell her to invest.
Registered: Sep 2000
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
...In a phased plasma rifle, forty watt range.
Registered: Nov 1999
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As a dupe, I just don't understand how there can be "internment camps for the mass detention of Arab Americans" without the concent and participation of the American goverment. He even made comments about Korematsu v. United States. I'm sure you read that Rob. 10 militia members with guns can't intern anyone if the full might of American law and order denies them the ability to do so.
A member of the Civil Rights Commission knows this, apparently he doesn't care.
And also in my dupieness, I also assume that it is the responsibility of the American goverment to maintain the rule of law prevent segments of the "people" from running about and beating another segment of the "people".
Further, I don't see the role of a member of the Civil Rights Commission, no matter how right wing, tell the people whose civil rights he's supposed to protect, that the government might round them up, apparently regardless of American citizenship, and deny them their civil rights.
One should ask the question: If Arab Americans, regardless of citizenship, are rounded up, where does that leave the future of liberties and American freedom in general?
There is no truth in his statements, it's a point of view and it's one that a Civil Rights Commissioner should be sacked for taking.
Another example of a classic Bush compasionate conservative appointee.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
You know what's really sad? History is repeating itself here. Or has the majority of the country forgotten about that little incident regarding the internment of Japanese-American civilians during World War Two -- many of whom were natural-born American citizens?
Coincidentally, I recently finished taking a college course on the Great Depression and World War Two. Part of one night's lecture dealt with the internment camps from 1942 to 1945. We also had some assigned reading, in the form of two essays written which either supported or opposed the internment process.
But the kicker is the name of the author of the article which supported the "military necessity" of interning Japanese civilians and American citizens. The author was none other than Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. (ref: Presidents and Their Decisions: Franklin D. Roosevelt -- "The Internment of Japansese Americans was Justified", page 174-185.)
I would not be too surprised if such a thing were attempted again in the future, in a scenario similar to the one described above. Not only have many people forgotten what's happened, but most others would consider it to be a crucial measure to prevent further terrorist attacks. And the scary thing is that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would likely support such a program.
Anyway, to go into some of the background on the idea of civilian internment camps, there were three cases that were argued before the Supreme Court over the camps: Hirabayashi v. United States, Korematsu v. United States, and Endo v. United States -- and all of them upheld the constitutionality of the government's program to "intern" Japanese Americans who lived on the west coast. In the above-mentioned essay, Rehnquist wrote, "The basis on which the Court upheld the plan was military representations as to the necessity for evacuation."
Gee, isn't that nice?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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One point, in Ex Parte Endo, the Court found that the War Relocation Authority did not have the power to hold Mitsuye Endo, a loyal and law-abiding citizen. The Court did not go so far as to declare Executive Order No. 9066 unconstitutional however.
Mr. Justice Douglas wrote in the opinion for the Court:
quote:...we do not come to the underlying constitutional issues which have been argued. For we conclude that, whatever power the War Relocation Authority may have to detain other classes of citizens, it has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure.
Mr. Justice Roberts wrote in a concuring opinion:
quote:I conclude, therefore, that the court is squarely faced with a serious constitutional question,-whether the relator's detention violated the guarantees of the Bill of Rights of the federal Constitution and especially the guarantee of due process of law. There can be but one answer to that question. An admittedly loyal citizen has been deprived of her liberty for a period of years. Under the Constitution she should be free to come and go as she pleases. Instead, her liberty of motion and other innocent activities have been prohibited and conditioned. She should be discharged.
However, in Korematsu, deliverd on the same day as Endo, the Court basicly because of the war that the War Relocation Authority could demand out of military necessity
quote:...that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily...
but stopped short of fully deciding the constitutionality internment of citizens by saying
quote:We cannot-by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight-now say that at that time these actions were unjustified.
So, basicly they side-stepped the issue.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Rob: So, what you're saying is that it's okay to lock up all the Arabs in the country, because the rest of the population is too stupid not to try to hurt them?
The arguement that you can stick people in internment camps "for their own protection" has always been one of the stupidest I've heard. Do we lock away victims of assault, robbery, rape, &c. because they need to be protected from their assailants? No, we lock up the people who commited the crimes. So, if we were going to have detention camps set up in order to prevent future crimes, wouldn't it be all he non-Arabs that should be locked up? After all, we're the ones being called potential criminals, and the Arabs are the potential victims.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Springfield Armory Snay: Glock 23, a .40 cal handgun, isn't that expensive, and it's fairly compact. They run $550 or so ... tell her to invest.
Y'know in films and stuff when you have a character who hates something, lke weddings, or blacks, or eating babies? And you know how he eventually sees the error of his ways and then becomes the pope or something? And you know how really, really tiring and dull it is when that person then goes on about how great black weddings where they eat babies are?
It sprung to mind for some reason.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
What you have here is a representative of the government expressing an opinion. The question is, was it a personal opinion, or the actual policy of the USG?
If the latter, I'm sure that Rob will rush to remind us that, as in the case of the proposed use of tactical nuclear weapons we discussed a while back, it's just a contingency plan and it's perfectly OK to have contingency plans for any sort of potential action no matter how horrendous those actions might be.
But that remains to be seen. If instead he was expressing a personal opinion, then his suitability for the office he holds is called into question. It might even call into question the judgement of the person who appointed him, but I don't know whether the current incumbent of 1600 Pa Avenue goes in for that whole "buck stops here" thing. It's not my call. The current leader of the Government Opposition over here, Ian Duncan Smith, was revealed to have a member of staff who had been a member of the British National Party, a far-right organisation. So far IDS remains leader of the Conservative Party, the Nazi has been sacked, and it's largely forgotten.
I could even cite examples in British politics where a government representative has blabbed about secret policy matters, and has suffered as a result, just as someone who couldn't keep his mouth shut when he should have. But either way, I'd say Kirsanow is for the boot.
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