Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
We Love Racism
No, I don’t think we really love racism. But there is one thing we continue to do that makes it a real possibility.
Here’s a hint. KWWL TV has put up a short article listing the ten greatest Presidential errors. One massive, glaring error remains unmentioned on the list…as does one bad, racist President. This racist President will show up this President’s Day on many, many “Best Presidents” list, more often than not, in the top three slots.
Tomorrow we commemmorate the 64th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry.
We’re supposed to think that was a really bad idea, but we still have the face of the guy who signed that instrument on our money. Something to do with our country winning a really big war at the time he was President.
That’s a load of crap. If FDR were a Republican, it would be universally acknowledged that it really doesn’t matter how much credit people would want to give him for the war…his racist actions would be a black eye on all Americans. And so it is with FDR. Somehow, Japanese Internment remains a deplorable chapter in American history…not Roosevelt history, but American history. As if there was some kind of referendum on whether or not the policy should have been put in force.
In short, if FDR were a Republican, he’d be treated the way George W. Bush is treated. Except a whole lot worse. You see, when the Bush administration appears in court to provide a legal defense for the indefinite confinement of “enemy combatants,” they are relying on precedent. You know what else? They are relying on precedent from the Franklin Roosevelt administration. Yeah, Roosevelt’s brain trust invented the whole concept of “Enemy Combatant.” Learn something new every day, don’t you?
On the other hand, the Roosevelt defense against charges of constitutional skullduggery, was “hey, we’re at war…that’s just tough.” Yeah, they browbeat the Supreme Court into upholding the idea that the Constitution just doesn’t work all the time. The Supreme Court, at a low point in honoring the principle of judiciary independence, working as soft puddy in Roosevelt’s hands, recognized the Constitution as a peacetime document in Korematsu v. United States (1944):
We uphold the exclusion order as of the time it was made and when the petitioner violated it…. In doing so, we are not unmindful of the hardships imposed by it upon a large group of American citizens…. But hardships are part of war, and war is an aggregation of hardships. All citizens alike, both in and out of uniform, feel the impact of war in greater or lesser measure. Citizenship has its responsibilities as well as its privileges, and in time of war the burden is always heavier. Compulsory exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes, except under circumstances of direct emergency and peril, is inconsistent with our basic governmental institutions. But when under conditions of modern warfare our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger….
Good stuff, huh? Has the Bush administration even tried for something like this, let alone twist the arm of the Supreme Court into going along with it?
Wait, it gets better.
It is said that we are dealing here with the case of imprisonment of a citizen in a concentration camp solely because his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States. Our task would be simple, our duty clear, were this a case involving the imprisonment of a loyal citizen in a concentration camp because of racial prejudice. Regardless of the true nature of the assembly and relocation centers — and we deem it unjustifiable to call them concentration camps with all the ugly connotations that term implies — we are dealing specifically with nothing but an exclusion order. To cast this case into outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to the real military dangers which were presented, merely confuses the issue. Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and finally, because Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders — as inevitably it must — determined that they should have the power to do just this. There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot — by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight — now say that at that time these actions were unjustified.
Pretty cool, huh? It wasn’t because of Korematsu’s race, it was because we were at war with the Japanese Empire!
What a great decision. What are your Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections worth?
Why do I blame Roosevelt for a bad Supreme Court decision that happened to be in his favor? He packed the court…or he threatened to, anyway, and by threatening to he got exactly the Supreme Court he wanted. This thing that George Bush was accused of doing when Alito was nominated to the Supreme Court late last year…as if the President’s constitutional authority and duty to simply name someone, constituted a “packing” of the court. That is bull feces. That’s not packing. Packing is what Roosevelt did. Go on, do some research: What did the Supreme Court do that caused indigestion over at the White House, before 1937? What did it do after 1937? Not nearly as much. They were afraid to go against America’s first third-term President.
We’re supposed to abhore racism in this country. How about showing how much we despise racism, by sanding this bastard’s face off the dime and putting someone else on there instead?
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