Who's Next?

Submitted by Stephen Berman (United States), Dec 28, 2004 at 09:54

Daniel:

The only trouble with your analysis is that this country is bound to go to war with other countries, and natives of these other countries are often bound to sympathise with their brethren abroad -- so where do we draw the line?

If we take Ms. Malkin's advice, we would be rounding up countless German Americans, Italian Americans, Russian Americans, and untold others, every time we went to war.

Yes, Imperial Japan hoped to use Japanese Americans as spies. Was Nazi Germany any different? Was Czarist and Communist Russia any different?

For that matter, did not the British and French have numerous spies in the U.S. from the earliest days of the Republic? Did we not burn down all of the Anglican churches following the revolution, since they were presumably disloyal? How far will we go?

How many people are we going to round up? If everyone is a presumed enemy, the whole populace is in danger. It is a slippery slope, and nobody wants to put themselves in danger by setting this kind of a precedent.

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