My knee-jerk reaction

Submitted by Burt DeFren (United States), Dec 28, 2004 at 10:05

I'm amazed at how many years my wife and I have been wringing our hand over the treatment of the Japanese during WWII. My wife (once a social studies teacher) had spent thirty years teaching about the unfairness of "persecuting" the parents of Japanese soldiers who were fighting and dying for us. I still find internment of a segment of the population predicated upon national origin or religious beliefs abhorrent.

But your article has at least made me think about the matter in terms of that wonderful phrase, "the freedom to end freedom." I'm finally starting to realize that bestowing this country's basic freedoms without reservation upon zealots who hate everything for which we stand (including our freedom) is just as deadly as harboring saboteurs.

Yet, unless internment can be done with as much surgical precision as possible to exclude the containment of individuals who admire and support our way of life, the process will still bother me.

However, there's no doubt your article has started to make me think rather than react.

Burt DeFren

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