"Why the Japanese Internment Still Matters"

Submitted by Achilles Perry (United States), Dec 29, 2004 at 11:00

.. what's disturbing about your article is how fundamentally at odds it is with the founding principles of our society. You may recall that we have something called the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment of which is intended to protect minorities, specifically religious minorities, from opression. That's the amendment that says that the government may not pass any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. If your position is that we should restrict Muslim's freedom simply because of their religion, we are giving into the same exact sentiments that forced the Pilgirms to abandon their homeland and colonize these shores. It's a slippery slope; one which our founding fathers, in their wisdom, abhored.

In fact, one could even argue that the racial profiling of Muslims is worse from a historical and Constitutional perspective, than the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, because it's based on religious, not racial grounds. Until fairly recently, there were no laws against profiling on racial grounds, but as I've noted the prohibitions on religious persecution are part of the bedrock of this nation and our freedoms. I, for one, refuse to let a bunch of raggedy-ass militant Muslim criminals force me to give up on the most important of our civil rights -- the free exercise of religion...

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