I'm sure you're right. I'm sure if Korematsu had won his case and FDR had refused to release him, there would not have been a groudswell of opposition there, either.
Which brings me back to the question I keep thinking about a lot lately. Who have we become, as a people?
I know, every time a Republican ends up in the White House, people on the far left end of the spectrum blather about the republic falling. I've never felt that. Even when GW was elected -- and even as recently as 2004, when he was reelected -- I thought, as bad as it was, the country would survive.
I've never been ashamed of being an American, before. Never. I have disagreed with my country and with my government but I have never been ashamed of them. I am now. I have never been reluctant about speaking my mind -- as I am sometimes when I visit relatives in the South -- not so much out of fear of physical violence as the sort of nastiness that it is perfectly acceptable to lob at people with my political views these days. I still do, but I think first -- do I *need* to say something here? The sort of casualness with which I would discuss politics as little as two or three years ago is gone.
We will survive. We survived the Trail of Tears; slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction; and the internments; and McCarthy. And maybe one day this will be just another really sordid little episode in American history textbooks.
no subject
Which brings me back to the question I keep thinking about a lot lately. Who have we become, as a people?
I know, every time a Republican ends up in the White House, people on the far left end of the spectrum blather about the republic falling. I've never felt that. Even when GW was elected -- and even as recently as 2004, when he was reelected -- I thought, as bad as it was, the country would survive.
I've never been ashamed of being an American, before. Never. I have disagreed with my country and with my government but I have never been ashamed of them. I am now. I have never been reluctant about speaking my mind -- as I am sometimes when I visit relatives in the South -- not so much out of fear of physical violence as the sort of nastiness that it is perfectly acceptable to lob at people with my political views these days. I still do, but I think first -- do I *need* to say something here? The sort of casualness with which I would discuss politics as little as two or three years ago is gone.
We will survive. We survived the Trail of Tears; slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction; and the internments; and McCarthy. And maybe one day this will be just another really sordid little episode in American history textbooks.
God, I hope so.