Michelle Malkin wants to bring back internment camps

[bluestateguy]

Her columns are regularly run by the Heritage Foundation webiste www.townhall.com. This is an institution that has the ear of the Bush Admininistration, and indeed serves as a policy think tank for the White House, as well as a clearing house for people seeking employment in the Executive Branch.

This idea that WWII internment camps were aceptable CANNOT be allowed to become a part of mainstream political debate. People are free to share their opinions, but some particularly repugnant ideas must me soundly buried, lest they become a part of mainstream political debate. If some crank published a book denying the Holocaust ever happened, that would be their right under the First Amendment, but that person would be roundly denounced before the idea could become politically mainstream, and rightfully so.

I'm concerned that with this book of hers, it will start a dialogue throughout our Echo Chamber media: first on the blogs, then the radio talk shows, then the cable channels, then the morning shows, then the Sunday shows and finally the evening news. Next thing you know, the issue comes up in the presidential debates in October. And these are the kind of people that George W. Bush listens to for counsel on matters of policy.

I'm telling you folks, all it takes is one more attack, and we may very likely have internment camps for Arabs and Muslims, and if the Right really gets their way they may throw in the gays and other liberal "troublemakers" too.

For more information:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/185162_vcenter06.html

[bluestateguy]

1. kick

:kick:

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. She's a fruitcake.

[teryang]

3. History channel had an implicit endorsement

...of internment policy during WWII and other anti-immigrant nativist practices on just the other night.

[Connie_Corleone]

5. I've given up on The History Channel

All they show is war, war and more war.

[teryang]

6. It's a platform for propaganda

...and establishment interpretations of events. Posner the Warren Commission apologist is used as an invited commentator on their talking heads program when things heat up. He is contraposed by a conservative editor from Naval Proceedings.

[Maddy McCall]

10. As a professional historian who teaches at a uni...

I tell my students never to believe the History Channel's interpretation of historical events.

[smirkymonkey]

14. I'm glad somebody else has noticed!

Why don't they just be honest and call it the "War Channel". All war, all the time.

[Liberal_Dog]

11. Take The History Channel With A Grain Of Salt

One episode of "Great Blunders In History" was about Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. The program never mentioned GHWB's duplicity, April Glaspie, or "We have no interest in Arab land disputes".

[never_get_over_it]

4. I'd like to bring back internment camps

for the entire Bush administration!

Our history of internment camps is shameful.

[tlcandie]

7. Well, if she and those RWers got their way.. everyone who did

not agree with the president would be interned or sent to Gitmo because anything else would be giving the enemy leverage and it would be unpatriotic.

Once the lefties are interned then they can do whatever with the gays and others because there will be noone around to stand up for them.

So, we are about to ROUND ANOTHER CORNER. Are we ready? If * gets re-selected or something goes haywire, I think I'm going to talk to hubby about putting all of our holdings into our children/grandchilren's names, so if confiscated they can't take them as they aren't ours.

Bluestatesguy, I don't think this is out of the question. I remember "TORTURE" being brought up before all the photos were released about what is reasonably allowed, etc. This will be no different and you have to admit, if most people were given the option of security threats vs. internment camps, they would say internment camps because it would allow them to have a temporal peace and feel immediately all better.

They would probably want to ease their conscious and make sure that they had running water and all those humanitarian things, but I don't doubt for a second that they wouldn't LIHop.

[smirkymonkey]

8. Michelle Malkin is certifiably insane.

Talk about a self hating minority. She just doesn't get it.

[Radical Activist]

9. I disagree

You're right that her views are horribly wrong, but I disagree that we shouldn't allow certain views to become part of the mainstream political discourse. First, its good to let these views come to light because it forces people to confront the fact that racism and fascism are part of the political reality today and that these elements are part of the conservative movement. It sometimes allows people who are only slightly sympathetic to these ideas see the extreme conclusion of their prejudices, thereby moving them back to the left.

I'm reminded of why Gerry Springer said he does shows with KKK members and skinheads on. He said that by having those shows, even though they always got low ratings, they forced people to see how silly and wrong racism is. It pushed people that might have slight prejudices to see how wrong that prejudice is. So, lets loudly condemn these internment camps and show people how wrong-headed this modern fascist movement is.

The other reason I don't like that attitude is that the same tactics are used to dismiss good ideas on the left. Opposition to the WTO/NAFTA and almost everything said by Dennis Kucinich is not allowed into the mainstream debate. When we endorse censorship for others we bring it upon ourselves as well.

[NightTrain]

12. Here's what I think of Michelle Malkin....

[fortyfeetunder]

13. Damn good thing I read about this after the fact

Yes exposing people like her shows how small minded and bigoted they are. Had I read this about 7PM, I would have gone up to Bothell with a protest sign...Michelle you dumbshit....

[Paragon]

15. Good idea - let's round up all the conservatives.

Starting with her. ;-)

[IndianaGreen]

16. What makes you think that they will stop with Arabs and Muslims?

When they first started using the extra-legal "enemy combatant" some of the defenders of the policy said that Guantanamo and detention without charges or legal representation would never be applied to American citizens. Well, we know they lied about that!

As long as the PATRIOT Act remains on the books, none of us are safe!

[Cat Atomic]

17. And people still scoff at the suggestion that there are Nazi qualities

to the Conservative movement. It just gets more and more blatant every day.

[DrBB]

18. Her book is being authoritatively debunked in a couple of places

Orcinus has a lengthy entry on it, and Eric Muller (UNC Law School) and author of a book on the internment, "Free to Die for Their Country," is currently on part 6 of a rigorous demolition of Malkin's idiocy.