Oh, sweet irony

[pecunium]

Dave Neiwert (Orcinus) points out that Michelle Malkin is recommending the US Government lock her up.



Malkin, somewhat correctly, is annoyed that some commentators have referred to her as "self-hating":

"The idea that since I am an Asian-American who has defended the so-called Japanese-American internment, I must therefore hate myself, is absurd. What in the world does my ethnic heritage (Filipino) have to do with the book's thesis?"

Of course, she's quite right that the presumption that because she's Asian American she "ought to be" opposed to the Japanese American internment is nonsense. However, the fact that she is of Filipino descent in fact has a great deal to do with her book's thesis.

Malkin, you see, makes great hay of the fact of "dual citizenship" among the Nisei as a clear indicator of "torn loyalties" and a cause to suspect them of potential sabotage or espionage.

But Malkin, as it happens, is a dual citizen herself.

Needless to say she thinks she ought to be exempt from any such roundup because we all know she is loyal. It's all those other people we need to worry about.

Feh.

Comments

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

"Asian American" is a fairly useless grouping in this context. Malkin is a first generation descendant of people who grew up in the post WWII Philippines, which was occupied by the Japanese during the war in a particularly brutal way.

She's not recommending that the US Gov't lock her up. She's saying it's OK to roust and detain members of a particular nationality or ethnic group. She's nowhere near Japanese.

It's what she's hinting at that people ought to be most worried about. She's hinting at rounding up Arabs and putting them in camps. She's just to cowardly to come out and say so.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Malkin is a first generation descendant of people who grew up in the post WWII Philippines, which was occupied by the Japanese during the war in a particularly brutal way.

First, how the Japanese treated the Philipinos is irrelevant to the conversation.

Second, Malkin's argument (which is more than hinted at) is that those who come from countries which are hotbeds of risk, ought to get special attention.

Since one of the central arguments of her thesis is that large numbers of Nissei were dual citizens of Japan/United State, they were justifiablly rounded up, and she has dual citizenship with a country which has a, not inconsiderable, number of Muslims, who are unhappy with the US, (and some of whom are Al Qaeda members) she is saying people like herself, ought to be subject to that extra scrutiny (and perhaps it might be justified to extend it to the level used in WW2 with the Japanese).

Except that when such an argument gets made to her, she says it's different, because she isn't disloyal, and anyone ought to know that.

Nevermind that such a one-by-one examination is something she argues wasn't needful for the Japanese; and by extention need not be granted to those nasty Muslims, who come from questionable countries.

A direct quote from the book jacket might help to put her views in perspective.

Malkin is not advocating rounding up all Arabs or Muslims and tossing them into camps -- but she brings a bracing dose of desperately needed common sense and fearlessness to the ongoing debate about the balance between civil liberties and national security. Says Malkin: "A nation paralyzed in wartime by political correctness is a nation in peril." She provides conclusive proof that wartime presidents can't afford to indulge pandering nonsense from those who would make our security secondary to anything: a nation can't stand for anything unless it is still standing.

TK