Erode freedom
and we are all less secure
Dennis Wyatt July
15, 2015 Manteca Bulletin
“Those who
surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve,
either one.”
— Benjamin Franklin
That quote can be found in a place that serves as a stark reminder
of why Americans are less secure with our infatuation with homeland
security than we were on Sept. 11, 2011.
The place is Manzanar National Historic Site in a desolate stretch
of Inyo County. It marks were 11,700 Americans were interned for
the mere crime of being part of an ethnic group at the wrong time
in history.
They were forcibly sent there without due process out of fear they
were terrorists living among us in the aftermath of Japan’s sneak
attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Some weren’t American citizens but many were.
Their crime was basically being Americans of Japanese descent. The
fear that gave President Roosevelt the authority to issue an
executive order rounding up 120,000 Japanese Americans on the West
Coast was based on the assumption they were agents of espionage for
Japan. Yet by the end of World War II not one of them even had
charges of espionage brought against them.
They were forced to abandon businesses, farms, homes, pets and
virtually all of their belongings. Those fortunate enough had
neighbors who watched over their property and took care of it while
they were interned. Some lost everything by the war’s end.
Manzanar stands as much as to the foolishness of suspending freedom
in times of fear as it does as mute testimony of what 120,000 loyal
Americans suffered while housed at 10 internment camps in desolate
desert regions as well as in swamps in the western United
States.
The willingness of many of us today to suspend freedom and liberty
in exchange for the false sense of security belies the fact such a
strategy can easily make you the victim of some future mass
hysteria based on ethnicity, beliefs, or political views.
In a way, it is no different than those who opted to turn a blind
eye to the mass extermination of the Jews. They did so because they
weren’t Jewish but it ignores the fact that the target could be the
Jews today and them tomorrow
The point is not to sit in judgment of what the United States did
in 1942 after Pearl Harbor. Instead it is to remember the truism
that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
We did not intern Americans of Middle Eastern descent after Sept.
11, 2001. That said our treatment as a society as a whole and the
government in particular of those Americans who have ethnic ties to
the Middle East hasn’t exactly been stellar.
Years ago when I was still in high school in Lincoln, my group of
friends got into a discussion on religion. One guy believed Marvin
Hata was a Buddhist simply based on his ethnicity. He refused to
believe Marvin when he told him that he was a Methodist as were his
parents and his grandparents. They were parents and grandparents,
by the way, that had been among the 120,000 internees taken from
their homes, farms, and businesses simply because they were
Americans of Japanese descent.
Fast forward to 15 or so years ago: An anonymous caller to the
Bulletin was “upset” that “Thomas” had bought the Texaco station at
Powers and Yosemite avenues here in Manteca. The caller said he was
“one of them” referencing the Iraqis that were “religious fanatics”
that Americans fought in the Gulf War.
It turns out Thomas and his family are Christians that fled the
Saddam Hussein regime. The odds of them being executed for their
faith if they had stayed was extremely high.
We are never more wrong when we make blanket decisions based on a
person’s skin tone in regards to who they are.
America is supposed to value the individual yet as a society we
spend most of our time trying to pigeonhole people based on skin
tone, religion, political beliefs, sexuality, socio-economic
background, and even the way they dress.
We still have the lingering attitude DNA that gave the Balkan
States a verb — balkanization. We need to work harder at stopping
the tendency to make wholesale judgments of groups of people.
Just because they watch the Dukes of Hazards doesn’t make them a
racist nor if they support abortion does it make them
murders.
Yes, both statements are shaped by perspective. If every time you
saw a Confederate flag and you are black and you experienced
racism, you may jump to the conclusion — however wrong it
might be — that the Confederate flag is a sign of racism in all
cases where you see it. By the same token not everyone by a long
shot agrees at what point life begins.
People don’t have to sacrifice their values and beliefs.
What they need to do, though, is to refrain from passing blanket
judgments that ultimately rob us all of freedom for a false sense
of security.
America is only as strong as individuals banding together — not out
of fear or prejudice — but from seeking common ground.
And anytime we willing allow anyone’s freedoms to be sacrificed
without due process we all become a little less secure.