Japanese Internment vs. Ignoring the AIDs Crisis

[Higgins]

What was the more immoral action? FDR interning the Japanese, or Reagan ignoring AIDS until 1987?

[Higgins]

Japanese internment was ineffective and a mistake, but it was not immoral given the situation.

Virtually everything Ronald Wilson Reagan did was immoral, which, in a way, is something I admire about him.

I think the Japanese who spent years in a prison camp just for being Japanese would consider it much more than a "mistake." Even J. Edgar Hoover, that noted paragon of racial tolerance, urged Roosevelt not to do it.

[Higgins]

Japanese internment was ineffective and a mistake, but it was not immoral given the situation.

Virtually everything Ronald Wilson Reagan did was immoral, which, in a way, is something I admire about him.

I think the Japanese who spent years in a prison camp just for being Japanese would consider it much more than a "mistake." Even J. Edgar Hoover, that noted paragon of racial tolerance, urged Roosevelt not to do it.

They weren't Japanese, they were Americans. That is why it was a mistake. However, at the time, we had a different idea of what it meant to be American, and such views were not limited towards Americans of Japanese ethnicity.

A mistake is when you forget to take the coffee off the boiler. Jailing thousands of citizens because of their ethnicity is not a mistake.

[Higgins]

A mistake is when you forget to take the coffee off the boiler. Jailing thousands of citizens because of their ethnicity is not a mistake.

They were relocated to areas where they could not be compromised by Japan, and because like I said, at the time, people (and the law) had a different idea of what it meant to be American, and the presence of ethnic Japanese in major cities on the West Coast would've been problematic to public order. The Japanese in Hawaii were largely untouched by this policy, so it was not purely a racist policy like you suggest. It was misguided, but there were some pragmatic considerations.

Difficult times call for difficult decisions, and not all of them are correct in retrospect. I don't want to malign our leaders of the time with the kind of sanctimonious language you choose to use.

Didn't you just change colors from blue to red about a month ago?

Yes, yes he did.

[Higgins]

First of all, nobody was charged with crimes for simply being ethnic Japanese, so cool the hyperbole.

They didn't need to be charged. If someone came to your house and told you that because of your ethnicity, you needed to leave everything and everyone you knew behind, to be relocated to a hellish part of the country in what was basically a non-lethal concentration camp, you'd feel like you were being treated like a perp. So, no, they weren't even charged with any crime; their guilt was automatically assumed because of how they looked.

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It was a rounding and locking up of thousands of your fellow citizens based on their appearance and ethnicity. That's immoral. Don't try to downplay it.

[Higgins]

Just a reminder that Roosevelt could easily have ordered the death of all Japanese-Americans, and over fifty percent of the country supported wiping out everyone of Japanese blood.

At least Reagan's reaction to such a threat wasn't: "Jail all the gays!!!"

[In 1978], Reagan was the anointed hero of American conservatism and the presumptive 1980 Republican presidential nominee when an Orange County state legislator, John Briggs, spearheaded a ballot initiative called Proposition 6 to bar gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools.

Reagan’s political handlers advised him to steer clear, but gay Republicans privately asked him to get involved, as did some Democratic friends and some Hollywood pals. Briggs, who wrongly assumed Reagan was on his side, publicly goaded him, too.

Intensive politicking by the California’s liberal establishment had pared Proposition 6’s support from a whopping 75 percent to 55 percent, but that’s where the needle stayed—until Reagan spoke out. In September, he told reporters of his opposition, and followed up with an op-ed saying Proposition 6 would do “real mischief.” Support for it eroded, even in Briggs’ home county, and it lost handily.

One of those who’d urged Reagan to intervene was Los Angeles gay activist David Mixner, a friend of future president Bill Clinton. “Never have I been treated more graciously by a human being,” Mixner said of his meeting with Reagan. “He turned opinion around and saved that election for us. He just thought it was wrong and came out against it.”

For the record, Reagan first mentioned AIDS, in response to a question at a press conference, on Sept. 17, 1985. On Feb. 5, 1986, he made a surprise visit to the Department of Health and Human Services where he said, “One of our highest public health priorities is going to be continuing to find a cure for AIDS.” He also announced that he’d tasked Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to prepare a major report on the disease. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, Reagan dragged Koop into AIDS policy, not the other way around.

As for Waxman’s recollections about AIDS funding, he does an unusual thing for a politician: He’s forgotten the success he and other Democrats had in convincing Reagan to spend more money. The administration increased AIDS funding requests from $8 million in 1982 to $26.5 million in 1983, which Congress bumped to $44 million, a number that doubled every year thereafter during Reagan’s presidency."