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Opening Arguments

More than feelings were hurt

Just in case you think that anti-war critics are treated harshly today, sometimes being called un-patriotic and all, and that xenophobic sentiment sometimes seems to be evident in discussions of illegal aliens or Muslim Arabs. It was once much worse:

HELENA, Montana (AP) -- It was a black mark on dozens of family histories that lingered for nearly nine decades -- until a journalism professor and a group of law students examined what happened to citizens who spoke out against the government during World War I.

On Wednesday, nearly 80 people convicted of sedition amid the war's anti-German hysteria received the first posthumous pardons in Montana history, including one who was imprisoned merely for calling the conflict a "rich man's war" and mocking food regulations during a time of rationing.

Governor Brian Schweitzer said the state was "about 80 years too late" in pardoning the mostly working-class people of German descent who were convicted of breaking what was then one of the harshest sedition laws in the nation.

We always strive to be better than we have been. That's the deal about this country.

Posted in: Current Affairs

Comments

Barry
Fri, 05/05/2006 - 7:37am

America has gone mad with political correctness. Am I the only person left willing to say that the internment of Japanese during WWII--however unfortunate--was the right thing to do?

Didn't we pay close attention to Russians and other Eastern Europeans during the Cold War?

Doesn't it make sense, if our airplanes are high-jacked by 19 middle-eastern Muslims, that we'd pay especial attention to middle-easterners annd Muslims?

If a white man with red hair robs a liquor store, are the police sexist and racist to focus their search for the perpetrator on red-haired men?

Sometimes I really think this country is done. And Western Europe is perhaps even more decadently self-loathing than we are, so perhaps we're witnessing the death of Western Civilization. The Chinese, the Mexicans and others will be happy to pick up the pieces.

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