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During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#151

Post by siidooloo »

conistonwater wrote: post #106
ericd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one can't successfully appeal to someone's sense of morality (perhaps because they have different morals), one can try to appeal to their sense of self interest.

This one, uh, I point-blank refuse to believe. The moral principles about how you can treat other people are so widespread and uniform (made it into the bloody bible, even; the only bit that everybody knows from that MLK speech is about this), that you're gonna have some serious convincing to do, before I believe that people "have different morals". It seems more believable that people have just the same morals they…

People's answers to things like the trolly problem says we do have different morals and the way you frame a question has a lot to do with what we think is moral.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#152

Post by tptacek »

paulddraper wrote: post #64
URSpider94 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call complete BS. "The 1909 murder of Elsie Sigel in New York, of which a Chinese person was suspected, was blamed on the Chinese in general and led to physical violence. "The murder of Elsie Sigel immediately grabbed the front pages of newspapers, which portrayed Chinese men as dangerous to "innocent" and "virtuous" young white women. This murder led to a surge in the harassment of Chinese in communities across th…

Well, "complete BS" right back. > portrayed Chinese men as dangerous to "innocent" and "virtuous" young white women Suspecting a group of criminal activity is hardly terrorism; you could have just quoted attitudes towards blacks for a less obscure analogy. > So your allegation that the linkage of Muslims to terrorist extremism is unique is provably untrue. I never said that no other group has ever been linked to terr…

Italians were literally accused of terrorism. That's what "anarchism" meant in the 1920s. And just as there is today with "Radical Islamism", there was a nationwide panic about anarchism.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#153

Post by tptacek »

paulddraper wrote: post #56
ctrl-j wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Italians, Germans, Swedes, Jews, and Japanese didn't immigrate to other countries and slaughter its citizens. Neither do Muslims? I mean, show me the statistics that show that they have a higher terrorism rate than other groups. The IRA, the extremist christian groups, and the mentally ill all do a lot of damage as well, but they're not being banned from the USA. I think Muslims get targeted by the media because th…

Overall numbers are hard to come by, especially for smallish incidents, but of the 23 acts of terrorism in 2016 killing a hundred or more people, 100% of them were done by Muslims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... > they're not being banned from the USA Were there countries with huge numbers of extremely violent mentally ill people, I have no doubt the US would limit or halt immigration…

By something like an order of magnitude, more people are killed annually by armed toddlers in the US than by radical Islamist foreign nationals. Both Islamists and toddlers take a back seat to the nationwide vending machine threat --- vending machines can be counted on in 2017 to kill enough Americans to justify a travel ban on all employees of the Coca Cola and Frito Lay corporations.

I fear you many have selected the wrong forum to litigate this argument in. The deeper we dig into the facts behind the argument you're trying to make, the (rapidly) less credible that argument is going to become. You might have more luck with it on Facebook.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#154

Post by tptacek »

badmadrad wrote: post #109

Using this as a criticism of Trump's travel ban is a false equivalency. There have literally been a rash of terrorist attacks in Europe perpetrated by radicalized Syrians, Somalians, and Iranians. Not to mention the knife attack from Somalian refugee (who was getting a free ride) at Ohio State. Read through these lists and tell me there is nothing to be worried about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_i…

What travel ban should we enact to create common-sense protections in this country from the gathering toddler threat? In 2015, more people were shot by toddlers than by radical Islamist foreign nationals.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#155

Post by krapp »

finid wrote: post #131
rpeden wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reply to your post added the quote. I sincerely hope that posting such a quote isn't cause for a ban - since it's pulled directly from the film, and does a good job of emphasizing the point you're trying to make.

Posting such a thing shouldn't be reason for banning, and one should not be afraid of quoting such text.

Yes, I was clearly too hesitant.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#156

Post by humanrebar »

anigbrowl wrote: post #150
humanrebar wrote: post #139

I'm starting to think that Trump made this move partly to get his left-wing opponents to lose credibility with people in the center by doing something with (if you're generous or disinterested) plausible justification. That is, it's clear to me that people calling this "racist" might even be correct, but it may not matter if it seems like they're calling middle America racist. That looks a lot like being understandin…

I dispute your attempt to conflate protests against Trump's ban on entry with an indictment of middle America. People who support the ban do so for a variety of reasons and are not neatly grouped in the political center as you suggest, just as people who oppose the ban do so for a variety of reasons and can not be neatly grouped on the left. it may not matter if it seems like they're calling middle America racist It'…

> I dispute your attempt to conflate protests against Trump's ban on entry with an indictment of middle America.

You can refute all you want. I'm talking about real conversations I've had with real people. It looks like some Americans are hateful towards "hateful" Americans and it puts people on the defensive and pushes them away.

EDIT:

> you don't speak for the American people

Right. That's not the message that people are getting. There are lines being drawn and many decent people feel like they're being hated along with neo-nazis. That sort of visceral feeling is hard to shake off when you want to later appeal to their sense of decency when health insurance rules are being reconsidered.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#158

Post by throwaway000040 »

KirinDave wrote: post #75

I like this article because it reminds us that "whiteness" is not actually a strictly racial identity. There are numerous factors that make someone "white" in America, which makes them acceptable to white nationalists. These purity rules can change over time to represent what's politically expedient. Many young Americans are shocked to learn that Italian and Irish (who are often a baseline of appearance in modern Ame…

I have yet to see anyone try to advance a similar line of argument citing the past or present hostility existing between the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean peoples as proof that "East Asians" don't really exist and are merely some kind of social construct--let alone with the non-obvious corollary that the peoples wrongly socially constructed as "East Asian," not really existing as such, should therefore immediately open their immigration flood gates to the swarming masses of Africa and the Middle East.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#159

Post by legodt »

paulddraper wrote: post #105
legodt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: the vast majority of North American terrorism is committed by white men. No other group since 9/11 has contributed more to terror than disgruntled white dudes in North America. Refugees are trying to escspe the same horrors you are describing. The situation is similar to the US turning away Jews under the banner of "America First" during WW2 because they feared Nazis sneaking in with the Jews. The "safe" co…

> No other group since 9/11 So no other group since the largest terrorist act in the history of the United States? If that's not a convenient choice in timing, I don't know what is.

Considering your views towards Muslims and willingness to ignore vast amounts of domestic terrorism, it seems like the goals of the 9/11 hijackers has been acheived.

9/11 is a valid date to start from because a large part of its shock value is that for the most part of post WW2 America, there weren't any foreign attacks on American soil. 9/11 was the anomaly, meant to provoke US outrage and further our violence against the middle East, convincing more young people that the US was an agressor and that they were the righteous. Clearly, these people are not righteous, but neither were we.

Re: During WWII, U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

#160

Post by maxerickson »

conistonwater wrote: post #106
ericd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one can't successfully appeal to someone's sense of morality (perhaps because they have different morals), one can try to appeal to their sense of self interest.

This one, uh, I point-blank refuse to believe. The moral principles about how you can treat other people are so widespread and uniform (made it into the bloody bible, even; the only bit that everybody knows from that MLK speech is about this), that you're gonna have some serious convincing to do, before I believe that people "have different morals". It seems more believable that people have just the same morals they…

What are the proper justifications for treating other people as less than people?
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