Off The Editor’s Desk – 12-16-2015

IS TRUMP SUGGESTING WHAT FDR DID?

Last week I came across a piece penned by Jeffery Lord of “The American Spectator” entitled “FDR was Trump on steroids.”

Trump was called on the carpet for saying that there should be a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering he United States.”

For all you young people reading this, “FDR” refers to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our 32nd President who served from 1933 to 1945, during World War II.

Lord writes: “Germany, Italy and the Japanese were the Muslims of the day in December, 1941. FDR responded as follows, first with the Japanese, then the Germans and Italians with his Presidential Proclamations number 2525, 2526 and 2527.”

Those proclamations, in part stated that, “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies”

Roosevelt made three separate orders, one for each of the three governments at war with the United States starting with the Japanese, the perpetrators of Pearl Harbor, which thrust us into the war.”

Roosevelt issued another Executive Order (number 9066) on February 19, 1942, which authorized the deportation and incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry. They were sent into forced relocation and incarceration centers. About 120,000 people were relocated, most of whom lived on the west coast. About one-third of the population of Hawaii were persons of Japanese ancestry. But, less than 2,000 were forced into relocation centers.

How did that affect us in later years? Well, the pressure mounted until in 1980, President Jimmy Carter ordered an investigation. In 1988 it was concluded that some 82,219 people were still alive that had been interned and that they should each be paid $20,000 or a total cost to us taxpayers of $1,600,000,000.

Speaking of President Carter, he banned Iranians from this country. During the Iranian hostage crises, Carter issued a number of orders to put pressure on Iran. Among them, Iranians were banned from entering the United States unless they opposed the Shiite Islamist regime or had a medical emergency. Carter could not get those hostages released. Ronald Reagan campaigned for the president and said that the first thing he would do as president was to send the army into Iran to get those hostages out. Just minutes after Reagan was inaugurated as president, the hostages were released, ending 444 days of captivity for 54 Americans.

Bill Clinton was the strictest president in modern times when it came to immigration, signing bills cracking down on both legal and illegal immigrants.

Lord concluded his article with this: “What Donald Trump is suggesting is that there be a pause in Muslim immigration to America. And the media, liberals, and especially disgraceful, even Republicans freak out. Yet meanwhile there are all these celebrations of Franklin Roosevelt — the big monument in Washington, the gazillion locations named in his honor, the endless celebration by the likes of Time magazine and, but of course, liberals like the Democratic National Committee.

Now, those are very harsh words against someone that can’t defend himself. Roosevelt is a hero, to many, especially those of us on Social Security.

Thanks for reading!       ~Carlton