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I'll delegate to Jon Stewart on this one: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/18/1202810/-Jon-Stewart-covers-new-torture-report http://www.dailykos.com/story

I'll delegate to Jon Stewart on this one: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/18/1202810/-Jon-Stewart-covers-new-torture-report http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/18/1202810/-Jon-Stewar... [video clip] FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY UNDERSECRETARY ASA HUTCHINSON (4/16/2013): It's important because we as a nation have to get this right. I look back at history to the time during World War II, that we interned some Japanese-Americans. At the time, it seemed like the right and proper thing to do. But in the light of history, it was an error. JON STEWART: I'm sorry, just excuse me for a second, I just need to check something real quick. I just need to.... (takes out cell phone and dials a number) ---- GEORGE TAKEI: Hello, Jon. JON STEWART: Hey! Hey, is this George Takei? GEORGE TAKEI: Hi, how are you? JON STEWART: I'm very well, sir. How are you? GEORGE TAKEI: Just great. (audience cheering) JON STEWART: It's Jon Stewart. I have a quick question for you. When you were four years old, and your family were taken from your home and placed in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans — at the time, did that seem like the right and proper thing to do? GEORGE TAKEI: No! It did not. (audience laughter) JON STEWART: OK, thanks a lot, George. GEORGE TAKEI: Anytime, Jon. JON STEWART: All right, bye-bye. ---- (audience cheering and applause) JON STEWART: Yeah, that's what I thought! See, the thing about a moral compass is, if you take it out and check it from time to time, you don't have to wait for history to tell you you're facing the wrong direction.

AlfredMiller 11y ago
Jon Stewart is glib. That's his act, but at the core it's just current received wisdom. It's the easiest position a person could possibly take. I'd like to see him play the same scene on an issue that almost nobody feels comfortable about. Say the decision to use atomic weapons to end the Pacific war. First he could call a Japanese orphaned child and ask if it seemed right and proper at the time to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to avoid more Allied casualties in the alternate invasion scenarios. Then, playing the counterfactual, he could call an American mother who lost her son in the invasion of Japan, for which hundreds of thousands of casualties were projected on each side, and ask if it seemed right and proper to waste her son's life when an alternative existed that would have precluded the invasion. Stewart's approach is a garden variety example of studying the past only in order to look down on the past's inhabitants.

AlfredMiller 11y ago

Jon Stewart is glib. That's his act, but at the core it's just current received wisdom. It's the easiest position a person could possibly take. I'd like to see him play the same scene on an issue that almost nobody feels comfortable about. Say the decision to use atomic weapons to end the Pacific war. First he could call a Japanese orphaned child and ask if it seemed right and proper at the time to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to avoid more Allied casualties in the alternate invasion scenarios. Then, playing the counterfactual, he could call an American mother who lost her son in the invasion of Japan, for which hundreds of thousands of casualties were projected on each side, and ask if it seemed right and proper to waste her son's life when an alternative existed that would have precluded the invasion. Stewart's approach is a garden variety example of studying the past only in order to look down on the past's inhabitants.