Kris Kobach, a member of Donald Trump’s transition team, had suggested that the new administration could reinstate a national registry for immigrants from “suspect” countries. So then yesterday, Carl Higbie, a prominant Trump supporter and fund-raiser, told Megyn Kelly on Fox News that he supported that idea.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve done it based on race, we\u2019ve done it based on religion, we\u2019ve done it based on region,\u201d Mr. Higbie said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done it with Iran back \u2014 back a while ago. We did it during World War II with Japanese.”<\/p>\n
Ms. Kelly seemed taken aback. “You\u2019re not proposing,” she said, “that we go back to the days of internment camps, I hope.”<\/p>\n
Mr. Higbie said, in response, “We need to protect America first.”<\/p>\n
My very first thought, when I heard that, was that if they start rounding up Muslim Americans, I will immediately go out and register as Muslim. This evening I was heartened to read in the NY Times that the chief executive of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, had had exactly the same reaction. “If one day Muslims will be forced to register,” he said, “that is the day that this proud Jew will register as a Muslim.”<\/p>\n
Reading all this, I am reminded of a quote from pastor Martin Niem\u00f6ller of the German Protestant Church, as he looked back on the Nazi policy of rounding up successively larger groups of “undesirables”:<\/p>\n
\nFirst they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out —
\nBecause I was not a Socialist.<\/p>\nThen they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out —
\nBecause I was not a Trade Unionist.<\/p>\nThen they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
\nBecause I was not a Jew.<\/p>\nThen they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kris Kobach, a member of Donald Trump’s transition team, had suggested that the new administration could reinstate a national registry for immigrants from “suspect” countries. So then yesterday, Carl Higbie, a prominant Trump supporter and fund-raiser, told Megyn Kelly on Fox News that he supported that idea. “We\u2019ve done it based on race, we\u2019ve done … Continue reading ““And I did not speak out””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18086"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18086"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18089,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18086\/revisions\/18089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}