RIP Fumiko Hayashida

Once upon a time, in a land not far away, a bad king instructed his soldiers to forcibly arrest seventy-thousand innocent, men, women, children, and babies and put them in prison camps despite them having done nothing wrong.  Why?  Because the king said so, that's why.  The king's name was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the victims were ordinary hard working innocent American citizens, and the king's armed soldiers were our men of the United States Army.

Ms. Hayashida was one of those women forcibly removed from her home at the point of a soldier's bayonet, and forced onto a train taking her to an American concentration camp.  She was an American citizen who had a Fifth Amendment right to not have government take her life or liberty or property without the due process of law, but the government was of course unconcerned.  She saw no jury and there was no charge or conviction for any crime, not a shred of her right to due process, and the soldiers who stole her life and liberty were as worthless as their fascist president.  Congress didn't even pass a law mandating this unconstitutional violation of rights, it was simply done via Executive Order number 9066.  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) tucked tail and declined to represent these Americans in the courts, to attempt to restore the tattered Constitution.  The Supreme Court of the United States got it wrong at any rate, repeatedly, as when tyranny reigns over a nation suddenly clear law and rights become complicated and grey, and not so easily understood without being read into the higher mysteries of a legal priesthood.

It would be wonderful to say that we Americans, and especially those of us who swore an oath to the Constitution, have learned from our history and are resolute to not let such tyrannical acts happen again in the land of the so-called free, and the home of the so-called brave.  But that isn't the case.  It has gotten much worse since the 1940s and Ms. Hayashida is fortunate that she was not murdered by a drone.  Our military officers today lack the concern, character, and courage required to make good on their oaths.  Simply put, they don't care about the rights of Ms. Hayashida or the American baby in her arms.  We have become a police state where our king's men will arrest a ninety-year old World War II veteran for feeding the homeless, just as quickly as they will push a button and remotely kill an American simply because they were told to do so.

Yet Ms. Hayashida's beautiful memorial will help the lesson not be lost on those very few Americans who still inhabit our nation.

Her internment was sad, her death is sad, but what is by far the most sad is that our nation has gone backward since even that dark period.