Diabolical dishonesty.

The other day, and I don't really feel like retracing my steps and providing the links, I somehow stumbled upon Michelle Malkin's website and saw that she had written a book in which she attempts to set the record straight on the WWII internment camps in the US. From what I gathered there, she claims that racism was not a big factor when people from various ethnic backgrounds were moved to internment camps, that it was not predominantly Japanese-Americans that lived there, and that it was a military necessity to create the camps. This might not be a 100% accurate depiction of her position, as this is just from memory, though. Oh, I also remember a claim stating that some people moved there voluntarily. Somehow, it seemed really fishy, and without further research I thought that putting people that have been convicted of no crimes in camps is just wrong, no matter how you rationalize it.

After looking into it a little further, I quickly discovered articles refuting her claims piece by piece, written by expert scholars on the subject. And as much I was outraged by somebody putting forth such false and misleading claims, I also thought about a tendency I have observed, where this kind of intellectual dishonesty, especially by those who like to cry the loudest, is becoming more and more widespread. Because a lot of people will read this book and take it at face value, and no matter how much the experts explain how wrong and misleading it is, the damage will be done. I loathe people deliberately deceiving the public like this, all in the name of uncovering the truth, but really trying to further their agenda. Case in point: Michelle Malkin claims that she wrote the book as somebody not affected by the internments in any way, thus not having any vested interest in the outcome of her findings. However, she immediately takes her findings to argue that racial profiling should be used more widely to deter acts of terrorism. How someone can keep a straight face and present themselves as a messenger of truth while at the same time arguing in such a way is simply beyond me, and taints the public debate upon which a functioning democracy relies.