Is December 7th Still Living In Infamy?

The USS Arizona December 7, 1941

It's Pearl Harbor Day, 2012.

71Years ago, our Great Republic was attacked. Hawaii was not yet a state, yet it housed a US Naval Installation that became world famous. On December 7, 1941, Japanese war planes attacked the unsuspecting US Base. The outcry from Americans tipped the scales forcing our government to declare war and enter World War II.

The part that lives in on infamy is the reminders in the intelligence community. There were indicators. Intelligence personnel did their analysis and came to the conclusion that Japan was going to attack, and that attack would most likely be against Pearl Harbor. However, those at the top in the military and national defense chains pi-shawed the intelligence community. The result was that Pearl Harbor was not adequately defended.

The USS Arizona Memorial

That one act by the Japanese brought the US into war. It was Hitler's nightmare as we not only went after our attackers but also turned our sights on one of the most evil men in history.

Japan attacked us. It was not some little splinter group of misunderstood Shinto. It was the Japanese. Hitler wasn't some minor cult leader. He was an extreme national socialist set on world domination. He, just like national socialism, proved to be evil. National socialism isn't just an economic mechanism where the government tyrannically controls industry. It is a mindset that segregates people into collectives, then eliminates those collectives the government deems unfit to be part of the whole. Hitler went after the disabled, the homosexuals, the Poles, the Jews, and the Catholics. If anybody else stood in his way, he would have declared that whole collective as "flawed" and a threat to his society.

Even under the socialist FDR, America stood against this.

Our citizens went to war.

Those at home ended up working in the military-industrial complex, as factories and businesses turned to producing for the war effort in order to regain prosperity lost in the depression. Women entered the workforce in greater numbers than previously seen in history.

And we kicked their asses. We beat Hitler into committing suicide in a bunker. We beat Japan into vapor, eventually dropping nuclear weapons on them, under the orders of President Truman.

December 7, 1941 was a black-eye day. However, it lead to a demonstration of American Exceptionalism that would echo until January 20, 2009.