Americans Against Refugees

In 1938, 67.4 percent of Americans said they would not support accepting in German, Austrian, and other refugees into the US. When asked in 1939 if Jewish refugee children should be granted entrance to the US, 61 percent of respondents said no.

This was the attitude towards Jews attempting to flee the war, in which Americans denied their plight. The subtext is that we sent these people to their deaths in the concentration camps. We've not necessarily lost all that much sleep over this decision. But...

...that was a time where technology wasn't the way it is now...DUH! So communication was much slower. We could only go by: rumors, what our government tells us, and the newspaper. To a LOT of Americans, it wasn't mostly about the infiltration of spies within our ranks, it was mainly about the Depression. Jobs being scarce, and America rebuilding, it hardly wanted to get involve in any war.

When we see the Syrians, their ideology is not the same as our own. Their religion guides a lot of how they exist in life. Upon further reading, it is a pious attempt at purity. To live in the good graces of a greater being. As Americans we're asked to separate church and state. For most of us, we are fairly moderate. As illegal immigration chaps my ass, the marijuana issue is a bunch of nothing. In terms of using this old poll to garner our sympathies towards our past mistakes, it's hard to soften a position in which we just saw what a handful of devout Muslims can do. The risk is too great. We see WWII as a war where there were clearer lines than there are now. In that case, of course we've admitted wrong and sent tens of thousands of our own soldiers to get the bad guy. I'm not sure what the moral side of me believes is correct. I would help a complete stranger in the street, if they were lying in the gutter bleeding, I'm not going to go out of my way to drag someone bleeding into the gutter so I can assist him.

The similar poll today has us (as Americans) feeling the same way. I think that's the only similarities you can draw.