The Government here never apologizes, or is it just me?

[lycan94]

Quick question that popped into my head and stayed there. Did the U.S government ever apologize to the people who were arrested as communists back in the fiffties but acctualy weren't?
I mean, the French goverment apologized officialy to the dead people who were killed as werewolves, so why can't my government apologize for its own s*** mistakes?

[Berserker]

Because that would lead to a slippery slope where they have to apologize for thousands of things throughout history. Or at least that's what they probably think.

[Uniform Two Six]

Not that that's stopping us from making asinine public statements that Turkey should have to apologize for actions that were committed by the Ottoman Empire. Hypocrisy: Just one of the many services we as Americans provide.

[RedEye]

To apoligise would mean that the Government had concluded it had done something wrong.
Impossible...

Although, the Congress eventually did apologise to the Japanese who were imprisoned at the start of World War II in American Concentration Camps.
Most of the people involved were dead, however.

[Terastas]

No, but they did give McCarthy and his ilk the heave ho.

That's how the U.S. government typically does stuff -- instead of the old administration eventually apologizing, a new administration eventually comes in and puts the screws to the old one for it. It's what happened to the Hoover regime after the great depression, it's what happened to the Nixon regime after the Watergate scandal, and it's what will happen to the Bush regime in 2009.

The only thing I can ever remember the U.S. government apologizing for was slavery. Everything else usually gets chalked up to the current president/regime and any hope for an apology gets buried with them.

[RedEye]

Actually, I don't believe that the Government ever apoligised for that. The 14th amendment was what ended slavery in the North, but nobody ever apoligised for it.

The Japanese Internment was not only apologised for by Congress, but that august organization actually made some payment for the losses incurred by the Americans of Japanese Ancestry who were illegally imprisoned.
As far back as the era the Post-Revolutionary Articles of Confederation, our first Constitution, it was realized the apologising for something made you liable for your actions; and since Congress doesn't want to responsible for anything; the idea of Apology was dropped for the most part.
Although the process of blaming the OTHER GUYS (as you referenced) has been in use forever. Even if they were those other guys back then...

[Scott Gardener]

Part of the problem with apologies and reparations is, where does it stop? The African-American community today in the U.S. has received a somewhat haphazard apology over slavery, but its adequacy in the light of subsequent "Jim Crow" and segregation policies has been controversial. Then, there's the Japanese-Americans who were relocated during World War II. And, the Native Americans, too many small nations to count, have dealt with historic atrocities.

But, what about Chinese-Americans over here about 150 or so years ago, also put to work in forced labor, effectively as slaves? And, what about the Irish? Around 1900 or so, there were signs on bars saying "No Irish."

Or, how about the treatment of Koreans in Japan, or the reparations of present day North and South Korea for damage done during World War II? Or, getting back to the Irish, the atrocities of the British government, starving their Irish subjects during the great potato famine? Or, in Africa, how about the people there in Africa, the rival tribes, who captured and sold us the ancestors to many of the African-Americans here today, as slaves?

Pick any nationality, and you can probably find another nationality that wants an apology from them.

What about religion? Catholic vs. Protestant, Catholic vs. Orthodox, Catholic vs. Jewish... Or Christians in general vs. Islamic... Or, within Islam, the old, ever popular Sunni vs. Shiite? Or, Christians vs. Wicca? As a Wiccan, I'm a bit irate about a few things, too. Or, what about Atheism? They actually had the best track record of any faith, but no, Stalin and Mao Zedong had to screw that one up. Thanks to various Communist movements last century, Atheism went from least bloody to most bloody belief system almost overnight.

And, gender? Fully half the human population has had to tolerate being relegated to status ranging from "the weaker sex" to outright slavery under regimes like the Taliban.

Where do we draw the line? How many more people have to apologize for the sins and misdeeds of their ancestors? Can we not instead transcend the limitations of the mind-sets of bygone generations, learning from them wisdom but leaving behind their mistakes? Rather than focusing on what was done wrong before, let's focus on what we're doing wrong today and get to work fixing our inequalities.

I do grant that those who are alive today deserve fair compensation done by regimes that are still in place. To that end, people whose lives were destroyed by the McCarthy era and the irrational panic that resulted from it probably do deserve having at least things put to right. But my demanding an apology over, say, impressing American citizens into British wars against France around 1804, is a bit obsolete.

I do welcome Pope John Paul II's apologizing for Galileo's execution for being right about the Solar System, but this was largely a ceremonial matter, a way of establishing that the Vatican today is nothing like the institution it was back in the Renaissance era, which resembled more the Taliban than Catholicism. What matters more to me is that they chose to honor Professor Stephen Hawking for his contributions towards understanding the creation of the universe, rather than executing him for it.

[RedEye]

Uhhh, Scott; Galileo wasn't executed by the Catholic church. He was imprisoned for life in his home, with all his tools and equipment available to him. The Pope knew that Galileo was probably right; it was his sarcastic book that was objected to.
Yes, he had do say he was wrong. And yes; the Church had astronomers checking his figures even after his works were burned. There were more politics than polemics involved in his Heresy trial.
Mostly, he was slapped down because he made the Pope into a chracter called "Simplicio" or "Dummy" in his exposition; and back then you just didn't do things like that.
He was consulted about his Heretical Solar-Centered solar system theory by the Jesuits--not to squash him, but to check their own figures against his observations (which he was still allowed to make after the Trial).
The Pope's "apology" was just good--if late--damage control.

[Terastas]

Scott may have gone a little overboard with the examples, but he pretty much hit the nail on the head: To whom must the government also apologize and how?

[Berserker]

Scott said in a billion words what I already said in a few.

Anyway, the government has to apologize every now and then. It empowers the powerless. The foundation of liberal democracy. To not uplift a certain group is to admit that not everyone is equal, and that has disastrous implications for societies defined by sentiment.