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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Manzanar
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Which nations in the 20th century had sizeable (not onesy-twosy) internments of their own citizens (while not in a state of civil war)? I'm thinking of three. The USSR, Nazi Germany, and the USA. Who'd I leave out?
Ottoman Empire, China, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, just off the top of my head.
Aggression launched against a minority by a government-led majority is not necessarily the same as civil war.
What great company for the USA to be in. Any American not ashamed of the Japanese internment to the core of their being doesn't deserve to be called such. Good thing for them it's not earned. Unless of course you're an immigrant.
Vietnam's another one.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The only reasonable explanation for the difference would be if Japanese-Americans were considered inherently more traitorous than German-Americans or Italian-Americans, which would seem to be a racist position.
I'm struck by the similarities and differences between Pearl Harbour and 9/11.
Both were attacks on the US at a time when Americans thought wars were things that happened overseas, with a disproportionate psychological impact as a result.
But if 9/11 was asymmetric warfare, Pearl Harbour was all-too-symmetric. Without looking up the figures, Japan would have been considered at the time to have military forces comparable in scale and technology with the US. Carrier-borne air strikes were pretty much the pinnacle of military tech.
So whilst the war in Europe was proceeding along lines for which WW1 had to some extent prepared the American psyche, the war in the Pacific was something new and more threatening and not played by the old rules.
The US had a good reason for considering Japan more treacherous than Germany.
Imprisoning the innocent alongside the guilty is something totalitarian states do. At least some totalitarian states seem to be in a constant state of undeclared war - siege mentality - in order to justify their mistreatment of their own citizens. Something to do with the first casualty of war being innocence ?
Of course the US in the 1930s was racist. What country wasn't?
What seems peculiar to me is that some seem to think the plight of the innocent imprisoned was worse because the people of other enemy nations weren't treated the same.
Never mind imprisonment without trial, never mind confiscation of property, never mind inhumane conditions, let's all get outraged about the Japanese and the Germans not being treated equally ???
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
People are not getting upset because they think the German's were treated better, they are getting upset because the Japanese should not have so poorly. The contrast is to show how racism was the cause.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
and fwiw, it was the 1940s, not the 1930s
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
it would be akin to the US government locking up all the Muslims after 9/11 and some mouthy anti-Semitic Imam from a radical mosque.
Unless there was some evidence, other than his unpleasantness, to link the imam to 9/11, in terms of injustice and disproportionateness it would be just as wrong to lock him up as to lock up all Muslims - it would just affect a greater number.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
What seems peculiar to me is that some seem to think the plight of the innocent imprisoned was worse because the people of other enemy nations weren't treated the same.
Never mind imprisonment without trial, never mind confiscation of property, never mind inhumane conditions, let's all get outraged about the Japanese and the Germans not being treated equally ???
What seems peculiar to me is that some still can't seem to get it straight that we're not talking about "people of other enemy nations", we're talking about why Japanese-Americans were treated differently from other Americans.
We all agree the treatment of the internees was atrocious (except, perhaps for those who characterize it as one of those things that "nice sensitive liberal diversity-loving great-grandchildren living in peacetime might not like"); the different treatment of German-Americans is noted to show that simply having ancestral ties to an enemy nation can hardly explain (let alone excuse) the severity of the policy.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
it would be akin to the US government locking up all the Muslims after 9/11 and some mouthy anti-Semitic Imam from a radical mosque.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Unless there was some evidence, other than his unpleasantness, to link the imam to 9/11, in terms of injustice and disproportionateness it would be just as wrong to lock him up as to lock up all Muslims - it would just affect a greater number.
How do you determine "just as wrong"? It seems to me that there are shades of miscarriage of justice.
For instance if someone has sufficient evidence to convict them of hate speech that would warrant being locked up for a few weeks and they are instead interned for a prolonged period, that can't be "just as wrong" as locking someone up without any evidence at all?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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