Korematsu v. United States

[Inquiringperson]

Does the decision for this case conform to our Catholic beliefs?

 

[Julia_Mae]

I have no idea what you are talking about, so, could we have an explanation and a link, please?

 

[Hokomai]

Does the decision for this case conform to our Catholic beliefs?

Should be easy to test: what did the US Bishops do at the time Japanese Americans’ rights were being ignored?

 

[Tarpeian_Rock]

Should be easy to test: what did the US Bishops do at the time Japanese Americans’ rights were being ignored?

I’d be really interested in knowing the answer to that. Hate to say it, but I’d guess that the Catholic Bishops took no position at all, or if they did, they would have supported the government.

 

[IrishRush]

Should be easy to test: what did the US Bishops do at the time Japanese Americans’ rights were being ignored?

I could find nothing detailing their response to this decision, but in my own personal opinion I think this decision is NOT in line with our Catholic beliefs. Let me also say though, that the motivation behind the U.S.'s decision to do this to Japanese Americans is understandable though not honorable. I personally question the loyalty of many Muslim Americans, especially after seeing the videos of a variety of Middle Eastern countries whose citizens were celebrating in the streets on the occasion of 9/11. I also have to say that I have many Muslim American friends who were abolutely and sincerely horrified by what occurred on 9/11. So I personally had rwo very contradictory bits of information finding their way into my own response.
The safety of one’s nation, and by extension, family, is an emotional subject and as such causes reactions from people, as opposed to well-considered responses. So reflexive actions tend to be more emotionally based (reactions) while rational decisions and choices (responses) tend to be more intellectually rooted.
Also consider the state of the entire country’s emotions after Pearl Harbor.
So many factors come into play here. None of them justify what was done to the Japanese Americans at that time, but they do have to be considered.
Just my very humble opinion.

 

[Inquiringperson]

I have no idea what you are talking about, so, could we have an explanation and a link, please?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States

Does the Catechism forbid taking rights away from people?

 

[Dale_M]

I’d be really interested in knowing the answer to that. Hate to say it, but I’d guess that the Catholic Bishops took no position at all, or if they did, they would have supported the government.

That is probably true. The Catholic Church generally cooperated with the Jim Crow laws of the American South. And it was slow to embrace the African-American Civil Rights movement.

Does the Catechism forbid taking rights away from people?

You ask an interesting question. I don’t know the answer, but am interested to read better educated replies than my own.

I wonder if a distinction between human rights (inherent in human nature) and civil rights (bestowed by government) needs to be made? Does the Catechism, or other authoritative documents, discuss the differences between the two types of rights?

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

I could find nothing detailing their response to this decision, but in my own personal opinion I think this decision is NOT in line with our Catholic beliefs. Let me also say though, that the motivation behind the U.S.'s decision to do this to Japanese Americans is understandable though not honorable. I personally question the loyalty of many Muslim Americans, especially after seeing the videos of a variety of Middle Eastern countries whose citizens were celebrating in the streets on the occasion of 9/11. I also have to say that I have many Muslim American friends who were abolutely and sincerely horrified by what occurred on 9/11. So I personally had rwo very contradictory bits of information finding their way into my own response.
The safety of one’s nation, and by extension, family, is an emotional subject and as such causes reactions from people, as opposed to well-considered responses. So reflexive actions tend to be more emotionally based (reactions) while rational decisions and choices (responses) tend to be more intellectually rooted.
Also consider the state of the entire country’s emotions after Pearl Harbor.
So many factors come into play here. None of them justify what was done to the Japanese Americans at that time, but they do have to be considered.
Just my very humble opinion.

Most of them have no loyalty back to the Middle East, Iranians for example typically hate Iran, think Cubans and Cuba. An example of where Arabs and Persians differ from their home is that they tend to be fairly well educated, in fact their women tend to be more educated than white women. Many things are very different from how people think, did you know that African immigrants tend to be well educated and wealthy? IIRC they actually placed second, behind Indians and ahead of Chinese

 

[Langdell]

Does the decision for this case conform to our Catholic beliefs?

I think it depends on the factual underpinnings of the decision. Protecting citizens from violence is one of the valid purposes of government. No one would assert, for example, that imprisoning dangerous criminals is contrary to Church teaching. The moral question is, Did Japanese-Americans on the Pacific Coast during WWII pose the kind of threat that warranted the government’s reaction?

I think it’s pretty well universally acknowledged today that they did not pose that kind of threat. So in that regard the government was wrong in interning them and in effectually allowing their property to be confiscated.

It’s a separate question whether government leaders at the time were unreasonable in believing that Japanese-Americans posed such a threat. I really have no idea.

 

[Matrix_Refugee]

I wonder if a distinction between human rights (inherent in human nature) and civil rights (bestowed by government) needs to be made? Does the Catechism, or other authoritative documents, discuss the differences between the two types of rights?

I think, in that case, we need to figure out if the internment of Japanese-Americans was a human rights violation or a civil rights violation. Personally, I think it was a human rights violation: these people were detained for no other reason than the fact that they were Japanese immigrants or because their parents or grandparents were. We might have been at war with Japan at the time, but this shouldn’t have lead to implicating every American person of Japanese ancestry as having anything to do with the war in the Pacific Ocean.

 

[Hokomai]

Were not Eisenhower and Roosevelt German-Americans? Shouldn’t they have been put into a camp?

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

I think, in that case, we need to figure out if the internment of Japanese-Americans was a human rights violation or a civil rights violation. Personally, I think it was a human rights violation: these people were detained for no other reason than the fact that they were Japanese immigrants or because their parents or grandparents were. We might have been at war with Japan at the time, but this shouldn’t have lead to implicating every American person of Japanese ancestry as having anything to do with the war in the Pacific Ocean.

The US couldn’t have prosecuted Japanese spies without revealing Magic so the only solution was to put them in secure relocation camps. People like to compare these camps with concentration camps, but there is a fundamental difference, the concentration camps were meant to do horrible things to the people there whereas internment camps were meant to hold them there. A number of Japanese decided to fight for the US anyway; the 442nd was one of the finest US regiments ever.

Were not Eisenhower and Roosevelt German-Americans? Shouldn’t they have been put into a camp?

You can’t round up 20% of the population, but you can round up 0.08%

 

[Tenofovir]

Were not Eisenhower and Roosevelt German-Americans? Shouldn’t they have been put into a camp?

And the penny drops. The Japanese were not more ostracized than guys like Roosevelt because they weren’t Christian (Nagasaki a leading Christian city was bombed with a nuclear warhead), but because blood is thicker than water. Anglo-Saxons would be empathized with more than others. In addition it was seen that Japan attacked USA without declaring war, while Germany never intended to fight a war against USA. Hitler loved Western Europe and USA, he just wanted to wipe out some Slavic “Untermenschen” and make some space for his homeland. He never intended to fight with USA over Asia or any such. He could do business with America. The Soviet Union did business with America from the 20s onwards, too. Such a relationship would be possible. For some of us in Europe, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was a Godsend. Besides there were way more descendants of German descent in America than of Japanese descent, and they were much better integrated and became part of the culture of the country.

History Channel is showing a TV show on the bombing of Dresden, a German town with little blonde girls in it with 25,000 dead and the show entertains the idea that the act was a war crime, yet Tokyo was razed to the ground with 2-3 times as many casualties. I don’t see TV shows being made about the possible war crime committed there. Why?

Your problem is not with religion and Christianity in particular. Christianity teaches that every Japanese, and Congolese and Scot and Englishman is a child of God. They have equal value. This is unavoidable. Whether or not some Catholic Bishops said so, or not.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think it depends on the factual underpinnings of the decision. Protecting citizens from violence is one of the valid purposes of government. No one would assert, for example, that imprisoning dangerous criminals is contrary to Church teaching. The moral question is, Did Japanese-Americans on the Pacific Coast during WWII pose the kind of threat that warranted the government’s reaction?

I think it’s pretty well universally acknowledged today that they did not pose that kind of threat. So in that regard the government was wrong in interning them and in effectually allowing their property to be confiscated.

It’s a separate question whether government leaders at the time were unreasonable in believing that Japanese-Americans posed such a threat. I really have no idea.

In every country the Japanese invaded, Japanese locals immediately took up pre-arranged governing, “fifth column” or police positions. So, some Brit’s gardener might suddenly appear in a Japanese colonel’s uniform. The local grocer became a policeman who drove foreigners into compounds, accompanied by the trash collector, a government clerk, a truck driver, etc. Very obviously they, or at least a good number of them, were planted there by a Japanese government that planned on a vast imperialistic scheme for a long time.

While undoubtedly most Japanese Americans were innocent, a substantial number of the internees in at least one camp were not. They even had a newspaper of their own that touted japanese victories and rained invective down on American efforts. The U.S. government let it go because, after all, they couldn’t go anywhere or do anything harmful. It was printed right up to the very end of the war.

So, knowing as the government did, that there were undoubtedly some Japanese agents among the Japanese-American populace, and greatly fearing sabotage, particularly on the West Coast and in Hawaii, but not knowing who the potential enemies were or having any means of finding out, was the internment justified?

Hard to say yes to that. But not as easy to say “no” as readily as we are sometimes wont to do.

And some Germans and Italians were also interned. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_internment. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_American_internment