Japanese Internment and the 2nd Amendment (solution, military, dollars, ammunition)

[artillery77]

Originally Posted by Dd714

????

No...it's not "decent" or logical because, simply enough, such a situation is NOT addressed in the 2nd amendment. I would guess the OP is trying to entrap some willing participant into a gun debate. So on top of being illogical it is disingenuous on the OPs part.

A better discussion is to discuss this question in the Context of the "right to revolt", perhaps revisit the Declaration of Independence and the source documents. But in the context of the 2nd amendment - NO!
This entire discussion is flawed.

The 2nd Ammendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Bolded your first conclusion, italics after do not support the conclusion. You then give an alternative discussion more to your preference and return to your conclusion rhetorically with a a capitalized and punctuated No.

My hair is a bird?

[Dd714]

Originally Posted by artillery77

The 2nd Ammendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Bolded your first conclusion, italics after do not support the conclusion. You then give an alternative discussion more to your preference and return to your conclusion rhetorically with a a capitalized and punctuated No.

My hair is a bird?

Yes it's very clear, at least to me - we live in a free state (the US), thus the government must permit us to be armed. Being armed ensures we live in a free state.
Where does the amendment address the right to revolt? It doesn't because all the bill of right simply addresses what the government is not allowed to do, not what the people are allowed to do.
We do have the right to take up arms against our oppressors, but it's not covered under the US Constitution.

I have no idea what "my hair is a bird" means.

[LauraC]

Japanese-Americans weren't the only ones interned and interestingly (in my opinion), the groups segregated themselves within the camp. I highly recommend this book:

The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II by Jan Jarboe Russell

https://www.amazon.com/Train-Crystal...rds=Internment

From Amazon:

"By now, most Americans past high school have learned something about the internment of Japanese-Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1940; until recently a not-much-discussed piece of history—the internment of citizens mostly born on our soil—was, to many, a blight on the human rights record of the Roosevelt administration. But what The Train to Crystal City makes clear is that Executive Order 9066, which paved the way for internment of Japanese Americans, was just one of the questionable human rights decisions the wartime administration made. According to this dramatic, copiously detailed but still very readable account, a camp in Crystal City, Texas housed American-born children of German and Italian descent as well as Japanese, and many of those children were traded for “more ostensibly important Americans – diplomats, businessmen, soldiers, and missionaries” who were stuck behind enemy lines. (The program was dubbed the “quiet passage.”) How did such a thing happen?" --Sara Nelson

[prospectheightsresident]

No, the public would not have supported those Japanese and Japanese-Americans had they used their 2nd Amendment rights to fight back against internment. But, then again, the courts had not established an individualized 2nd Amendment right then and gun control made arming yourself more difficult than it is today in many places. Thus, the legal basis for them pushing back would not have flown. Ultimately, given their limited numbers in the US, such an approach would have been suicidal . . . the 2nd Amendment as a means to check government abuse only truly works if you have significant buy in from the population at large, as opposed to just a small fraction of the population.

Now, as tragic as the internment camps were (and I don't stick up for them), I also try to put myself in the shoes of the government at the time. Not only were we attacked by a foreign nation, but residents of Japanese descent had shown a willingness (and, indeed, acted on it) to help the Japanese military in the US. Look up the Niihau Incident in Hawaii, where residents of Japanese descent (and a contractor who was Japanese) provided material aid to a Japanese fighter pilot who crash landed on the Hawaiian Island of Niihau in the form of helping him to escape and burn his papers and plane so they didn't fall into US hands. Again, I don't approve of the internment strategy (and such a widespread policy was not supported by our Constitution I argue), but also want to look at things in the eyes of those who were responsible for defending the homeland at the time.

[rstevens62]

Originally Posted by Dd714

Yes it's very clear, at least to me - we live in a free state (the US), thus the government must permit us to be armed. Being armed ensures we live in a free state.
Where does the amendment address the right to revolt? It doesn't because all the bill of right simply addresses what the government is not allowed to do, not what the people are allowed to do.
We do have the right to take up arms against our oppressors, but it's not covered under the US Constitution.

I have no idea what "my hair is a bird" means.

What do you think is meant by "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots"?!!


Also, the militias were to protect against foreign and domestic threats.


The 'people' have the right (and depending on circumstances, sometimes the DUTY), to remove such govts and install new guards for our future (the people have the ability to remove a govt from power).

[ansible90]

Originally Posted by rstevens62

What do you think is meant by "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots"?!!


Also, the militias were to protect against foreign and domestic threats.


The 'people' have the right (and depending on circumstances, sometimes the DUTY), to remove such govts and install new guards for our future (the people have the ability to remove a govt from power).

The people have the right to VOTE their government out of office. That is what makes us different and better than the dictatorships in 2nd and 3rd world countries.

[2x3x29x41]

Originally Posted by Cheesesteak Cravings

What would have happened if the Japanese citizens had used their 2nd amendment rights to stop their unlawful detainment? It's a nightmare scenario that seems perfect for raising arms against government oppression, but would the public at large had supported the japanese or the government in an armed conflict?

You know, there were contemporary polls of public attitudes regarding internment. In March 1942, only 25% of the public opposed the involuntary relocation and internment.
https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americ...nternment-1942

And NO, I DON'T SUPPORT THAT POLICY is a far cry from YES, I WOULD SUPPORT THEM IF THEY VIOLENTLY RESISTED. How anyone can think the public might have supported the Japanese in resisting internment is beyond me. They would have been slaughtered, and it would have gone much worse for those Japanese who declined to resist.

Originally Posted by Cheesesteak Cravings

I'm not sure how I've created a "false narrative". On the one hand, an armed force will always be more difficult to conquer than an unarmed one (look at Afghanistan).

Afghanistan is a terrible point of comparison. The current strength of the Taliban and their allies is between 80k and 90k. About 60k have been killed so far. And untold numbers have dropped out from wounds and other personal reasons. In comparison, the Japanese who were relocated numbered about 115k. That includes women, young children, the elderly. Also, the Soviet occupation and subsequent warlord era was a training ground for people with guerilla abilities; nothing comparable existing in the U.S. in the decades pre-World War II. Finally, the Taliban and their cohorts can count on ongoing support from a segment of the local populace. Do you see Dick and Betty Jones of Bakersfield circa 1942 providing aid and comfort for the Japanese resistance? Me, neither.

Originally Posted by Rocko20

This notion that slaves, Indians, Japanese Americans, women, black panthers, local militias would’ve ever had any chance against the federal government is ridiculous.

Indeed.

Originally Posted by DefiantNJ

I agree but it could've been a long, bloody and messy struggle because most of the tanks, airplanes and machine guns were dedicated to fighting Germans at the time.

Hardly.

Relocation began in February 1942. It was mostly accomplished long before the United States began air operations in Europe (August) and the first ground combat (Torch, November). You apparently have no idea how much military was stationed in California beginning in 1940 - when the build-up really began to take swing. Fort Irwin was a major training base for armor. And it was but a pale shadow of the Desert Training Center, hundreds of square miles of where entire corps (multiple divisions) of armor trained simultaneously. It's first commandant was Patton himself. Ord. Hunter Liggett. There was a huge military presence in California alone, and yes, they had guns and planes and tanks.

Originally Posted by rstevens62

What do you think is meant by "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots"?!!

That quote comes in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1987, who was busy in France at the time and did not participate in either the drafting of the Constitution nor of the subsequent Bill of Rights.

One might ask what legal relevance you think that private musing holds. And if you think Jefferson was opining that an ethnic minority should violently oppose a white government, you might want to revisit Jefferson's opinions on such things as slavery (which he opposed on principle, despite hypocritically owning slaves himself -- at any rate, his opposition-in-theory does not mean he thought that slaves should rise up in armed rebellion) and on Indians (he was a regular proponent of their forced relocation).

[engineman]

I was a boy at that time and remember there was a huge fear of anything/anybody Japanese. Ethnic Chinese made a big point of making it known that they were NOT Japanese. The purpose of internment was to isolate the Japanese where they could do no damage. Pearl Harbor had a huge effect on America.






Hitler was a strong believer in gun control as a means of people control.

[homina12]

If the Japanese Americans had been armed and resisted, the powers that be wouldn't have gotten the opportunity or responsibility of dealing with the situation. Members of the majority who were armed would have likely killed the Japanese Americans before the authorities got the chance.

[evening sun]

Educate yourself, read some books written by Japanese who lived it. I recommend:


"Looking Like the Enemy" by Mary Matsuda Gruenewald