Question for WW II generation

Status
Not open for further replies.
U

Unisaw

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2002
Messages
781
Location
Pacific NW
There have been many threads lately about erosion of liberties due to homeland security. I'm curious: how do today's measures compare to those taken during WW II?
 
Not just Japanese. FDR put the squeeze on many civil rights during WWII that effected the entire population. A little bit of fear makes some folks willing to trade all sorts of liberties for the warm and fuzzy protected feeling.
 
I have a feeling though it is a lot better to be an arab man in america today than a japanese man in america in 1943.
Click to expand...

Not by the way the media reports things today. Remember that the media ignored the fact that President Roosevelt could not walk, as truth be told it had nothing to do with his job.

Ditto they kept mum about JFK's *ahem* "enthusiasms". (compared to today and Bill Clinton.)

At some point the media stopped reporting and started editorializing.

Can anyone say with a straight face that Dan, Peter, and Tom are "neutral"? (Or O'Reilly and Hannity too, for that matter.

Thank goodness for the internet, where it is possible to get the truth if you dig.

Back on topic, the problem with restricting civil liberties during wartime is they have the nasty habit of not going away after the war is over.
 
The keyword to homeland security during WW2 for the most part was PANIC. No mainland city was ever bombed but they sure devoted alot of resources to deter the threat, course a couple of subs lobbed a few shells.
 
For those too young to know--

Early in WWII, the US government rounded up virtually all American citizens of Japanese ancestry and transported them from their West Coast homes to the central part of the country (we had concentration camps, too, and in my home state of Nebraska).

The government virtually confiscated all property, personal and real, of Japanese-Americans and those citizens were never repaid, insofar as I know. Many lost thriving businesses because of the Gestapo-like tactics of our goverrnment.

However, few if any citizens of German or Italian ancestry were bothered because "they were more reliable" than their brown-(or yellow)skinned fellow Americans.

All this, mind you, in the name of "national security." Do you see any similarities between then and now?
 
If I'm not mistaken the laws that effected peoples rights during WW II were made after Congress declared war, therefore meaning every law put in place to deal with security / war issues were abolished when the war was over (an end to the hostilities declaired).

Unlike then, there is no Declaration of War, and the laws being made now are in the books for good. They will not go away when the WOT is over unless Congress does so willingly (HA!).
 
"If I'm not mistaken the laws that effected peoples rights during WW II were made after Congress declared war, therefore meaning every law put in place to deal with security / war issues were abolished when the war was over (an end to the hostilities declaired)."


Just because the laws were abolished didn't make things right again.

To compensate American citizens whose property and businesses were taken?

Each family got, I believe, $50 and bus fare back to their old neighborhood.

Only...

There weren't any neighborhoods left.

No Japanese citizen was compensated for businesses or personal property lost.

It wasn't until, I believe, the 1980s, that Japanese citizens who were internees were actually compensated with a governmental payment of $20,000.

Some restitution when land once owned by Japanese citizens in Los Angeles and San Francisco is some of the most expensive commercial property in the world.
 
However, few if any citizens of German or Italian ancestry were bothered because "they were more reliable" than their brown-(or yellow)skinned fellow Americans.
Click to expand...

The Japanese did suffer more than other nationalities, but they were hardly the only ones placed into custody. There were about 114,000 Japanese placed in camps along with 11,000 Americans of German decent and 11,600 of Italian decent.

But FDR didn't stop there. The State and Justice Departments pressured 16 Central and South American countries to place in custody their Japanese, German and Italian immigrants. The countries that refused to go along were then pressured into handing them over to the US. This included 3,800 from Peru alone that were detained in the US.
 
There are currently numerous "Arabs" placed in detention by the John Ashcroft Justice Department without benefit of attorneys orother civil rights.

Maybe they aren't "Arabs" but many Afghan nationals are in detention at Gitmo. I don't want to start a flame, but unfairness exists in 2004.
 
There are currently numerous "Arabs" placed in detention by the John Ashcroft Justice Department without benefit of attorneys orother civil rights.

Maybe they aren't "Arabs" but many Afghan nationals are in detention at Gitmo. I don't want to start a flame, but unfairness exists in 2004.
Click to expand...

Well, maybe if those "Arabs" hadn't been shooting at US soldiers, we could have been a little more "fair"...:rolleyes:
 
"Many lost thriving businesses because of the Gestapo-like tactics of our goverrnment."

If they'd really used "Gestapo-like tactics" a large majority of those folks would have been killed and not simply detained. Maybe all of them.

John
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top