Posted on 10/20/2014 8:43:26 AM PDT by right-wing agnostic
In an interesting recent article, and a post at Prawfsblawg, legal scholar Mark Kende argues that Justice Clarence Thomas approves of Korematsu v. United States, the notorious 1944 Supreme Court decision that upheld the internment of over 100,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Here is the article abstract:
The U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous decision in Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944) has been in the news recently as some scholars and advocates, such as Peter Irons, have asked the Court to formally repudiate the decision. This essay breaks new ground by demonstrating that Justice Clarence Thomas’s jurisprudence on executive power is consistent with that case. Two cases provide the major evidence. First, Justice Thomas was the lone dissenter in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004) where he reasoned that enemy combatants who were U.S. citizens have virtually no due process rights.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Loved ‘Volokh Conspiracy’ before it sold out to WashPost.
Disgusting now.
Did you read Prof. Somin’s article? He concludes that Thomas would not support Korematsu. Do you disagree? Do you support Korematsu?
No, the source is well known to me.
“Infamous”, “notorious”: I pity the intellect that accepts such prejudice into their reasoning.
The alternative to internment was martial law- a more general and an inaccurate response to the threat. Of course I approve and assume Thomas and a majority of the court do too.
“Of course you approve” of the indiscriminate stripping of thousands of American citizens of their most basic rights on the basis of their membership in a disfavored ethnic group? Seriously? And you hope that Thomas would approve?
I prefer Prof. Somin’s position that Thomas would have disagreed with Korematsu.
What threat did Americans of Japanese ancestry pose?
The push for internment came from what we were learning through the MAGIC intercepts of Japanese Naval and Diplomatic cables.
We had broken the Japanese codes in 1940 and learned that Japan was building an espionage network along the West Coast using neisei, second generation Japanese living in America.
Rounding up Japan’s spy network would expose our ability to spy on Japan. The worst possible result would be that Japan would change their Naval and Diplomatic codes, putting an end to our ability to read their war plans.
But leaving Japan’s spy network in place was a bad idea as well. Internment of Japanese Americans living on the west coast provided the cover that allowed the spy network to be shut down without making Japan any wiser.
http://www.internmentarchives.com/magic.php
http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Intelligence-Evacuation-Japanese-Residents/dp/0960273611
I suspect California has made many experiments on this issue. Track A: Process two races together -- commonly results in group-on-group violence. Track B: Process two races separately -- usually results in no group-on-group violence.
Apply common sense. Repeat.
“indiscriminate”
So you prefer discrimination! Why you racist!
Koramatsu is good law that is nearly universally supported by liberals and conservatives because it was the first case to rule that government discrimination based on race or nationality is subject to the "strict scrutiny" standard.
The modern criticism of Koramatsu is that while the Court applied the right standard, it got the result wrong, that the government's case did not meet the strict scrutiny standard.
So, just about any judge could be attacked for "agreeing" with Koramatsu. It's a good way to launch a hit piece in an era when "journalists" writing on the law know so little of it.
didn’t Michelle Malkin also write a book defending the internment of Japanese (and some German) citizens in WW2?
Some Japanese in Hawaii were spying for Japan, and some of them had more loyalty to the emperor than the US. Might not have been very many though, I wouldn’t know.
Why is Korematsu “notorious”?
The world had watched Japan’s military war machine for several years and was well aware of its barbaric practices on civilians in the lands it occupied. Now it had launched an undeclared war on American and killed Americans on American soil.
Korematsu’s case was not decided on its fairness but rather on the constitutionality of the CIC's Executive Order.
Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures… that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily…
An aspect seldom discussed is the danger Japanese-Americans faced, if left to their own devices, to survive on the streets of America. Many Americans yet in their teens, or barely in their 20’s were killed or terribly wounded in combat with Japan. Yes, that ethnic group was "disfavored" to the extreme and was at great risk.
“Did you read Prof. Somin’s article? He concludes that Thomas would not support Korematsu. Do you disagree? Do you support Korematsu?”
You adroitly expose the sad reality that some only read the headline — and not the substance of the piece. Still others read the substance ... and don’t fully understand it.
You are need to look at them they way they tended to look at themselves to understand.
They were not Americans of Japanese ancestry they were Japanese who were born in the Japanese Colonies that happen to be on American soil.
They were all either Japanese or Duel Citizens.
Was it nice? No.
Was it necessary?
Probably.
They were colonist.
Yes, In Defense of Internment, Regnery, 2004
The Brits interned the Germans in their country. In our case, we were pissed off at the time and we were sighting Jap subs, so it was probably just as well for them to get out of that area (West Coast).
Little know trivia: After the war was over, some of the interned Japanese were given some swampland that no one wanted. Now it’s some of the most valuable land in Southern California (i.e. built-out), and those poor Japs are some of the wealthiest people there.
No, not all Japanese-Americans were dual citizens. I agree with Sen. Robert A. Taft (R-Ohio) and J. Edgar Hoover that interning Japanese-Americans was not only unnecessary but in fact, a travesty.
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