Posted on 06/26/2018 1:56:40 PM PDT by NRx
The Supreme Court just quietly overturned a decision that upheld the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as part of a ruling upholding President Donald Trump's controversial travel ban that primarily targets majority-Muslim countries.
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which led the US government to force more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent into detention camps.
The decision overruled by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Korematsu v. United States, was centered around a man named Fred Korematsu, a Japanese-American who refused to comply with the order. On December 18, 1944, the Supreme Court ruled it was a "military necessity" to detain people of Japanese descent during the war and argued the order was not based on race.
Chief Justice John Roberts made it clear he disagrees with this assessment in the majority opinion on Trump's travel ban.
"The forcible relocation of US citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority," Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
"Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and — to be clear — 'has no place in law under the Constitution,'" Roberts added.
This was partially in response to the dissenting opinion from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, which contended the ruling on Trump's travel ban has "stark parallels" with the "reasoning" behind the decision made regarding Korematsu.
"Today, the Court takes the important step of finally overruling Korematsu," Sotomayor added. "This formal repudiation of a shameful precedent is laudable and long overdue. But it does not make the majority's decision here acceptable or right."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
While we hadn’t broken the Japanese naval code, we had been reading the Japanese consular code for quite some time. The Japanese consular offices in Seattle and LA were reporting that their progress in establishing spying/espionage rings was proceeding well, although much work still needed to be done. These rings would be run out of Mexico via Arizona in the event of war.
Accordingly, Consuls from the Seattle and LA offices were sent home by us in January and July of 1941. And, the FBI had also been able to obtain some names (although, to be fair, such details about these individuals as I have been able to see over the years didn’t impress me much in terms of their actual threat -— but I’ve never seen all the info). These individuals were picked up immediately after Pearl Harbor, leaving only the issue of “Who did we miss?”
For a great overview, see Admiral E. Layton’s “And I Was There : Breaking the Secrets - Pearl Harbor and Midway”.
If we had a larger Army at the outset of the war we could have implemented martial law on the west coast and avoided the exclusion. We did not, so the exclusion was the expedient thing to do. Nearly half of those affected were not US citizens, any born since 1942 were considered by Japan to be Japanese citizens (whether accepted by them or not), with all that might imply as to how an occupying force would expect them to behave and what demands such a force might place on them.
And then, of course, there was the racism thing which was quite real (although not universal) on both sides.
Reagan already paid reparations to the internees.
“Could this be a setup to reparations? “
Where have you been? This was done years ago.
.
Better late than never.
What race is “Muslim”? Are they saying that Muslim is a genetic disorder?
Well, it's not a Muslim Ban either as the most Muslim-majority countries of all: Indonesia, Malaysia, and several dozen others are NOT on the list of concern.
You are right of course but the internment was not the only issue. It allowed for the wholesale stealing of property of American citizens of Japanese descent. Probably should not have happened but that is 20-20 hindsight. The Country of Japan should not have attacked Pearl Harbor, The U.S should not have tried to restrict oil to Japan. Cain should not have killed Able. Now for the slavery issue.
To which I responded:
Well, it's not a Muslim Ban either as the most Muslim-majority countries of all: Indonesia, Malaysia, and several dozen others are NOT on the list of concern.
And to clarify: it is a good thing that not ALL Muslim-majority countries are on the list, only those which pose an immediate security risk. The idea of a "Muslim ban" is a lie put on by the Left to discredit Trump as a racist. He is NOT pulling an FDR internment policy whether on this issue or at the border.
“There is MUCH MORE to the story of Japanese internment during WW2 than the Left allows us to know.
They have re-written the history”
Only those born in Japan (Issei - first genration) were forcibly interred - as were those from Germany and Italy.
Unlike Germans and Italians though, areas with high Japanese-American populations (West Coast) were ordered cleared of all Japanese by the military. Many second generation (Nisei) Japanese-Americans had to leave their homes and jobs in short order. They were allowed to live at the internment camps for the duration of the war, with free housing, food medical care and education for the kids. They could move away if they chose, instead of going to a camp, but most had nowhere else to go. Nisei could also go off Post to work, if they could find jobs.
Unlike Germans and Italians, Japanese could not blend in, and were subject to racial violence (many German Americans Anglicized their surnames during WWI and WWII).
Unlike the Germans or Italians, the Japanese basically killed all the Americans in Japan after the war broke out. During the war, the widespread atrocities committed by Japanese forces against prisoners and civilians were far beyond comparison to anything committed by the German or Italian military (SS Death Camps being outside the normal national military - the SS was a paramilitary of the Nazi Party). The steady stream of horrific atrocities by the Japanese (ISIS on steroids) put Japanese on the streets of America in real jeopardy.
A point that the court seems to have overlooked, was that the enemy in WWII had declared it specifically a race war. The German “Master Race” theory of the Nazis is well known, but the Japanese “Master Race of Asia” was firmly grounded in the Shinto Religion, as well as in political ideology. The whole Japanese race was viewed as descended from the sun god Amaterasu (the sun represented on the flag), with the divine emperor being Amaterasu’s representative on Earth.
As far as I’m concerned NONE of that matters. If they are avowed enemies of America, as many Islam countries are, coming here to do us harm and/or if they are not willing to let go of unconstitutional Sharia Law and not assimilate into American law and culture, then they are not our friends and along with illegals, they are INVADERS and MUST be stopped at our borders. Period.
Did you read the reviews left by many different readers?
There might be quite a few holes in Mr. Lowman’s theory and I sure as hell have never seen or heard any evidence of what he claims.
One review of the book as follows “ I wonder why Lowman doesn’t mention in his book about his testimony under cross examination under oath in Federal Court in the early 80’s pertaining to Hirabishi & Korematsu Coram Nobus cases that MAGIC decrypts didn’t really provide any real evidence of Japanese Americans providing intelligence to the Japanese in Tokyo? “
Where is there any evidence of Japanese Americans on the mainland fully prepared to support Japanese attacks on America’s West Coast?
- and what kind of attacks are we talking about? Yes, they shelled areas of the West Coast from submarines but that’s about it. An actual landing was never going to happen.
In the early stages of the planning for Pearl Harbor a landing and occupation of Hawaii was brought up. But the idea was tossed right away as the realized it was not feasible.
Again - where is any of the evidence that the Japanese military had a sizable segment of Japanese Americans ready to do their dirty work?
Was anything of the sort discovered in Japanese military archives after the war? If so, I have never heard of such a discovery.
I agree with you. There is MUCH MORE to the story of Japanese internment during WW2 than the Left allows us to know.
They don't want us to know how Americans living in Japan at that time were treated, either.
Books i need
“Unlike Germans and Italians, Japanese could not blend in, and were subject to racial violence.”
THANKS! My history on this is not that complete, but I did hear the above.
But Jeeze, hard to believe what that country turned into...and especially compared to what they are now!
Not the first time this uninformed idiot has been wrong.
That the general public is ignorant is tolerable; for a chief justice to be as ignorant is inexcusable.
The empire of Japan had already shot down a civilian airliner, killing all aboard and stealing the new flying boat, which they then disassembled and copied for use later against us, in the war they were about to start.
And had thousands of military spies in both the Hawaii islands, ships transporting and supporting spies in the dark of night, many hundreds along the west coast of the continental U.S.
They also, just before the Pearl Harbor attack, launched three submarines each carrying three small bombers against San Francisco and Los Angeles, but one was spotted by one of many U.S. patrol bombers off the California and sunk. The other two then aborted.
One of the few things I give FDR credit for.
Post Pearl, if even ONE group of Japanese Americans were caught engaging in sabotage, there would have been lynchings. Internment saved a lot of their lives.
Some but not all belligerent acts by the Japanese before Pearl Harbor have been released by eyewitnesses to the events.
Diplomacy is not always kind to history.
Sotomayor has zero legal construct. She is openly all about progressive outcome with no regard for legal, let alone Constitutional thought. Ginsburg has the same vision and process but only because now she is old, has beaten pancreatic cancer and doesnt give a hoot about the Constitution. In her ealier days she was quite the legal scholar who made effort to support her decisions. This is how Kagan operates for the present. She has a legal mind and that is why Scalia connected with her. Breyer is simply an empty robe. The honest manner of understanding this Court is to watch how many times the conservatives follow the Law and Constitution even when doing so goes against conservative policy and how few times the liberals ever vote in contravention of liberal statist goals no matter how they violate the Constitution.
Most of the Japanese in Hawaii were NOT interned at all——most of the Mainland ones were.
In the week after the Pearl Harbor bombing, the unpatriotic behavior of the Japanese-descended inhabitants on the Hawaiian island of Niihau, likely added to the angst of the times. Wikipedia, Niihau Incident:
"The [the crash-landing] incident and the actions of [pilot] Nishikaichi's abettors demonstrated the potential for Japanese national allegiance among immigrant Japanese populations to work against the US war effort. This ultimately may have influenced Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to intern Japanese Americans during World War II."
Perfect timing considering Mexicans are about to Elect a Communist Drug Cartel Thug.
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