Japanese Internment, Statism, and the Democratic Party

If there is any great blot of shame for the Democratic party, besides the fact that the vast majority of those partisan adherents supported the Confederacy and the continuation of the peculiar institution, it belongs to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Executive Order 9066 -- the forced evacuation and relocation of ethnic Japanese Americans from the West Coast during World War II.

Such is the negative result of a political party which treats individuals according to class and race as opposed to natural right. Of the 112,000-120,000 Japanese who were forcibly humiliated, removed, and relocated, only a relatively small number posed any threat to the country. Despite the sporadic attacks of Japanese submarines along the Santa Barbara Coast and threatening air raids over Los Angeles, the vast majority of ethnic Japanese were loyal to their country. The 442nd Infantry regiment distinguished itself as a community of Japanese who fought for their country in spite of the prejudice which they and their families were enduring at home.

Still, if there is any reason why we should be wary of growing state power, we need only consider the plight of ethnic groups segregated into ramshackle hostels at the behest of a paranoid federal government. Power mixed with hysteria and pressure to resolve impending threats lends itself to excuses of national security to impose on the rights of others. Nevertheless, a country which undermines the rights of the few, even select populations, in order to safeguard everyone else, such a regime has only undermine the peace and tranquility properly accorded to everyone.

With the passing of a large number of veterans and eye-witnesses from the World War II era, students, teachers, and professional historians all should take in with great gratitude and respect the accounts from these troubling times, an effort undertaken and funded by the Japanese-American Museum in Little Tokyo. Events such as these should not only inspire respect and concern for the welfare of one group, but a calm and guarded reserve toward state officials and institutions which seek to broaden power for the sake of internal peace and external security.