Japanese Americans, Internment, Democracy, and the U.S. Government

[Draggingtree]

Japanese Americans, Internment, Democracy, and the U.S. Government

By Ryan McMaken

 

February 19 is the Day of Remembrance for those who wish to recall that on February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing military personnel to lock American of Japanese descent in concentration camps that are often euphemistically called “internment camps.”

 

The internment of the Japanese Americans is one of our greatest examples of how majority rule functions in a democracy. Fueled by the usual war hysteria so often and enthusiastically propagated by the American voter, Roosevelt’s government was virtually unrestrained in its wartime powers, and it’s drive to jail innocent Japanese civilians was not just national, but international in scope.

 

As Rothbard noted in an article on Peru, the American government wasn’t content with merely jailing Americans. No, it was important to actually import people destined for the concentration camps:

 

The first Japanese were imported into Peru at the end of the 19th century to work as slaves on the coastal sugar plantations.

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