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Comment by wehadfun | Hacker News Reader

It seems uncomfortable, but how does it compare to how the Japanese treated the Chinese during the war?

Its easy to look back now and think America was terrible but lets not forget that World War Freaking 2 was happening at the time. If your beloved son just got killed at Perl Harbor you probably would have no issue with this at all. Hell you probably feel like it is not bad enough.

Its just like all these self righteous people who want to call Bush an idiot for the wars. If your Wife, kids, friends were under a pile of cement in downtown Manhattan on 9/11 you would probably have no issue with bombing the f* out of who ever you were told was responsible.

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As a Chinese person, I recognize the Japanese did a lot of shitty things in the war and haven't acknowledge much of it, but comparing what they did to what the U.S. did to what the German's did to what the Russian's did is a meaningless exercise in relative privation. I'd hope that a country's conviction is not solely based on what others do and instead based on the principles that they stand for.

Secondly, by your justification of Japanese Internment, we could say that we should intern all Muslims in the United States because of 9/11, declaration of war by ISIL, and domestic terrorist acts. Or that all German's and Italian's should've been interned by the United States because of American soldiers killed by Axis countries. We should be very aware of the difference between people who come to the U.S. and build a life from themselves versus those who are actively participating in a foreign country. Aside from ethnicity/religion, they are not one in the same.

Also most people recognize Afghanistan as a justified retaliation especially when you consider the number of allies who decided to join in. But Bush was wrong for the Iraq War as it was justified on the flimsiest of 'evidence' and the nation building that happened afterwards was nothing short of a disaster (and that's based on testimonies from people who worked on that project over in Iraq).

Comparing what the Gernams did to what the Russians did sure relative privation:

Comparing what the Japanese did to China to what the Japanese could to the U.S. I do not think is relative privation but I could be wrong

> It seems uncomfortable, but how does it compare to how the Japanese treated the Chinese during the war?

You are committing the fallacy of relative privation.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...

> Its just like all these self righteous people who want to call Bush an idiot for the wars. If your Wife, kids, friends were under a pile of cement in downtown Manhattan on 9/11 you would probably have no issue with bombing the f* out of who ever you were told was responsible.

Bush's wife, kids, and friends were not under a pile of cement, and it was Bush who falsely told America that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.

Yes, grieving people will do irrational things. That is why our leaders have a moral obligation to not manipulate them into doing that.

I think you commit fallacy of relative privation when you compare mostly unrelated things.

Relative Privation: Bob: My car got hit by a shopping cart! John: Well that's not bad, it could have been hit by a bus.

Common since: Bob: (Parked his car at a greyhound station and was hit by a bus) John: (Parked his car at a greyhound station and it was hit by a bus) Rick: (Parked his car at grocery store and it was hit by a shopping cart) Sam: (decides to park his car at a grocery store sure it will be hit by a shopping cart but compared to being hit than by a bus its great)

Relative Privation: The Japanese concentration camps were not bad because the Jewish ones had gas chambers:

Common since: The Japanese destroyed China The Japanese destroyed our Perl Harbor The Japanese people may or may not launch a domestic attack To minimzize this threat we will put Japanese in concentration camps sure it goes against our values somewhat but compared to what happened to China simply "not following our values" is fine.

> It seems uncomfortable, but how does it compare to how the Japanese treated the Chinese during the war?

Why does that matter? Does one atrocity excuse another?

> Its easy to look back now and think America was terrible but lets not forget that World War Freaking 2 was happening at the time.

We were much less terrible than the powers we were fighting against. That doesn't mean we didn't also do some terrible things.

>Why does that matter? Does one atrocity excuse another?

Absolutely if they are related. If you witness a guy setting your neighbors house on fire, then he sets the house across the street on fire. Then you committing the "atrocity" of running him over with your car it is excused. And if a couple of his buddies that were with him die in the process its excused as well.

I think a better analogy in this case is:

You witness a guy setting your neighbor's house on fire, then he sets the house across the street on fire.

So you find everyone whose eyes are the same color as your neighbor and run over them with your car.

No I think its more like finding everyone with the same gang symbols and running them over.

I know we should say that Japanese Americans and Regular Americans are the same that is true for most circumstances but I think that Japanese Americans have a stronger tie to Japan than a non Japanese American has to the 4 or 5 European countries that their ancestors are from.

I'm not saying the rational for locking up Japanese Americans was good or correct but given the circumstances I understand why it happened and the reasons, in my opinion, were not evil or selfish.

Are you honestly trying to equate deliberately choosing to wear a gang sign with the nationality of your ancestors which you have no control over?

Of the Japanese interned by these camps, the majority were United States citizens born in the United States.

> I understand why it happened and the reasons, in my opinion, were not evil or selfish.

The official stance of the US government itself after investigating the camps later was that they were a product of "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."

Not at all.

I'm trying to say that interning Japanese Americans after entering a war with Japan is closer to punishing a dangerous persons friends then punishing random people that happen to have some unrelated thing in common with the person.

Assume a kids parents are Boston sports fans but moved to Los Angeles and the kid was born in LA. Kid grow up surrounded by Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox paraphernalia. Kid live in a part of LA that is 99% people from Boston. All kids neighboorhood friends are Boston sports fans. Kid goes to school with L.A. sports fans but they ridicule kid because he is a Boston sports fan. When the Dodgers play Red Sox who is this kid rooting for.

Xenophobic racist ranting is pretty much the definition of evil. We can try to explain it away by circumstances, but pretty much one guy spearheaded it all and he was definitely racist and evil.

It's more like finding their family and running them over. That'll show them to be born as the wrong person!

But in this example Japanese Americans weren't his buddies, they were innocent people taken from their homes without trial. Going back to your example, let's ignore the issue of a lack of trial with vigilante justice. If instead you ran over him and another innocent passerby, is your example still clear-cut?

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