[TulliusCicero]

> 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.

[wehadfun]

>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.

[munificent]

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.

[wehadfun]

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.

[munificent]

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."

[wehadfun]

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.

[JoeAltmaier]

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.

[TulliusCicero]

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

[Forlien]

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?