re: #431 J.S.

Of course not. However, there is a problem which is recognized by academic historians — it’s called “presentism.” What can happen is that someone will read a historical account of event X, then exclaim: “Why, that is utterly unacceptable!” (especially when viewed by today’s standards.) Imperial Japan never signed the 1929 Geneva Conventions with regard to POWs…British, Canadians, Americans, etc., who were captured by the Japanese were routinely tortured, starved, beaten, and used for medical experiments, etc. That was “par for the course.” (and even the POW treatment of those interned by the Japanese in no way compares to what the Jewish population of Europe underwent.) Given this context a moaning about the “horrors” of any American run camp, really, just pales by comparison…

Now, isn’t that moral relativism…?

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The problem I have here is that I don’t hold the U.S. to a general world standard, I hold us to our own standard. Yes, people were treated far worse in many parts of the world at the time. FAR worse. So unbelievably worse it makes the mind shut down kind of worse.

That doesn’t make internment right.

Sort of like it still being wrong to beat your wife, even though some wives in India are being set on fire by their in-laws.