Overlord State put us in FEMA camps? Nahhh… it’ll never happen. Well… maybe never…

From ABC:

Scalia Says Internment Ruling Could Happen Again

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told law students at the University of Hawaii on Monday that the nation’s highest court was wrong to uphold the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the court issued a similar ruling during a future conflict.

Scalia was responding to a question about the court’s 1944 decision in Korematsu v. United States, which upheld the convictions of Gordon Hirabayashi and Fred Korematsu for violating an order to report to an internment camp.

“Well of course Korematsu was wrong. And I think we have repudiated in a later case. But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again,” Scalia told students and faculty during a lunchtime Q-and-A session.

Scalia cited a Latin expression meaning, “In times of war, the laws fall silent.” [“Silent enim leges inter arma.” Cicero, Pro Milone. Scalia referred to this in 2004 in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld about detention of US citzen without charge or suspension of habeas corpus. All some administration has to do is claim that there is a need.  But first they have to disarm you.]

“That’s what was going on — the panic about the war and the invasion of the Pacific and whatnot. That’s what happens. It was wrong, but I would not be surprised to see it happen again, in time of war. It’s no justification, but it is the reality,” he said.

[…]

Remember this every time you hear about some group or the State itself trying to restrict the 2nd Amendment.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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29 Comments

  1. The Masked Chicken says:

    “In times of war, the laws fall silent.”

    Cicero was half right. The other half is:

    The laws speak when there is no war.

    Guess why we have the Patriot Act.

    The Chicken

  2. Iacobus M says:

    Stories like this make me want to say “O di immortales! ubinam gentium sumus? in qua urbe vivimus? quam rem publicam habemus?” See, there’s a Cicero quote for every occasion! And these days the end of the Roman Republic is looking more and more familiar . . .
    -Iacobus M
    vitafamiliariscatholica@blogspot.com

  3. The Masked Chicken says:

    Rats. I ruined that.

    I should have said:

    The laws speak when the war is silent.

    Terrorism, while real, is a war when one round is fired every few years. It is a largely silent war.

    I don’t know what I’m trying to say.

    Blather, blather, blather…take it away, Chet…

    The Chicken

  4. incredulous says:

    There is nothing noble about disarming citizens (or friendly Priests for that matter). The ONLY purpose is to ultimately slaughter God’s children at will. Look at how the gun grabber crowd treats those that can’t defend themselves like babies, elderly and disabled (Terri Schiavo).

    They may kid themselves, but as Scalia points out… we know the real reason.

  5. Dienekes says:

    Way back in my misspent youth I stumbled across Sinclair Lewis’ book, “It Can’t Happen Here”. Written in the 1930s, it hypothesized a folksy totalitarian America. In many ways it was a potboiler and is badly dated today; but Lewis put his finger on just how fragile civilization and freedom are. He had no illusions.

    Every few years I reread this cautionary tale. It still puts a shiver up my spine.

    Never say never.

  6. AVL says:

    Would you call me cynical if I admitted I believe it can and possibly will happen even outside war time?

  7. Sonshine135 says:

    @Dienekes
    “Animal Farm” does the same for me. Slowly and steadily, the newly freed pigs evolve into the tyrant farmer that they originally killed. Everyone else loses their freedom. It is a perfect analogy of our country today- destroyed from within.

  8. “But first they have to disarm you.”

    I have to disagree. The government will always have more arms than its citizens– no need to disarm anyone. A few tanks will take care of just about anyone armed with anything. I think we need to be realistic here. A few armed citizens are no match for their government. That said, I too have no doubt that the injustice of Korematsu would be repeated in a similar situation– or maybe they’ll just dispense with the camps and mow us down with the tanks. Why waste time when they can just murder us outright?

  9. incredulous says:

    @andrew you understand little about resistance. The guy in the tank needs to open the hatch sometime.

  10. Priam1184 says:

    When the United States loses a major war (and with our morality sunk so low this is bound to happen the next time the opportunity arises) then everything will be on the table…

  11. Priam1184 says:

    @incredulous But the guy in the F-16 doesn’t…

  12. incredulous says:

    Ridiculous. An F-16’s natural state is obeying gravity. It’s got to put down someplace, sometime.

    Yes, Priam, the Ivan and Uncle Sam have done so well against peasants in say southeast Asia or Afghanistan. Don’t kid yourself. 300 million guns in civilian hands makes us the largest army in the world. [Heck… why exaggerate. Why not say… just… 100 million guns in the hands of 50 million?] Look at what tires and gasoline did for a predominately unarmed peasantry against a nuclear state (RSA) with Impala Jets and Hippo APCs.

    Finally, Satan versus God. Who wins? Your first guess doesn’t count.

  13. About disarming the populace and about even a small resistance to the State, check out three books by Matthew Bracken. Yah… it’s sort of prepper stuff, it’s a bit over-the-top, but it plays out a scenario which is not entirely implausible. And it’s sort of fun to play it through, in a brutal, gruesome way. I wrote about this fellow HERE.

  14. Sonshine135 says:

    Looks like a great read Father Z. I read the preview on Amazon, and I could see something like that happening here very easily. I’ll be adding this one to the reading list.

  15. majuscule says:

    Doesn’t this fit right in with the second weirdity™ that Father discussed in this post:
    https://wdtprs.com/2014/02/stay-frosty-my-readers-things-are-getting-weird-out-there/

  16. Johnno says:

    Obama has all those executive orders nicely lined up to grab your money, property and food.

    He’s just waiting for the right excuse. It won’t even matter whether the enemy is real or not.

    But don’t worry, these progressive monarchical powers all come courtesy of both sides of the American two-party, evil-lesserEvil system. They’ll be ready to go once the Big Brother infrastructure is completed.

  17. Priam1184 says:

    @incredulous and @FatherZ Who is going to lead, train, and organize, and supply your 50 million or 100 million or 300 million? A mob is not an army.

  18. Priam1184: Straw man. There will always be leaders in a resistance movement. It wouldn’t be necessary to train 50 million. Resistance doesn’t equal mob, as you we’ll know.

  19. incredulous says:

    @Father Z. Why? Because that wouldn’t be true.

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/guns-america-statistical/story?id=17939758

    I don’t have time to research this and remember my statistic from an NRA article, but this citation blows your number away in that there have been 158 million NICS checks since 1998 until 12/2012. As we know there are on average more than one gun transacted per NICS query and that does not count the guns in private hands from 1776 to 1998 and from 1/13 to present (a record year for gun sales). The number of guns in private hands is roughly equal to the number of cars in private hands. And, it’s around 300 million.

  20. incredulous says:

    @Priam, Many are returned veterans WITH military training or are peace officers with formal training. Secondly, the NRA has trained millions in the past twenty years. Many people attend private tactical training programs outside of any affiliation with government. Further, we are already supplied.

    Do you really think that the government could stand up to merely 5 million of us resisting? You have no clue as to how resistances work.

  21. Priam1184 says:

    My question is this: do you know how resistances work? Private tactical training programs? Peace officers? The NRA? Really? What about when you take your first little pot shot with your precious AR-15 at an official of the regime that you don’t like and they roll into your town with armored vehicles driven by men who are not ‘peace’ officers, but hard men who start lining people up against the wall? What are you going to do when they start taking whole towns and villages hostage and burning your crops? Do you have any idea that has been built up in this society over the past half century? We have now two generations of politicians and political leaders who have built their careers on championing the murder of children in the womb by their own mothers. Do you think they would shrink, if the top ever got popped on this society, from sending in people who would be more than capable of laying waste to your little prepper paradise? And we will not even mention the fact that the United States government is also armed with nuclear weapons. Ah, but such is the fate of those who trust in themselves.

  22. Priam1184 says:

    ‘Do you have any idea the hate that has built up in this society over the past half century?’ is what I meant to say.

  23. jamie r says:

    This is literally happening, right now, as we speak. It’s completely public, and hardly anyone cars. Since 2001, our government has held hundreds of people in Guantanamo Bay, without charging, without trying them, and not as POWs. Our own government has determined that many of these people have committed no crimes and that the government has no legal basis for detaining them, yet has continued to detain them. Korematsu is happening now, with Scalia’s and his colleagues’ approval.

  24. incredulous says:

    Priam,
    Has Iraq been subjugated with this awesome weaponry? Has Afghanistan? Has Syria? Did it work in Rhodesia? South Africa? Did it work in Vietnam? Did it work for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan? Did it work against FRELIMO in Mozambique or UNITA in Angola? How subjugated is Chechnya?

    Regarding nuclear weapons, I did point out that South Africa has them and did that stop the ANC? Russia has them, has that stopped Chechen rebels? Google Belsan.

    You are incredibly naive if you believe in the immovable supremacy of the Roman Empire.

  25. incredulous says:

    Lastly, you clearly missed my question when I asked who will win, Satan or God. Your retort, “Ah, but such is the fate of those who trust in themselves.” Makes no sense.

  26. classycatholic says:

    What so many fail to remember/recognize is it was not just the Japanese in these camps. The executive order sent German Americans, Italian Americans, and other “axis-descended nationals” to internment camps. Many Catholics were sent as well because they were “axis-descendents”! Many died in these camps attempting to escape, defying authority, or for lack of adequate medical care.

    Study history – the ugly parts and the beautiful parts.

  27. Imrahil says:

    Do you really think that the government could stand up to merely 5 million of us resisting?

    Depends.

    A dictator who has no scruples about killing opponents certainly could. Whether or not the opponents have hand guns.

    A government composed of (misguided and somewhat vicious but still) reasonably decent men, facing a determined opposition of 5 million (except in China or India, where the number would need to be higher)? No.

    And that does not depend on the 5 million having guns, but on the five million willing to disobey, to bear all cost for it, not to look for loopholes (many of which would, even if we are talking about immoral laws, be morally acceptable), not to mention… willing to actually shoot-to-kill the state policeman who comes to arrest them. Not to mention … when there really is the question about armed resistance against evil government… it can only be successfully done in a civil war. And a Civil War can only end in the usual ways wars end: death, surrender, compromise; but in the beginning neither the State nor he who opposes to the point of starting a civil war will favor compromise.

    The thing is we won’t have five million opponents. We may have five or fifty million armed; but it is not arms that count, but opponents; maybe armed opponents, but it does not help that a not-opponent is armed.

    In many school-classes, there is an outsider. Collect all the outsiders together and maybe there are still outsiders in such a group. There would not be more resistants than those letter outsider-outsiders. And that is still optimistic.

    As for the examples mentioned, I do think Chechnyia is a rather quiet place these days. Some people might say “cemetry silence”, but silence, yes. As for the Vietnam War, I do not know of course, but I know that people have said, and I tend to believe them, that the U.S. Armed Forces could have won had they been allowed to do so. As for South Africa, the thing is international pressure plus perhaps the fact that de Klerk really did feel he was doing unjust things.

  28. Imrahil says:

    willing to actually shoot-to-kill, etc. : if they intend to use guns (and have them).

    I said before that it does not depend on having guns: for letting themselves be shooted, crippled, imprisoned, tortured with all gunless resistance they can muster will have the same effect.

  29. Imrahil says:

    Not to mention fired, fined, and taxed.

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