Today in Supreme Court History: December 7, 1941

12/7/1941: Pearl Harbor is attacked.

 

Comments

[Darth Chocolate]

Not to mention something that actually pertains to the Constitution:
Delaware is the first state to ratify (1787).

[Dan Schiavetta]

First to ratify, but only in 2021 will they get their first President. Doesn't seem fair.

[Dilan Esper]

Pearl Harbor has a lot to do with the Constitution. E.g., Korematsu, Ex Parte Quirin, etc.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Didn't know the Court was in session there.

[Kevin Smith]

It did ultimately lead to landmark cases like Korematsu and Ex Parte Quirin

[Dan Schiavetta]

Only indirectly. It directly led to Korematsu only if you buy its "yellow peril" premise.

[Dilan Esper]

It led directly in the sense that it created the political climate that made a Korematsu possible.

[Krychek_2]

At which time the Japanese did almost as much damage to the United States as Trump has by his dereliction of duty, conspiracy-theory-mongering, false claims that the election was stolen, trillion dollar debt and encouragement of white supremacy.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Don't fret, Biden will soon save the day with far more spending and nannyism.

[Krychek_2]

And you seriously think that spending and nannyism are just as bad as empowering white supremacists, conspiracy-theory-mongering, false claims of a stolen election, and complete abdication of duty in the face of a pandemic? I mean, really, you seriously think that?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

And you seriously think Trump empowered white supremacists?

Stolen election -- see Hillary for some advice.

Abdication of duty in a pandemic? What exactly do you think Trump could have done? Are you going to at least credit the Trump admin with Operation What's-its-name which pushed vaccine development?

Or maybe you think Trump should have trumped federalism and started a nationwide lockdown?

TDS, m'boy.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"And you seriously think Trump empowered white supremacists?"

The bigots were grateful for it. The decent people abhorred it. The sentient people recognized it.

[Commenter_XY]

Conspirators...Today is December 7, 2020. It is Pearl Harbor Day.

Spare a moment today, and pray for the ~3K departed. They merit our memory and prayer.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Two things are often forgotten.

1. The Japanese were not out to kill people. They were out to sink boats, destroy the U.S. Pacific fleet. At Hiroshima we were out to kill people. Which is why one cannot say (like most of my father's generation) that one was justifiable payback for the other.

2. They didn't just attack Pearl Harbor that day. They also attacked other U.S. bases, Midway, Guam, Wake Island, the Philippines, and bases of other powers, such as Hong Kong. PH was just one part of a gigantic Pacific operation that the Japanese saw as preemptive.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

What a goofball! War means killing people.

As for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two atom bombs killed about as many as the single Tokyo fire bombing five months before. For some perspective, it probably saved 10M Japanese, millions of Chinese, and hundreds of thousands of Americans.
* The Japanese armies in the field, in China, Indonesia, Indochina, and elsewhere, killed 200,000 natives in each of the last three months of the war.
* Iwo Jima and Okinawa showed the Japanese inflicted as many casualties as they themselves has, the main difference being the Japanese casualties were 99% dead, as opposed to 5:1 or 10:1 WIA:KIA.
* The planned year-long two-phase invasion of Japan would have faced millions of Japanese soldiers, millions more less effective civilians, 10-15,000 kamikaze planes, and thousands of kamikaze boats. That translates into millions of dead Japanese and up to a million dead Americans.

Anyone who complains about the two atom bombings as cruel has zero concept of what war means and how many lives they saved. Any idiot who thinks the Japanese Pearl Harbor attackers regretted killing sailors and soldiers as collateral damage is just a damned fool.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Read my comment again. I was talking about Pearl Harbor and the other attacks of December 7 and 8, 1941.

Also, switch to decaf.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Read your own comment again:

"At Hiroshima we were out to kill people. Which is why one cannot say (like most of my father’s generation) that one was justifiable payback for the other."

Then try responding to the other part of that same paragraph:

"The Japanese were not out to kill people. They were out to sink boats, destroy the U.S. Pacific fleet."

Go ahead, try explaining any logic in that. There is none.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

"The Japanese were not out to kill people."

That kind of major league stupidity deserves its own rant. Did you forget about the rape of Nanking? The Japanese military in WW II earned their reputation the old-fashioned way, by killing civilians for no reason except to toughen their psyche, to turn namby pamby recruits into killing machines, to terrorize the populace, to teach the populace a lesson.

Even aside from that, even fi you only limit your discussion to Pearl Harbor, they shot up hospitals, civilian cars and houses, and other targets of opportunity that were not related to war material or personnel.

Major class hide-your-head-in-fake-news sand is what you got.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Did you know that the Americans dropped millions of leaflets before most city bombings, warning the civilians to evacuate? They didn't know which specific city they'd be attacking, that depended on the weather, so they leafletted several cities.

Did the Japanese leaflet Pearl Harbor, Nanking, or any other city before bombing it?

You've got the kind of stupid that lends truth to the meme.