Disloyalty in wartime

[shubha ghosh]

I have to say in response to the specific examples
Eugene raises (denial of military jobs etc) that the
government probably could exclude nazi sympathizers
from such positions.  But I thought we were talking
about the rationality of internment?


--- Eugene Volokh <volokh at mail.law.ucla.edu> wrote:
>         Can this possibly be right?  I'd be happy to
> say that the government should
> not have interned members of the American Nazi
> Party, or various Nazi
> sympathizer organizations, during World War II
> simply on the grounds of
> their organizational membership.  Does it really
> follow, though, that it
> couldn't specially watch such people, or investigate
> their credentials more
> closely when they apply for a sensitive military
> job, and in a close case
> reject them partly based on their past sympathies
> with the Nazis?
>
>         Eugene
>
> Shubha Ghosh writes:
>
> > Since presumably dissent even during wartime is
> > protected speech, it strikes me that identifying
> > loyalty and ferreting out disloyalty is not an
> > appropriate task for the state to engage in, even
> > during wartime.  The concern during wartime is
> conduct
> > that can undermine the war effort by providing
> > material resources to the enemy.  Ethnic identity
> or
> > citizenship status (such as joint citizenship or
> > naturalized US citizenship) is a poor proxy for
> that
> > type of disloyalty.  If racial or ethnic identity
> is
> > simply being used as a proxy for potential
> dissent,
> > then the discrimination rationale could be used
> > against a wide range of groups: members of the
> SDS,
> > anti-war activists, etc.


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