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Zoot Suit Riots

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Halsey17

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I'm wondering how people feel about whether or not the Zoot Suit Riots were ethical for the government to do. For those who don't know, my picture of said riots is US soldiers during WWII who were posted in LA clash with local gang members. The initial fight was a handful of guys, and one navyman got stabbed. Obviously parts, such as storming private theaters, are unethical.

However, what I see is a domestic act of war against the US assuming a pachuco did initiate the original fight. Obviously this is complicated because in a truly Objectivist society gangs wouldn't flourish because citizens would be allowed to defend themselves. So, how should the government have reacted to this? Seemingly the pachucos won the initial fight and got away, so calling the police to arrest them wouldn't have worked. Certainly the mass beating on possibly hundreds of technically innocent young men can't be fully condoned. However it boils my blood to hear of US soldiers fighting against the nazis (find a more just war since our revolution) having to deal with street punks while home on a furlough.

Edited by Halsey17
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Any action against the army or police during a time of war means aiding the enemy, and should be considered treason. Whatever the mexicans were protesting, right or wrong, they should not have commited acts of civil disobedience during wartime.

On what basis do you make the judgment that we should consider that treason? On the basis that "it is an action that, considering a comparison of the action vs not the action, the consequence probably helps the enemy"? Surely then by this standard using gas guzzling cars is treason, since the oil profets go to OPEC, which go to terrorism-sponsering fundamentalist nations, which are our enemies.

If you use any other basis for a reason to consider it treason then the conclusion doesn't follow. Therefore, you're either illogical, or even more illogical. I suggest recanting your position.

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On what basis do you make the judgment that we should consider that treason? On the basis that "it is an action that, considering a comparison of the action vs not the action, the consequence probably helps the enemy"? Surely then by this standard using gas guzzling cars is treason, since the oil profets go to OPEC, which go to terrorism-sponsering fundamentalist nations, which are our enemies.

If you use any other basis for a reason to consider it treason then the conclusion doesn't follow. Therefore, you're either illogical, or even more illogical. I suggest recanting your position.

But what is your position?

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But what is your position?

Well, anyone who commits rights violations against other people deserves prison. Those whose actions do not harm others do not, and if any extra attention is spent on putting them away, the responsibility lies with government, not the citizens committing the act, for any damage done against the war effort.

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To the degree that the soldiers were not behaving much better than a thuggish gang themselves, I think they lose the respect the uniform should normally entail. Remember that this dispute started more or less over a race-related beef of who should and shouldn't be dancing with white women, at a time when tensions between the local Mexican-Americans and white folks were already high due to economic conflict. I'm not excusing the Zoot Suiters, btw. I think it was all tribalistic garbage and I hate to see it happen in the USA. Both sides were wrong.

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