mdiehl
Posts: 5998
Joined: 10/21/2000 Status: offline
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Ok, in the Swedish language, there is a huge difference between a concentration camp and an internment camp. quote:
Apparently there is no such difference in the english language. That would only be "apparent" to a person with an ethnocentric agenda. In English, the phrase for "concentration camp" is "concentration camp." In English, the phrase for "internment camp" is "internment camp." As noted before, the two phrases, which specifically differ in the use of the word "concentration" in the first instance, and "internment" in the second, convey a world of different motive, operation, and outcome. A "concentration camp" in the English language refers to a camp, typically one run by an Axis power, an Axis power ally, or an axis-power occupied puppet state, that interns people for the purpose of enforced labor, or merely on account of ethnicity, usually with the intention of the death of those interned, either through willful neglect of food or medical treatment, or through deliberate murder. An "internment camp" is one in which non-prisoners of war are forcibly detained, yet are reasonably well cared for (given adequate provision, shelter, water), are not engaged in forced labor, and for whom the expected outcome is release. A third kind of camp is, in the English language, the "prisoner of war" camp. Such a camp is a place where you put the captured combatants of enemy powers with whom one is at war. In these camps as well, it is expected that treatment includes reasonable provision of food, water, and shelter, with the ultimate expectation of release. That is why your attempt to equate American internment camps with Axis concentration camps on the most spurious of reasons is so obviously an invidious comparison. quote:
A German citizen found illegaly in Sweden will be apprehended by the authorities and put in a refugee camp, until it can be decided whether to eject him out of the country or whether to grant him asylum. Except that it is not apparent that the German citizen was "illegally" in Sweden. He seems to have been there legally. quote:
Had he been a Swedish citizen he would not have been put in a refugee camp, He would not have been put in an internment camp. The German in question, however, chose the phrase "work camp" not "refugee camp." Moreover, as he was a person of independent means and also, to all evidence, legally in Sweden, your assertion that he was placed in a refugee camp seems incorrect. It's hard to see why Sweden would have arrested him at all if he was in the country legally. In the US, as I noted before, German, Italian, French, Belgian, Polish etc citizens were not arrested simply for being a citizen of a nation at war during the interval from 1939-1941. Hell, even the refugees who DID manage to enter the US (often illegally) were granted legal resident status on the basis of their simply being refugees, rather than locked up in "camps" of any kind at all. So Sweden's policy vis "refugees" or "citizens of nations not at war with Sweden but at war with each other" seems, by comparison, both arbitrary and unjust in comparison with US treatment of internationals of similar status. quote:
nor would he have been put in an internment camp, nor would he have been put in jail (unless he had broken the law). Sure. I suppose that breaking the law, in Sweden, probably included such thought crimes as being a communist, pacifist, member of a non-approved party, or other kind of citizen Swede troublemaker. The US didn't arrest THAT sort of person either. quote:
We imprisoned enemy combatants in internment camps, Yes. Why is anyone's guess. Probably didn't want to jeopardize Sweden's trade relationship with Nazi Germany. quote:
we "imprisoned" enemy refugees in refugee camps. True, even though most other nations (including the United States) did not. Pretty fascist of Sweden to treat people in that way. quote:
At no point in time did we ever have or operate concentration camps (barring of cource our slave camps in the Gold coast of africa..but that was in the 17th century, so I think we can ignore those for now). I'll concede that Sweden did not operate concentration camps of the sort operated by the Axis powers. You can call the Swedish prisons "internment camps" or in some instances, apparently, "work camps," and even in one instance "camps for politically undesirable Swedes who have not been convicted of any crimes" but the Swedish camps weren't in purpose or practice remotely like the concentration camps operated in Italy, Vichy France, Germany, occupied Poland and so forth. But then, of course, neither were the US internment camps. Thus, any effort to construe US internment camps as in any way similar to Axis concentration camps is spurious, and it displays your true racist (or more accurately, ethnocentric) bias against the US in general. Was you not biased, you would not struggle so hard to find such flimsy grounds for making such a manifestly stupid comparison.
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Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics. Didn't we have this conversation already?
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