The Lesser: Japanese Interment Camps

One of the biggest examples of a decision that came down to The Lesser and The Greater happened during and immediately following World War II. Japanese internment camps were a terrible time for our country. Hindsight is always 20/20, and in hindsight we can see that the Japanese internment camps of World War II were a big black eye for America. But we can see that the decision was not an easy one for the leaders of that time, and the decision was made using the strategy of The Lesser and The Greater.

Basically, the Japanese internment camps came down to a decision of the lesser of two evils: dangers of having spies or enemies in our country vs. the restriction of freedoms for true Americans. The leaders had to decide between the horribleness of mistreating our own people by imprisoning them wrongly or the horribleness of having enemies living inside of our own country and harming us from within.

The leaders chose the lesser of two evils. They wanted to protect America at all costs - even if that meant messing up by wrongly mistreating their own people. It was wrong. It was terrible. But it was the lesser of two evils.

That doesn't make it right.

It just highlights the strategy that the leaders utilized to reach that decision.

But this example is something that we can learn from. We need to analyze these situations so that we can be better prepared to lead in the future. We need to learn. We need to grow. We need to do things better. We can do things better. We will do things better.