March 6, 2007

Dishonest Abe

Hatched by Dafydd

I must apologize for the title; I could not resist. Anyway, I'm not talking about "Abe," the diminutive of Abraham; I mean Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe -- and the family name is pronounced "Ah Bay," with both syllables stressed equally.

Here we are, with yet another non-binding resolution from the Democrat-controlled House (do they ever pass binding resolutions anymore?)

Note: I have steadfastly resisted using the term "the Democrat Party," instead of the Democratic Party, because I think it's a silly and insulting affectation.

But just a couple of days ago, I heard, with my own ears (not a loaner pair), Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 100%) refer to "the Democrat majority in the Senate."

Taking my cue from the senior Democrat in the upper body of Congress, I shall now have no compunction about using the adjective "Democrat" instead of Democratic. If it's good enough for the senator from Searchlight, it's good enough for me!

Anyway, we have yet another non-binding resolution -- from the House, not the Senate, naturally; the latter won't be able to overcome the fillibuster. This one is really a lollapalooza: the Democrats demand yet another apology from Japan for the use of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese "comfort women" -- sex slaves -- by the Japanese Army before and during World War II... though you wouldn't know there were any Japanese forced into prostitution by reading the New York Times article (that doesn't fit "the Story," you see).

Abe has already announced that if the Congress passes such an offensive resolution, Japan will reject it out of hand:

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said today that if the United States Congress demands that Japan apologize for his nation’s use of foreign women as sexual slaves during World War II, his government will refuse to comply.

So this is yet another Democrat exercise in legislative futility; they have turned the Congress of the United States into the Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men's Chowder & Marching Society. Cushlamocree!

Abe is right to resist this nonsense... but the poor sap is right for all the wrong reasons. He is trying to defend Japan against the charge by denying that there were any comfort women in the first place; or failing that, by insisting that the Japanese government and military had nothing to do with it... all the coercion was carried out by private contractors.

...Who were merely hired by the Japanese government and military. So you see, there's no connection!

Speaking in Japan’s parliament, Mr. Abe reiterated the position of conservative scholars here that Japanese soldiers and government officials had no hand in forcing women into brothels during the war; they say that private contractors hired by the Japan’s military were to blame.

Former comfort women have testified before a House committee that they were kidnapped by Japanese soldiers to serve in military brothels. But Mr. Abe said that any such testimony was “a complete fabrication.”

He also criticized the proposed House resolution, which holds Japanese authorities responsible for the coercion, saying that it “was not based in objective fact, and does not consider the Japanese government’s measures so far.”

That last sentence demonstrates the real problem here: for years and years, the two Koreas (and to a lesser extent China) have been demanding more and more demeaning apologies; it's not just bullying, however. There is method to their meanness: the ultimate goal is to force Japan to pay billions of dollars in "reparations" to the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and the People's Republic of China.

And so far, whatever Korea wants, Korea has gotten. Japan has a terrible guilt complex, and the Japanese Left hates and despises Japan even more than the American Left hates and despises this country.

So why is Abe actually right to refuse yet another apology? And why, then, are his reasons wrong?

First, let's start with a few admissions against interest. Here are some facts that really are not in dispute:

  1. There is no question that some Korean and Chinese women -- and Japanese women -- were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers in the 1930s and during World War II;
  2. There is no question that it was the Japanese government that ordered such slavery... and no question that the Japanese military carried it out. Whether they worked directly or through "private" proxies is irrelevant;
  3. It's irrelevant because there were no truly private companies at that time in Japan: Japan was a Fascist dictatorship... which means the party of Tojo controlled every business, every company, every transaction. Nothing moved without the government allowing it to move.

But it that's true -- then why shouldn't Japan apologize? And even more, why shouldn't they have to pay reparations for the terrible wrong that they did? For a simple reason that is just as undeniable as the facts above:

  1. The Japanese government that did these horrible things ceased to exist on September 2nd, 1945, when Japan formally surrendered -- unconditionally -- to Allied forces, signing the surrender documents on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
  2. The current government of Japan did not come into existence until May 3rd, 1947, when it adopted its current constitution; or perhaps in 1952, when we formally turned over all remaining control to Japanese elected officials; or maybe even 1956, when the U.N. recognized the new nation of Japan;
  3. Thus, the current Japan did not even exist at the time these crimes were committed;
  4. In fact, neither did the current countries of the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and the People's Republic of China: All are post-war creations.

Neither the perpetrator (Imperial Japan) nor victims (united Korea, pre-Communist China) still exist, and all members of the perpetrator government (the military dictatorship) are dead and buried.

This makes complete nonsense out of virtually this entire article, which espouses a theory that can only be called "racial guilt" -- the racist idea that all persons of Japanese descent who happen to live in the modern nation of Japan are racially guilty of the crimes of completely different persons who also happen to have been of Japanese descent and who lived in the same geographical area as modern Japan, but before modern Japan was created.

Yes, you read that correctly: the New York Times is espousing a racist theory of propagation of guilt through the DNA, solely in order to benefit two Communist countries and a grubby, greedy capitalist one. Let's read the Times article carefully:

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said today that if the United States Congress demands that Japan apologize for his nation’s use of foreign women as sexual slaves during World War II...

Abe's nation did not exist during World War II, so it could not have used foreign women as sex slaves.

Japan has already lobbied hard against a resolution now under consideration in the United States House of Representatives, which would call on Tokyo to take clearer responsibility for the Japanese army’s enslavement of about 200,000 women, mostly Korean or Chinese, who were euphemistically called comfort women.

How can present-day Tokyo "take clearer responsibility" for what other people did under the previous regime -- a regime that enslaved and brutalized the Japanese people as well, making them the first and worst victims of its totalitarian National Socialism?

It is not morally possible: If a man commits murder but then dies himself, do we send his child to prison?

Japan has apologized over the matter before, including in 1993. But there are widespread concerns that Mr. Abe and other conservative Japanese lawmakers may try to water down or reverse such public admissions of guilt, as part of a broader push to change the way the nation regards its wartime history.

"It" doesn't have a "wartime history," because "it" didn't spring into existence until a minimum of two years after the war ended (not with a whimper, but with a pair of big bangs). And on and on.

Here is the correct way for Abe to reject this spurious charge:

To the American Congress, we thank you for illuminating the atrocities and war crimes, committed by the National Socialist dictatorship that occupied Japan for a number of years in the early part of the last century, against the innocent people of Korea and China. That same socialist tyranny committed equally horrific crimes against the Japanese people, and we join with you in expression our abhorrence of all such totalitarian systems.

The current governments of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of China must surely be familiar with the horrors that mass, coercive socialism can inflict: each has plagued its own people with even more murderous and torturous atrocities since World War II ended. And each, unlike Japan, still has the same government that perpetrated those crimes against humanity: Mao's so-called "cultural revolution" and his murder of seventy million of his own countrymen; and Kim Il-Sung's unprovoked invasion of South Korea in 1950 which precipitated a war that killed 2.5 million... and the more millions who have died from starvation under the government of Kim's royal successor, Kim Jong-Il. Not to mention the deprivation of liberty under both those Communist systems.

We extend our sorrow not only to those who suffered under one form of totalitarianism, we also extend our sorrow to those who have suffered under another form of totalitarianism. But we cannot apologize or accept responsibility for crimes that none of us in the government today, nor the government itself, had any hand in committing.

So we thank the American Congress for its interesting history lesson; but as to apologies or reparations -- bite me.

Imagine, a head of government talking like John Bolton (Japan has no "head of state"). Now that would be something to hear!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 6, 2007, at the time of 6:40 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this hissing: http://biglizards.net/mt3.36/earendiltrack.cgi/1859

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Dishonest Abe:

» 慰安婦謝罪議決を止めるために、安部首相にアドバイス from In the Strawberry Field
English version of this entry can be read here at Big Lizards.net/blog. 出張前のごたごたしている時に、日本の保守派の方からアメリカで慰安婦問題を扱った議案が通らないように、日本の立場をアメリカの読者を対象に紹介してもらえないだろうかというお話があった。私はミスター苺と一緒に英語のブログも経営していることでもあり、この話はそちらでも折をみて紹介するつもりでいた。 そうこうしているうちに、先日の安部首相の「問題発言」が起きてしまい、... [Read More]

Tracked on March 6, 2007 9:21 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: yetanotherjohn

Your choice of defense that the legal entity existant now did not exist then should warm the heart of the slave reperationist in this country.

The above hissed in response by: yetanotherjohn [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 6, 2007 7:31 AM

The following hissed in response by: Big D

Outstanding piece.

This is an old legal defense trick - get the accused to apologize for something, even if it wasn't their fault. Then ask for them to be punished, because if it wasn't their fault, why would they apologize?

Whenever I discuss slavery reparations with people I like to remind them of the blood sacrifice made by the volunteer Union soldiers in the early part of the war. Which, by the way, was a war of choice by the other Abe.

Why is it that the communists never apologize for anything? Ditto Jihadis.

The above hissed in response by: Big D [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 6, 2007 9:32 AM

The following hissed in response by: nk

Beautiful!

The above hissed in response by: nk [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 6, 2007 9:59 AM

The following hissed in response by: Mark McGilvray

Of all the dumb ass political stunts, twisting Japan's tail over comfort girls in a war over 60 years ago is monumental in the realm of feel good politics, and dumpster diving for yen. Will these morons feel better if Japan tells the hecklers to go screw themselves and decides to become THE nuclear power in asia? Leave Japan the hell alone or be prepared for some very unpleasant consequences.

The above hissed in response by: Mark McGilvray [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 6, 2007 11:31 AM

The following hissed in response by: LarryD

"Turn about is fair play." Since the Left subscribes to "identity guilt", let's take the offense.

Even better, IMHO, would be to go after them for all the cases of accessory they have committed, by protecting and defending tyrants, murderers, rapists, and genocides. Example, The the UN peace keepers sex scandal, If they complain "not in our name" over any US forces misbehavior, how do they justify their uncomplaigning support of the UN?

The above hissed in response by: LarryD [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 6, 2007 12:52 PM

The following hissed in response by: Big D

Sex scandel? How about one better. Namely the Democrat sponsered withdrawl of support to Cambodia in the 1960s, which led directly to the killing fields and the death of millions of innocent Cambodians. I think the Dems should be forced to apologize for that.

Or perhaps they could apologize for all the election rigging their party did over the years. It's not like any of this stuff is undocumented.

The above hissed in response by: Big D [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 6, 2007 2:03 PM

The following hissed in response by: madconductor

What?

Japan has a terrible guilt complex, and the Japanese Left hates and despises Japan even more than the American Left hates and despises this country.

Is that possible?

Excellent post.

The above hissed in response by: madconductor [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 6, 2007 5:47 PM

The following hissed in response by: brutepcm

My Grandparents were Dutch, a country that was occupied by Germany in WW2. I'm waiting for my check.
Oh- and the Mrs. is Polish. Time for Putin to ante in.
At least there weren't any slaveholders in our family tree.

The above hissed in response by: brutepcm [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 6, 2007 7:19 PM

The following hissed in response by: scarecrowstrawberryfield

I cross posted this entry in my Japanese blog. I received a response in English. I thought you should hear what a Japanese right winger is upset about.
*****
Commenter: Emmanuel Chanel

You are too ignorant. You aren't only very weak at Japanese language but also at the subject of society in Japan. So you cannot translate English words correctly into Japanese as often as usual Japanese.(Not 阿部 but 安倍.)
Even now, we sometimes find some crimes by corporations. (Our system that our government controls our private corporations are said to be begun in the WW II era.) But it doesn't directly mean that our government permits them. No joking!
I could find many official documents against forced prostitutions on the source book by Prof. Yoshiaki Yoshimi. There has been found even a record that such bad hoons got sentenced guilty in that era.(Reported by Mainichi Shimbun)
See comment 13 of
http://blog.livedoor.jp/lancer1/archives/12836332.html
I could find such many documents on his book, although I can't show those parts.(It ended a long time ago. And I don't find his book in the city library now.) Ignoring them, your behavior appears revisionistic ironically. Japan was very poor. China and Korea are poorer than us. Who on earth needed to force women be prostitutes?
If you can't read Japanese, follow present discussions of Occidentalism at least!
And see also:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050318224801/www.nc4.gr.jp/y-watch/comfortwomen.html
In addition, our government then has continued even now. Now our government would be called "日本国政府" but it just means that our "大日本帝国政府" changed the name. Our present constitution was made as the amendment of the Meiji Constitution. Don't you know even that?
******
I happen to know the American government has a lot to do with a new Japanese constitution. It was NOT simply amendments to the old Meiji Constitution. At least I know that much.

Sachi

The above hissed in response by: scarecrowstrawberryfield [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 6, 2007 9:36 PM

The following hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel

To Sachi(It's cross posting, too.):
I thought of saying
>>枝葉末端にこだわって大事な問題点を見失わないようにしましょう。(Don't lose the important issues with being concerned about unimportant details)
>
>If you think so, why did you say this and below it?
>
>>これらの事実に疑いの余地はない。(Here are some facts that really are not in dispute:)
and so on but
>これらの事実に疑いの余地はない。
wasn't by you but by your husband. I couldn't find that. Sorry.
About the argument in Japan, with enough plenty sources, we've already concluded that we didn't. But he is a foreigner. So I cannot criticize him as strongly as you. I felt that you can't understand what I say without telling things in English, neither, though.

The above hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 7, 2007 12:41 AM

The following hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel

madconductor:
Certainly, it's unbelivable but I cannot keep from saying so. e.g. at the first, the problem of Comfort Women was one that our government/army compelled European/Asian women prostitutes systematically. But refuted that, Prof. Yoshiaki Yoshimi changed the issue by the word: coercion in wide sense. Expanding the definition of that wider and wider, the Japanese leftists started the word: enforceability. But it means only that everyone is ruled by contracts when you work. But it's not known in USA or in other countries. So when Dafydd says the quoted stuff, we can say just that he doesn't know well. But when Japanese says so, even without the word: revisionistic, we feel so. Note that I wasn't upset against Dafydd but Sachi by mistake.
Also about the Nanjing Massacre, we can see such behavior. When Japanese historians say that we killed hundreds of thousands in Nanjing, they expand the definition of Nanjing. We, Illusion School doesn't. I don't know Middle-Road School do that, neither.
See:
ejcjs - The Nanjing Incident: Recent Research and Trends by David Askew(Middle-Road School)

The above hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 7, 2007 1:21 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Emmanuel Chanel:

You seem to have missed the central point of this post: It is completely irrelevant what the military dictatorship of Japan did or did not do in the 1930s and early 1940s, because that government no longer exists.

We destroyed it in 1945. The current government did not truly come into existence until we ceased occupying Japan in 1952. In addition, nobody who was in charge then is still alive today... so it's not even the same people.

Therefore, modern-day Japan and today's Japanese have no guilt whatsoever for what the Fascists did. For the same reason, modern Germany has no guilt for what Hitler did, and the present nation of Iraq bears no guilt for anything done by Saddam Hussein.

There is no such thing as "racial guilt." It is a legal and moral absurdity, found only in primitive people.

You can argue about what the socialist military dictatorship did from now until the stars grow cold; but it does not affect the basic point: the United States terminated the old government; there was a seven-year interregnum; and then a new government started.

So just tell the Koreans (North and South), China, and the Democrats in the United States Congress to sod off: civilized people do not believe that "guilt" is inherited through DNA.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 7, 2007 4:48 AM

The following hissed in response by: chsw

Nomenclature Note:

You can always refer to the Democratic Party by their symbol and therefore call it "the Jackass Party."

chsw

The above hissed in response by: chsw [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 7, 2007 5:51 AM

The following hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel

Dafydd:
I mistook Sachi's translation of your entry into Japanese for her translation of the entry into her opinion. And I have a bit hard argument about Comfort Women and so on in background. Her cross-post of my message was originally the claim to Sachi. So I said sorry about the mistake.
About your central point, I claimed that the government: "the military dictatorship of Japan" is same government of now Japan.(Its constitution changed, though.) We had many cabinets in WW II under Meiji Constitution. Even Tojo and so on were PMs under it. And the government continued after 1945. The difference between the government from 1945 to 1952 and one after 1952 is the point if MacArthur's GHQ ruled our government. Both governments are same thing under different constitutions.(GHQ camouflaged our legistrations under the both constitutions.)

cf. List of Prime Ministers of Japan
* You can say that Wikipedia isn't an adequete source. But our image on history books isn't so different. Yours wouldn't. Its Japanese edition clearly says that military PM were under Meiji Constitution. It cannot say right-wingers' fabrication.

The fact that we've already ended our compensation problems of WW II with peace treaties on the international rules can be a correct reason of your conclusion. But your logical process is wrong in that part.
I want to tell more about your non-central points. But my entries below show much enough.(If not enough, almost enough.)
http://www.chanel.ath.cx/blog/?itemid=27
http://www.chanel.ath.cx/blog/?itemid=28

Sachi:
>I happen to know the American government has a lot to do with a new Japanese constitution. It was NOT simply amendments to the old Meiji Constitution. At least I know that much.

I don't say that it was "simply amendments". Certainly, our now constitution isn't sequel of Meiji Constitution in context. But even with GHQ's order, our now constitution was made as amendments of Meiji Constitution and shown as it was made with that legal process. I brought that point for saying our government continued at least from Meiji Restoration. So her answer is pointless in that sense.

The above hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 7, 2007 7:29 AM

The following hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel

I mistook Sachi's translation of your entry into Japanese for her translation of the entry into her opinion. And I have a bit hard argument about Comfort Women in background. And her cross-post of my message was originally the claim to Sachi. So I said sorry about the mistake.
About your central point, I claimed that the government: "the military dictatorship of Japan" is same government of now Japan. We had many cabinets in WW II under Meiji Constitution, even when Tojo and so on were PMs. And the government continued after 1945. The difference between the government from 1945 to 1952 and one after 1952 is the point if MacArthur's GHQ ruled our government. Both governments are same thing under different constitutions.(GHQ camouflaged our legistrations under the Meiji Constution.)
And we've already ended our compensation problems of WW II with peace treaties on the international rules. It can be a correct reason of your conclusion. But your logical process is wrong in that part.
I have more to say about your non-central points. But my entries below show much enough.
http://www.chanel.ath.cx/blog/?itemid=27
http://www.chanel.ath.cx/blog/?itemid=28
Sachi:
>I happen to know the American government has a lot to do with a new Japanese constitution. It was NOT simply amendments to the old Meiji Constitution. At least I know that much.
I don't say that it was "simply amendments". Certainly, our now constitution isn't sequel of Meiji Constitution in contexts. But even with GHQ's order, our now constitution was made as amendments of Meiji Constitution and shown as it was made with that legal process.

The above hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 7, 2007 8:02 AM

The following hissed in response by: MegaTroopX

and the Japanese Left hates and despises Japan even more than the American Left hates and despises this country.

Is that even possible? I was under the impression that our lefties are only about one tick away from actual acts of terrorism (a la the 70s), as it is. DEFCON 2, so to speak. How could the Japanese lefties be worse?

Maybe it's an asymptotic thing.

The above hissed in response by: MegaTroopX [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 7, 2007 8:31 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Emmanuel Chanel:

It doesn't matter what was written in the Meiji constitution, E.C.; Japan in the 1930s and during the war was a military dictatorship. All provisions for democracy and liberty were ignored, and the inner circle of Tojo ruled by decree.

Constitutions are meaningless if they're not enforced: thoughout its existence, the Soviet Union had a wonderful constitution, full of rights and liberties and judicial processes. The only problem was that it existed on paper, nothing more; in practice, the Central Committee did whatever the heck it wanted to do.

In theory, the German constitution was never properly dissolved; but in practice, after President Paul von Hindenburg died and Adolf Hitler assumed the presidency as well as the Chancellory, becoming "der Fuhrer," Germany was a totalitarian dictatorship -- and a completely different country from the Weimar Republic before and the Federal Republic of Germany after.

Japan during the period in question was run by Tojo, his top generals, and Hirohito. It was not a democracy, no matter what the constitution said on paper.

During the occupation, even if all we had done was to restore the old government and force Japan to operate under those procedures, that still would have been a different government. But in fact, we did considerably more: We completely rewrote the Japanese constitution.

Again, it is irrelevant whether we did this by amending the Meiji constitution or by simply writing a new one from scratch. Either way, Japan post-1952 was a completely different government from Japan of, say, 1937. It was as different as Meiji was from the shogunate.

(By contrast, the United States has operated under the very same government, both de jure and de facto, since 1789, when it was ratified. Even though our understanding of the relationship between the federal government and the several states changed radically following the Civil War, there was still no break in the enforcement of the Constitution. Thus, we are the same country we were in the late 1700s: I believe no country in the world can honestly claim as much.)

Emmanuel Chanel, history is not so malleable that you can say just anything you want. There is a historical truth that you cannot get around; denying it doesn't make it false... it just makes you sound silly.

Pretending that Japan was not a military dictatorship is simply absurd; and I think even you know that.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 7, 2007 1:58 PM

The following hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel

Dafydd:
>It doesn't matter what was written in the Meiji constitution, E.C.;
I don't say such stuff.
> Japan in the 1930s and during the war was a military dictatorship. All provisions for democracy and liberty were ignored, and the inner circle of Tojo ruled by decree.
England(or Britain?) stops their functions of municipality in the war. They say that they will condemn all mass media in the war. In crisis, even USA makes their democracy worse by ignoring provisions and by so on. Do you say that Israel is undemocratic with the existnce of censorship?
In addition, our Meiji Constitution wasn't written democratic stuff, according to my textbooks. The fact was that our Emperror don't rule Japan even before 1945. But the article of the constitution says that our emperror rules Japan with advices and recognitions by our cabinet and with co-operation by our diet. That was the system of Meiji Constitution. And Taisho Democracy was made by buildup of customs against those articles. So your reply:
>Constitutions are meaningless if they're not enforced
is non-sense. I said that it was enforced. And it doesn't necessarily mean that our government was democratic in now sense. It's another issue.
>During the occupation, even if all we had done was to restore the old government and force Japan to operate under those procedures, that still would have been a different government. But in fact, we did considerably more: We completely rewrote the Japanese constitution.
I know the last part. So I said "But even with GHQ's order, our now constitution was made as amendments of Meiji Constitution and shown as it was made with that legal process." You reply such because you don't know how GHQ made us change our constitution. And does it prove that our now government is one and our government then is another?
>Emmanuel Chanel, history is not so malleable that you can say just anything you want.
Same word to you. You distort our government's continuousness. I pointed that. Certainly, I said that Japan in WW II was democratic by seeing 太田述正コラム .(You can see his view on Not bowing to pressure from Guardian Unlimited:) It's rather some Anglo-American historians' views than our right-wingers' accepted. His source was Gordon M. Berger, Parties out of Power in Japan 1931-1941, Princeton University Press 1977). Christopher Thorne, a British historian says that fascists in Asia were rather Chiakng Kai-shek's Nationalist China than Japan.("The Issue of War") Even I, can point that we elected about 50 representatives against the government in the war. And Tojo had to resign because of dissension in his cabinet. It's by the rule of our constitution. It's just that you don't know.

The above hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 7, 2007 7:16 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Emmanuel Chanel:

If you're going to argue that Japan wasn't a military dictatorship in the 1930s and early 1940s, then there is no point to this conversation. We live in different universes.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 7, 2007 9:10 PM

The following hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel

Hey, hey, it's you that lost the point.
Certainly, I got angry against Sachi by mistake. But I said sorry about that. So it ended for both of you.
I claimed that "military dictatorship" is the same government with the present one here. And talking about its continuity, I said that military politicians being PMs had been under the Meiji Constitution, too. Although I had more to talk about other points, for not starting the argument of them here, I only showed my entries about them.
I can imagine that my points of argument are too difficult for you. It's a bit hard for me, too. But you replied expanding the issue to such points. So I answered.
When we call our system in WW II "military dictatorship", we don't necessarily consider the point if our constitutional government was taken place with another military government like coup. It often means that our army administrated the government under the Meiji Constitution.(We had real elections even in WW II.) If someone doesn't say so, it means that he doesn't know that point. You fell into the false dichotomy by accident. And you mixed some issues: "Was the Japanese 'military dictatorship' in WW II same government as the present one?", "Was the Japanese government in WW II a military dictatorship, a democracy, or another?", and "Was the Meiji Constitution enforced then?".
You got tired of me? I'm tired of you on this discussion, too. Your answers are disjointed.

The above hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 8, 2007 12:20 AM

The following hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel

Correction:
Accordinng to Japanese general election, 1942 @ en.wikipedia, 85 candidates unrecommended the ruling party(Taisei Yokusankai) won the election in WW II. So I was wrong at the number, although it doesn't change the discussion.

The above hissed in response by: Emmanuel Chanel [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 11, 2007 2:27 AM

Post a comment

Thanks for hissing in, . Now you can slither in with a comment, o wise. (sign out)

(If you haven't hissed a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Hang loose; don't shed your skin!)


Remember me unto the end of days?


© 2005-2009 by Dafydd ab Hugh - All Rights Reserved