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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[wierd]

...

Devil's advocate:

What *else* do you do when overpopulated, and with an 80+% male population?

[Steeled]

...

Devil's advocate:

What *else* do you do when overpopulated, and with an 80+% male population?

The worlds biggest homosexual orgy.

[Reelya]

...

Devil's advocate:

What *else* do you do when overpopulated, and with an 80+% male population?

Educate them, then export them to take all the jobs and steal the world's supply of women.

[Owlbread]

The point is they shouldn't be forced to have a "Self Defense Force" they should have a military, like every other sovereign nation. Why is japan the only country in the world currently looked down upon if they want to control their own constitution and military, anyway?

We know why, historical issues and lingering prejudice, but I think the Japanese are onto a good thing and that should be maintained. I believe that no sovereign nation should have a military and, rather, pacifism should be written into every constitution, including that of the USA. The Japanese should retain their pacifist constitution forever, although only the people of Japan should be able to determine that future.

China invading Japan would spark WW3 anyway, so I don't think the Japanese are in danger of experiencing reverse-WW2. Japan could defend their country quite easily with six pasty faced JET program teachers and a pufferfish, there's no way the Chinese would risk something like an invasion.

[Zangi]

Considering though... it really does look like we are setting up for World War III if Japan is arming for the purposes of 'containing' China.

I kinda doubt China wants WWIII on their doorstep no matter what.

I don't mean right 'now'.  I'm thinking like a few decades in the future.  Time changes things... new people come to power and maybe new ideas take hold. 
It can go one way or another... but if the world cop's policy is to keep on trying to 'contain' China through military flexing, relations have a higher chance of going south in the long run.

[wierd]

The problem is that nationalists feel that the best defense is a good offense.

That sentiment is rife here in the US. Many of the more "conservative" bent actually take pride in the excessive military expenditures and actions our country engages in. It makes them feel safer, somehow, knowing that if WW3 erupted, we could turn half the planet into glowing ash.

I share your sentiment about self-defense forces vs standing armies.

[Owlbread]

I don't mean right 'now'.  I'm thinking like a few decades in the future.  Time changes things... new people come to power and maybe new ideas take hold. 
It can go one way or another... but if the world cop's policy is to keep on trying to 'contain' China through military flexing, relations have a higher chance of going south in the long run.

Relations can go south but they won't really lead to anything. Any kind of conflict with the West would completely crash the Chinese economy and basically ruin everything for them. China is so wealthy because they're like one enormous factory-state for the entirety of the West, full of factories and all sorts. If you ever wonder where the "Working Class" is today (as opposed to our "underclasses") look for them in China. They still "produce", for heaven's sake.

Their economy depends on those links with the West and in the event of a war all that would be lost. Their economy is already going through a few bumps as we speak - imagine how bad any kind of war would be? The Chinese are a superpower, yes, but they need us as much as we need them. The best thing for China right now would be for the West to become more and more dependent on them while roughly maintaining the status quo in geopolitics and internal politics. You know, no upstart Tibetans or Uyghurs or something messing everything up, or even worse people rallying for democracy. Ideally no more middle eastern misadventures (Syria) that bankrupt their customers.

The problem is that nationalists feel that the best defense is a good offense.

That sentiment is rife here in the US. Many of the more "conservative" bent actually take pride in the excessive military expenditures and actions our country engages in. It makes them feel safer, somehow, knowing that if WW3 erupted, we could turn half the planet into glowing ash.

I share your sentiment about self-defense forces vs standing armies.

This is also the problem in the UK. Those sentiments can be found the world over, it seems, unfortunately. Though I would hope for every nation becoming larger versions of Costa Rica eventually I advocate a return to Woodrow Wilson's proposals for self defence forces back during the League of Nations period.

[misko27]

Why can't you? Bay12 allows the IMG tag. Just be polite and spoilerize it. *shrug

Because I was on my phone. I'm not now. I have the power. I HAVE ALL THE POWER IN THE WOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRLLLLD.

...

Devil's advocate:

What *else* do you do when overpopulated, and with an 80+% male population?

Play fun times with science.

The point is they shouldn't be forced to have a "Self Defense Force" they should have a military, like every other sovereign nation. Why is japan the only country in the world currently looked down upon if they want to control their own constitution and military, anyway?

We know why, historical issues and lingering prejudice, but I think the Japanese are onto a good thing and that should be maintained. I believe that no sovereign nation should have a military and, rather, pacifism should be written into every constitution, including that of the USA. The Japanese should retain their pacifist constitution forever, although only the people of Japan should be able to determine that future.

China invading Japan would spark WW3 anyway, so I don't think the Japanese are in danger of experiencing reverse-WW2. Japan could defend their country quite easily with six pasty faced JET program teachers and a pufferfish, there's no way the Chinese would risk something like an invasion.

Spoiler: Misko goes on and on about a personal peeve regarding rational actor theory (click to show/hide)

I disagree with a lot of stuff here, but I planned that Steeled would come in and be indignant, making any more moderate comments by me superfluous. But the stupid WW3 argument made me respond; it forced me to abandon my usual moderated responses because of how much they offend my knowledge of the subject. That is just limited thinking; the same notion that makes people think that foreign policy can be so easily simplified to "what would I do in that situation". It's this notion of "Governments are rational individuals and not composed of thousands of other people with their own agendas, methods, and goals". It's never "Everyone does what they are told to do, with certain caveats", it's this absurd "The government decides all things at once, based solely on how they work together, and is constantly reevaluating."

They are not. With the limited exception of maybe Russia and North Korea (and even there this is true to some extent), governments do not act as single individuals. They compromise; internalize; react by protocol rather then rationality; suffer from internal miscommunication, infighting, hurt feelings between departments; bias; and generally do not act as a man would. Not even Putin can claim every act of his government was personally thought up and executed by him. And if it is not executed by him personally, you cannot reasonably claim that his actions alone are to blame.

And in a council type government as China's, it is even more unreasonable. No one is going to say "Okay here is where we start WW3 guys". No human being is going to say that. No more then a single government said "Ok so let's start WW1 and get stomped". Shit happens. Agencies react. People react as, oh dear, people. A single Politburo member decides "We should send a few ships into Japanese territory to freak them out", and the Japanese respond by sinking them. Congratulations: there is now a war whether you like it or not; neither population will let that slide. Moreover, you are blatantly ignoring the facts on the ground: China is playing constant games of cat and mouse with Japan's Aerial and Naval forces today, yesterday, and will do it tomorrow; military ships loudly asking the other to leave their territory; especially in the Senkaku. No one is going to order them to start shooting, but it can still happen, and if it does, all hell breaks loose; rational actors or not. Both harbor deep suspicions of each other - suspicions that reach from the lowly officer on the ground to Abe and Xi themselves - and believe those islands are their birthright; not even to mention natural resources. And as you know perfectly well, no one will give any of those up when making a decision.

God the lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis have not been learned. No one, at any point, imagined Kennedy or Khrushchev was going to say "I said goodbye to the missus. Rocks fall everyone dies", but they weren't out there manning the weapons. The real danger was at any point a bad thing would happen, a mistake, a challenge, a blockading US ship captain doesn't like the look of the Russian boat coming, the Russian AA captain gets nervous about a passing US plane; that leads to a stronger reaction, which provokes another, and by the time decision-makers are consulted it's already out of their control. By the logic you claim I can think of, for example, the Ukraine protestors as a single entity, and that they would never start an open war with the government "because it isn't in their interests".

God it annoys the hell of me, and everyone does it. "Why would the government give benefit X but restrict benefit Y? Stupid government." Because it's not thinking. It's not alive. It's politics, or organizational reactions.

[wierd]

Phone:

I am posting from an antique froyo phone, and can copy/paste image links just fine. Tabbed browsing is a thing. (Though it does make the phone unstable. Google botched android's multitasking really badly.)


Group identity behavior:

That's exactly why I mentioned Nationalists. Nationalists are individual people, who's combined opinions shape government policy, because individual politicians like to stay in power, and do so by pandering. The gestalt outcome of that pandering is almost always negative, and is similar to what drives the tradgedy of the commons.

What owlbread was pointing out was that Japan currently has a leg up in this respect, because many decades of artifically imposed "anti-'military industrial complex'" policy has shaped the popular japanese opinion about warfare and military expenditure.

However, I can easily see their proximity to the more nationalistically minded chinese (seriously, they parade tanks in cities to display their might. That's damned nationalist.) Making them feel unsafe enough to discard that better philosophical position in the dreaded race to the bottom.

I don't think owlbread was meaning that "china is smart", and "will choose not to go to war" in the respect you are implying.  More, "the chinese politicians are historically predisposed to silencing dissenting domestic voices that run counter to the desires or goals of the party counselors.", and that if war is "counter" to their goals, they would silence domestic rhetoric supporting such action.

However, that does not mean that the counselors are smart nor rational. If going to war is what is in line with the party objectives, then the opposite will be true: china will supress peaceniks, while beating the war drums into oblivion.

That's why I asked the devil's advocate question.
It should have a little more gravity in that context, I think.

[SalmonGod]

Have something mildly amusing.

[lemon10]

I don't mean right 'now'.  I'm thinking like a few decades in the future.  Time changes things... new people come to power and maybe new ideas take hold. 
It can go one way or another... but if the world cop's policy is to keep on trying to 'contain' China through military flexing, relations have a higher chance of going south in the long run.

Relations can go south but they won't really lead to anything. Any kind of conflict with the West would completely crash the Chinese economy and basically ruin everything for them. China is so wealthy because they're like one enormous factory-state for the entirety of the West, full of factories and all sorts. If you ever wonder where the "Working Class" is today (as opposed to our "underclasses") look for them in China. They still "produce", for heaven's sake.

Their economy depends on those links with the West and in the event of a war all that would be lost. Their economy is already going through a few bumps as we speak - imagine how bad any kind of war would be? The Chinese are a superpower, yes, but they need us as much as we need them. The best thing for China right now would be for the West to become more and more dependent on them while roughly maintaining the status quo in geopolitics and internal politics. You know, no upstart Tibetans or Uyghurs or something messing everything up, or even worse people rallying for democracy. Ideally no more middle eastern misadventures (Syria) that bankrupt their customers.

For what its worth, if the Chinese continue to properly manage their economy, and the US (and parts of Europe) continue to manage ours wrong, I could see a future where in 20 or 30 years where China no longer relies on the west for their economy, instead fueling their economy with internal consumption. That isn't to say that a war wouldn't be super economically damaging and far more expensive then it would be worth (even excluding the possibility of such a war killing everyone on earth), but it wouldn't lead to instant economic collapse.

[Culise]

AFAIK Japan is the only country in history to have a pacifist constitution forced on them. Imagine if Germany made the USA utilize THEIR version of a constitution, fixed to neuter US influence and military power in the far future.. That would be amended to hell and back in no time. I have no issue with Japan fixing any parts they deem fixable of an arguably illegal constitution.

Showing the anti-Japan bias. The writer of this is a shill. Anyone care to explain why every country in the world has the right to manage their own military besides Japan?

Oh, they have every right to change their constitution and rearm.  Just as their neighbors have every right to be nervous about a government that denies or downplays war crimes while rearming.  Imagine a militarizing Germany under a Chancellor that said that the socialists, homosexuals, gypsies and Jews were really guilty of crimes against the state, that the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was an independent and sovereign power that joined Germany in partnership, regularly visits a cathedral that honors and celebrates war criminals while quietly ignoring their crimes, publishing a book including an explicit comment that people like Heydrich, Himmler, and Goering weren't actually war criminals under German law.  Imagine the French, Polish, and Russian reaction, especially in a political environment that includes regular confrontations over border tensions with the first two countries.  Now compare to Abe's stated views on comfort women (no coercion involved whatsoever; they were all volunteer prostitutes), the Massacre of Nanjing (which Abe hasn't commented on, thankfully, but which recently saw a denunciation as a fabrication in 2007 by LDP lawmakers, and again in 2012 by the former-LDP mayor of Tokyo), the sovereign status of Manchukuo (which he considers a fully independent power not at all controlled by the Kwantung Army), whether Class A war criminals were really war criminals (check his book), and the visits to Yasukuni Shrine by him and others in his administration, even before he became Prime Minister.  Don't forget the textbook controversies that tend to crop up regularly, most recently orders straight from the Ministry of Education to downplay the military's role in mass "suicides" during the American invasion of Okinawa (which *really* irritated the native Okinawans) and strike out any reference to "comfort women."  No, I personally don't think that Japan is going to go recreating the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.  No, I definitely don't blame China and especially Korea for looking askance at a potential denunciation of the War Clause, not because it will actually change anything (Japan being one of the largest military spenders in the world has already been mentioned), but because it's representative of a political shift in the validity of war as a diplomatic tool, especially in a country whose leadership seems largely unrepentant of the last major "war as diplomatic policy" adventures they embarked upon.  So soon after their Chief Cabinet Secretary denounced a Korean war hero a terrorist (almost certainly true in a strict sense, but mind the connotations of that appellation in the modern day), it's just...heh. 

What's really funny, though?  That story spends so much concern on a remilitarizing Japan that it completely ignores the *domestic* aspects of the proposed reforms.  Specifically, the language they want to add to Article 12, which guarantees "Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression are guaranteed," now includes "Notwithstanding the foregoing, engaging in activities with the purpose of damaging the public interest or public order, or associating with others for such purposes, shall not be recognized."  Considering that Abe and the LDP recently railroaded through their own muzzling act on leakers of state secrets (which got a lot of ire for being ramrodded through the Diet so soon after the revelations regarding how poorly the government has handled Fukushima, and likely has more convenient timing given support for the bill from America in the wake of the Snowden issue), there's been some question whether the LDP have decided to prevent any repeat of 2009 by any other means available to them.  That's probably just paranoia on my part, though; I'm sure we can trust Shinzo Abe, his little LDP clique, and all future successors with being fair and equitable in how they define damage to the public order. 

I just wish the DPJ hadn't lost power so quickly.  I mean, when a single political power effectively maintains political control of a country for almost 60 years with only a single interruption, and this is no slight against the democratic values of Japan, it tends to become...ossified in its thinking.  Especially when it was a large example of Cold War politics for the American occupation, led by MacArthur the five-star fool, to quietly sweep as much as he could under the rug of Japan's war crimes and end the occupation as quickly as possible with the right-wing parties in as dominant a position as possible, an advantage which the LDP continued to parlay effectively even after American involvement domestically ended. 

[wierd]

From an outsider's PoV, it appears that Japan has a cultural honorific issue with accepting that it did indeed comit attrocities in china and elsewhere.

This seems to be a kind of cogitative dissonance, implicated with notions of the superiority of the japanese race and culture. (An ancient "traditional" belief, that the japanese are divine in nature by being offspring of amaterasu, the sun goddess.)

While silly by modern conventions, the lingering effects of such a worldview makes accepting culpability of guilt very difficult. You can see a similar issue with religious christians and the crusades.

This is one of the reasons why Germany has laws outright forbidding the assertion that the holocaust did not happen, and that germany did nothing wrong. (Itself enacted as part of a strong anti-nazism deprogramming initiative enacted by the allied powers after the war.)

Japan did not get such a deprogramming, and the attrocities done by the japanese during that period were very much part and parcel with the belief in he sactity of japanese imperial superiority. Because there was no deprogramming, the notion still has nasty lingering effects.

Japan would do very well to admit and address what it did in the past, and choose to grow from that.

[XXSockXX]

Might indeed be a cultural thing, in Germany that cognitive dissonace existed too to some degree, but it was pretty much dissolved in a cultural rebellion of the post-war generation. With traditional Japanese values concerning honour and family, and the strong notions of shame caused by anything that might endanger someone's (family-) honour, this is difficult to pull off.

[aenri]

...

The main difference is that Germany and France or Poland are allies, Japan and China are not. Also Shinzo Abe was a prime minister already, and he was a pretty moderate man in office. No one gets nervous about such proclamations from Japan or from China. Such things are par of the course for diplomatic discourse. Japan and China are pretty much openly hostile to each other, but covertly good trading partners. Their relationship isn't bad at all.

In 2008 Hu Jintao (big boss of China) came to Japan and Japan's prime minister (it was Abe or Aso?) went to China, they forged a treaty of friendship and trade. They are posturing for people in their countries, like politicians love to do. When Japan makes some remarks, it is great for two Chinas and the two Koreas (sometimes Indonesia and Vietnam too!), their leaders can also get on soapbox and say how much they hate Japan. In reality, when there is no media coverage, they trade like no tommorow.

Also DPJ had its time in power and many people in Japan saw them as clowns without any backbone. They were almost broken by being in power and their government was mired in scandals and corruption. Not to mention they didn't even manage to pass many laws.