JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
-
- Full-time English Teacher - Osaka
- Epion English Language Schools, Osaka
- Salary: ¥200,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month Depending on your ability and experience
-
- Part-time English Teacher - Osaka
- Epion English Language Schools, Osaka
- Salary: ¥10,000 ~ ¥15,000 / Day Depending on how many days a week are worked
0
PleasureGelf
Zenny11, this is not a place to discuss anarchy in all its forms but my opinion is it would be disastrous and short lived in practice. If anything, this is the shortest and surest way to losing sovereignty or power seizure by a dictator.
My point is a republic with democracy will be better than a republic without it. A monarchy with democracy will be better than a monarchy without it. Democratic processes can fail and lead to dictatorship, but still the former is better than the latter.
Posted in: Do you think democracy is the best form of government?
0
PleasureGelf
Zenny, even in your own words Mozambique is a democracy, so it can't be an example of a non-democratic state. I think my point remains valid: no universal right to vote without democracy.
I accept that democracy may be criticized for its many weaknesses but I can't understand people rejecting democracy. How can someone willingly give up their right to vote? I'd rather live and remain enfranchised in a constitutional monarchy like the U.K. than be excluded in a republic without democracy like China or indeed the early U.S of A.
I find anti-democratic view to be morally objectionable as it always implies discrimination against a part of society and concentration of power.
Posted in: Do you think democracy is the best form of government?
0
PleasureGelf
Zenny11
I'm always looking forward to being informed so if you could kindly point me in the direction of non-democratic countries with most of the populace still enfranchised.
Meanwhile for me democracy will, first of all, mean wide based suffrage where people regardless of their wealth, sex or race have the right to vote. In this sense the modern U.S. is a democracy, just as it wasn't at the time of writing the constitution, when a large part of the population had few or no rights. Then it was a true republic.
Second, it will mean the rule of law protecting the rights and freedoms of citizens. I suppose this we will agree on even if I call it democracy and you call it a republic.
I know that democracy in itself is not enough, but so isn't a republican government. Republic simply means a state without a monarch. In this sense the States, China or North Korea are republics but only the first one is also a democracy.
A constitutional republic based on democracy, with checks and balances to ensure separation of powers may not be the ideal form of government but it sure beats communism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, absolute monarchy and oligarchy, as well as all other -cracies including theocracy and kleptocracy. Anarchism may be nice in theory but disastrous and short-lived in practice in my opinion.
Posted in: Do you think democracy is the best form of government?
0
PleasureGelf
Interesting, 47% don't like their right to vote.
Posted in: Do you think democracy is the best form of government?
0
PleasureGelf
@McCracken, The U.S. is both a constitutional republic and representative democracy and it is this combination that seems to work best at the moment, but it is the constitution and democracy parts that are important, not the republic.
The U.K. is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy for example but it has laws and protects individual rights as well as the U.S. does.
Modern democracy is not the rule of a mob as some here seem to imagine. Democracy is the rule of law based on universal suffrage.
Posted in: Do you think democracy is the best form of government?
0
PleasureGelf
Wasn't there a story that a bosozoku gang killed a truck driver who crashed one of their bikes? Knowing that I'm not so sure I'd stop to see what happened to the boys.
Posted in: 2 high school students injured in Chiba hit-and-run accident
0
PleasureGelf
yeah, that turned out to be a mistake
Posted in: Leading a digital 'evilution'
0
PleasureGelf
Expensive Japanese whiskies may be winning awards but the cheap ones taste like medicine. I much prefer Irish whiskey.
Posted in: U.S. consumers pushing beyond sake to Japanese whiskies
0
PleasureGelf
Turns out I write like a whole bunch of them, Kipling, Wallace, Vonnegut, Rowling, Clarke. It's a surprise I haven't got a publishing contract yet.
Posted in: I Write Like erupts online; authors scratch heads
0
PleasureGelf
And it's obviously gonna sell like hot cakes.
Posted in: Pancake lens kits
0
PleasureGelf
What a horrible, horrible culture. Not only are kids exploited here but also exposed to sex in comic books! That wouldn't happen in the Western world where priests at least have the decency to cover kids' eyes while performing lewd sex acts on their innocent bodies.
Posted in: 14 men, aged 16-45, busted over national child pornography ring
0
PleasureGelf
I'm sorry but it's better to be groped than to be falsely / mistakenly accussed of groping and have your life ruined.
Posted in: Mother of falsely accused groper who killed himself seeks justice
0
PleasureGelf
hey people, this is something extremely cool that looks like taken out of a sci-fi movie and all you have to say is a worry about breathing?
Article Unavailable
0
PleasureGelf
I talked to tree people today. One of them was deaf as a log.
Posted in: Do English teachers at schools have to be native speakers? Can non-native English speakers do just as well or better?
0
PleasureGelf
Although it's an awful book it's in a great company. It's a sort of must read book list.
Posted in: 'Twilight' series on list of challenged books
0
PleasureGelf
Isn't it just like the news two days ago about 4 kids who died in a car fire in Hokkaido?
If you're gonna have children in your car just throw the damned thing away or childproof it with super-glue.
Posted in: Car fire in Miyagi caused by children playing with lighter
0
PleasureGelf
Or, just buy a Dyson's Air Multiplier which has no blades to be adjusted.
Posted in: Fan automatically adjusts air volume
0
PleasureGelf
This article picked out just one of the elements of '1984' and one feature of Japanese TV. I think it hardly proves anything. In this vein I could probably choose any book from my shelf and run a story how Japanese culture is like 'The Lord of the Rings' or 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'.
What's more, limiting the number of used words in Orwell's book served as a means of thought control. In Japan the overuse of words like 'kawaii' doesn't have a in-built purpose but rather simply reflects the society's preference for niceties and cuteness. There's an underlying pressure for harmony, for avoiding conflict in Japanese culture, which probably has a stronger influence on Japanese media style than the other way round. Whether this pressure can be compared to thought control is a matter for another discussion.
The fact that 'kawaii' is used to describe a man as well as a dog doesn't mean anything, since both dogs and men can be cute. There are dozens of other adjectives which can describe a man, a dog, as well as a house or a meal. 'Big' is just one example.
Perhaps Japanese doesn't have as many synonyms as English does, but nevertheless the richness and complexity of the local tongue is often the main subject of many TV programs I have glimpsed on Japanese TV. Quite recently I saw a few game shows where the participants had to correctly identify rare and obscure kanji, or where a distinguished professor explained some of the intricacies of Japanese. True, most of these programs are shown in an entertaining, easy to digest format, but personally I prefer it to the sleep-inducing talking heads style of Melvyn Bragg.
To sum up, we have here false premises and false conclusions, barely touching on the problem of Japanese media and its relation to Japanese modern culture. The shortage of serious discussions and hard talks stems from Japanese nature rather than from an Orwellian conspiracy to dumb down the nation.
Posted in: The Japanese media and its Orwellian nature
0
PleasureGelf
Brainiac, LOL. It's gonna be a massive soul carnage in heaven.
True, even assuming that whatever you're saying about the Bible is true (and I hope it is) it doesn't make whatever else you're saying - true.
Posted in: Do you believe in life after death?
0
PleasureGelf
USARonin, you have every right to be skeptical, but why not be skeptical both ways? I say most explanations a rational thinking doubter may come up with are still more likely than a divine miracle. Something akin to the placebo effect for starters.
For True - 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond pretty neatly explains why civilization took off in the Middle East and not in the jungles of South America. Read more science and less science fiction.
Posted in: Do you believe in life after death?