I’d say that’s true for most people everywhere. Only a few activists care what people do in the privacy of their own home. Unfortunatly, being a silent majority means you have no weight.
Why? Its in their job description to keep things secret to better blow up their enemies.
Plus if you want to see some of their stuff so bad feel free to watch History Channel in USA.
I assume Narg was more specifically referring to the F-22 - this technology being kept by the US wouldn’t be so much of an annoyance if the F-35 JSF project hadn’t blown out so far.
Aye. China recently revealed their Chengdu J-20. Japan has been trying to get the F-22 before they showed off having that, and now it’s pretty much imperative that Japan have a comparable fighter. The ATD-X program is still in the R&D stages, and even when finished, the seen proposals have not matched the F-22.
Japan also had troubles getting the Aegis Combat System from the US. They eventually got it, but a very watered down version at first. It took several more years until the US shared the full version (specifically the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System). And that was only because Korea had nukes, the Taepodong-2, and threatening to blast Guam with 'em.
The US not sharing military toys with the Japanese is actually a pretty long - and very complicated - ordeal.
The US doesn’t like sharing much of anything military or intelligence with our allies. Japan isn’t an exception here.
Actually…
The US shares military technology extensively with the British. Among many things, we shared our Trident nuke technology (the world ending kind) with them from almost day one. The Brits are known to reject American weapon sales. The US shares advanced military technology (and intelligence) with Israel. Another nation we share a lot of secret military tech with is Saudi Arabia (who gets to buy more than Israel). The Sauds have had the Abrams MBT for YEARS… while Japan was reduced to homebrewing their own Type 10. Not to mention Japan hasn’t had a combat tested tank since WW2… and even then, their WW2 tanks were largely inferior, even to the then inferior American tanks.
Japan gets the short end of the stick when it comes to American defense contracts. It’s pretty well documented.
When Japan originally asked for the F-22, Congress rejected the sales outright without even a vote. When Australia asked for the F-22, Congress set up a committee to consider the sale. That committee judge the sales would be good for America’s economy and defense (see the H.R.2647 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 for detailed info). It passed 68 to 29.
Note that Japan is a more important trading partner than Australia – Japan is #4; Australia doesn’t even make the top ten – and Japan is closer to national threats like China, Russia, and Korea. You could count the number of Chinese and (active) Russian ships that could reach Australia on one hand. Korea has zip. Of course all three of those nations could attack Japan in a matter of hours.
Yea… no double standards…
EDIT
If you’ve been following the news on military spending, the US also recently rejected selling new F-16’s to Taiwan. All in all, this makes all the US allies in East Asia weaker against China, who’s all about flexing their air superiority as of late. US is sucking up to China (not making them “angry” by not selling advanced fighters), at the safety expense of their current allies. :roll:
It’s also possible that the US is not selling them high-end gear so that they want to remain our allies. After all, if they don’t have the tech to resist China, and they don’t want to submit to them, then they’re pretty much stuck with being buddies with the US. Doing so ensures that the US has allies in the East, while also not pissing off China at the same time.
China is enormous, Taiwan is very small, and Taiwan is also right off the coast. Taiwan also is the place of refuge for the previous rulers of China. (Or at least, their descendants.) The only reason China doesn’t (for example) blockade the island into surrendering - let alone outright invade - is that the US explicitly and staunchly supports Taiwan. It wouldn’t make sense for the US to deny Taiwan good military gear just to keep them dependent upon us - they’re already so dependent on us that it would be a waste of effort.
I think it’s a dick move to deny Japan decades old jet fighter tech too,but The U.S. has a different relation to Japan than the rest of those countries.Those other countries are just allies.The U.S. and Japan are allies,but the Japanese Constitution together with multiple treaties makes the U.S. explicitly responsible for Japan’s defense.It 's hard to say just what Congress is thinking,but they may think it unnecessary to sell military tech to a country that for all intents and purposes is already behind the shield of the U.S. military in a way unlike any other country.
you’d think it would be slightly easier to defend a nation if that nation had F-22s and could defend itself to some extent
Looks like the LDP may try to push for a ban again. http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2011/09/29/ldp-seeks-new-ban-manga-anime-virtual-child-abuse/
The LDP is pushing things like this because they’re looking for easy political voter gains. The DPJ has been more-or-less kicking their ass since 2009. The LDP is looking for things to bolster their chances, while they try to pin blame about the Tsunami disaster on the DPJ. It’s political grandstanding. The DPJ is conservative leaning, but dislikes large government and government level regulations against citizens. Seeing how the DPJ controls the Diet, this law [u]WILL NOT PASS[/u], because it exactly calls on more government level regulations.
Furthermore, Akihabara [u]LIKES[/u] otaku trade. It’s a major source of tax revenue for them. The local elected officials will be damned if someone cuts off their money supply, in a time when money supplies are being fought for tooth and nail (the JR Group ticket sales alone would be in the millions). The officials of Akihabara will use every favor and deal they have, to keep the status quo as it is. Other officials will help, because they’ll want Akihabara’s votes to aid them in their own issues. Let’s not forget the corporate side either (banning sales is the same as banning profit).
What Japan is worried over right now: deficit, yen value, nuclear power plants, China/Korea/Russia bickering. Those are the real matters showing up in the news and political talk circles.
When the LDP has a seat majority – and the DPJ can’t block 'em – then I’d worry. Until then, it’s just meaningless posturing to get attention. The exact kind of posturing that got the LDP kicked out in the first place…
Is there no party in Japan that’s not conservative leaning? Because I thought LDP were the conservatives.
Complex answer…
The DPJ is against government regulation, against state welfare, against corporate oversight, and against raising taxes. Those are all Republican
ideals. On the other hand, the DPJ raised the minimum wage, are lax on the whole censorship deal, and want no increased military spending (except when Korea is launching missiles in the Sea of Japan). Those are all Democratic ideals.
IMHO, what defines “conservative” and “liberal” in Japanese politics is largely the nationalistic and historic rhetoric: just how the amount of religious and racial rhetoric is a major definition of the Republican and Democratic parities in the US. In that vein, there is little difference between the DPJ and LDP. See the whole thing about Japanese war shrines and crimes for example.
But yea… the DPJ would be the “Japanese Democrats” and the LDP would be the “Japanese Republicans” in a general broad stroke canvasing of them that’s open to a lot of interpretation and can be heavily argued. I would more argue that the LDP is ultra conservative, while the DPJ is just plain conservative (with a few liberal ideas here and there). Then again, Europeans say the same thing about American politics (i.e. that we’re all conservative parties compared to their systems).
EDIT
As for a “true” right wing party in Japan… the only one I can immediately think of is the JCP. But they’re Communist. Literally. 
Japanese politics is all about nationalism and preserving what makes Japan, Japanese. It doesn’t stray too far from that I’m afraid. It’s one of the major reasons why Chinese/Korean politics hates Japan so much – and vice versa.
That’s ‘right-wing’, not conservative.
That’s ‘conservative’, not right-wing.
The reason people often get confused is because the US’s right-wing party and conservative party are the same thing. But, in general, the two don’t mix all that well.
Conservatives can be left-wing (want Government to restrict recreational drugs and stop gay people getting married) and right-wingers can be progressive (wanting to relax gun ownership laws, for example)
Note to self, leave certain manga at home if I ever go to Sweden:
At least someone has a bit of sense…
By all means, if you find a lolicon artist who is using children as models, punish them - BECAUSE THAT’S AN ACTUAL CRIME.
Same for someone using lolicon manga to try and lure a child into inappropriate acts. If they do so, punish them, because that is an actual crime.
You can think that lolicon manga contributes to an increase in such crimes. You can restrict the sale of such material and fine people for breaching it… that’s potentially stupid but it’s not morally insane. Equating possession of material with committing heinous acts IS morally insane. It’s pre-crime. The guy should not be labeled a ‘sex offender’ if he hasn’t actually committed a sex offense!
I can’t help but feel that equating stuff like this to sex crimes, especially ones against children, is a way of ‘normalising’ sex crimes and telling people who have suffered such abuse and the trauma involved that what they went to is equivalent to someone they don’t know owning a book with drawings in it. As a society we are telling those people that what they went through was no big deal. That’s really, really sickening.
Well, sure, as much as murdering someone in order to write about the matter.
Same for using a movie or a book to push people into performing acts of violence or heinous crimes. Or not?
That the logic behind which censorship is performed, really. Which goes against the principle of freedom of speech.
That’s the point though. Even though many movies inspired real life crimes, most people would find insane and silly to start labelling everyone owning them as murderers, yet it seems a not so negligible amount would be perfectly OK to label ‘sex offender’ people who own lolicon manga… even though there’s so far still no case where they were directly linked to paedophilia cases.
Just as a small reminder: in the US, there’s never been a “pure” lolicon anime/manga/eroge case that’s actually gone through the court system. Either the accused person plea bargained (Christopher Handley and Ryan Matheson), or the accused person also had real child porn in their possession.
I’m sure a lot of people know about Handley, but for those in the dark about Matheson, his plea bargain was made public a few months ago: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page … e&id=37552
His plea with Canada, means the case will not surface in the US.