

Japan passes a democracy-muzzling Patriot Act - adventured
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/131206/japan-s-parliament-democracy-muzzling-secrecy-law

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veidr
This is an infuriating and sad event. It's also the first time I have seen the
members of the Japanese parliament embroiled in an in-your-face shouting match
that looked perilously close to coming to blows.

As an American, the demise of the rule of law in my own country was really
hard to go through. As an expat now living in Japan, one of the awesome things
about being here was that although it's a wildly different environment and
culture, the rule of law, freedom of speech, and fundamental democracy have
been unquestioned. If you violate the law, and are caught, there are
consequences -- like it was the USA of my youth.

This isn't just a 'secrecy' law; as (vaguely) written, it is also a
_censorship_ law that goes even further than the US 'PATRIOT' act. You can
theoretically be imprisoned for a tweet, or a peaceful gathering, or basically
if the government just waves its hands and mumbles 'terrorism'.

This kind of law was one of the main lubricants for the United States's
ignominious slide into unlawful, unconstitutional depravity: kidnapping,
imprisonment without charge, assassination, murder, torture. Once something
can not be found out -- or cannot be published or discussed even if it is
found out -- the government and various bad actors within it have a shield
that lets them ignore the law or the constitution and do what the fuck they
want.

I don't envision Japan going as bad as America any time soon -- it has, after
all been the most peaceful major nation of the last 65 years, having not
exercised military aggression toward any nation in that time.[1]

But still, the degradation of a democratic society is something to be
lamented. And America's role in overturning its own best legacy is shameful.

[1]: But: one (unsubstantiated) theory I have heard floated is that this was
rammed through as a presage to a secret Japanese nuclear weapons program. With
China becoming an increasingly aggressive and hostile bad actor in Asia, using
its military to make wild bombastic threats against Japan (and Vietnam, and
the Philippines), unilaterally trying to assert ownership over more and more
territory in the region, Japan has found itself in a situation that looks more
and more like the USSR-era Cold War -- but with no hope other than to rely on
the US for protection.

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adventured
The largest low crime country in world history, using terrorism as a straw-man
to destroy freedom of speech, with heavy pressure from the first country to
properly enshrine freedom of speech into a constitution. What is the world
coming to....

I'm not sure what all of this qualifies as, if not a wave of fascism
enveloping the globe. Not so different from the authoritarian waves that
occurred in the 20th century (lest anyone thought such things were somehow
impossible just because a few decades had passed).

