It strikes me as wild but so much of the opposition towards LGBT rights in Japan is, effectively, a paperwork issue. Backed by bigotry, but fronted by paperwork.
The koseki system, or family registry system, basically cannot handle same-sex couples or parents. The system only allows for one male partner and one female partner, one male parent and one female parent. So Japan can’t register same-sex marriages or parents.
But this might also be why sterilisation is required for trans people. Because the requirement for recognition of gender isn’t actually just to be sterilised. The requirements are to be unmarried, have no children, and be permanently sterile. Because anything less than that could lead to a system where a marriage involves two same-sex partners, or a child has two same-sex parents. Which is impossible using the current paperwork, so it is forbidden.
So trans people have to be sterilised, and if they have children already, they can never be recognised by the current system. Because bureaucracy.
Sounds like they need to update their system.
Maybe it’s just me, but in the digital age I don’t think there’s an excuse for systems like this to be too difficult to change. Heck, if you designed it like an idiot, then you deserve to pay the costs to fix it.
I know Japan lives in the stone age when it comes to governing, but that’s simply not an excuse. Do better. Take money from your ruling class to fix these issues.
It’s do-able. Let’s get off our fucking hands and do it.
Bureaucracy does tend to be inherently conservative, because it has to condense people into neat and tidy boxes in order to make them legible to an authority, so it will only allow formally defined categories, which will always lag behind culture. It also reduces people to numbers and strips them of their identities, which is another win for conservatism.
So it’s a great excuse for conservatives, because they can just say, “computer says no” and deny you healthcare.
Bureaucracy is a necessary evil in a modern society. Perhaps if you’re using a traditional definition of “conservative,” that could be accurate in that it (purposefully) slows things down to allow the administrative state (just a bunch of regular people working in their field of expertise) to review permits, etc.
But if we’re going by the current definition as used by the Republican party? Absolutely fucking not. These people are actively and openly working to literally “dismantle the administrative state.” That is their stated goal.
Without bureaucracy, society would be untenable.
No, they’re not doing that, that’s a propagandistic lie. Outlawing abortion and trans people is a massive increase in the powers and scope of the state, not to mention how much they want to increase the powers of the police in the largest carceral system in history.
And bureaucracy exists primarily to address the legibility problem that states have in condensing millions of people’s lives down to policies that can be enacted by a central ruling party. It doesn’t exist to serve the people or the society, but the state which is the enemy of the people.
Perhaps that state is what you think is necessary for a “modern society”, but I assure it’s quite old and has a long history from which to demonstrate that it acts primarily to oppress.
It is literally their stated goal to “dismantle the administrative state.” Please inform yourself:
And please don’t just skip over those articles, that “Project 2025” is absolutely terrifying (and should surprise no one who’s been paying attention). I would even recommend reading Project 2025 yourself.
Yes, they want authoritarian rule. And they are explicitly telling us exactly what they’re going to do once they have it. Their persecution of LGBTQ+ people, and p.o.c. is a completely separate thing. One thing about fascism is that it’s never consistent. It’s a feature. They will say whatever they need to say to do what they want to do and get what they want to get.
With all due respect, as someone with a career that often works hand in hand with bureaucracy in my day to day working life, you are completely uninformed about the subject. Of course it can sometimes lead to unnecessary red tape, but the alternative would be absolute chaos, with a complete lack of public health and safety, and zero accountability when people literally die because someone thought we didn’t need the FDA anymore.
I’m not going to get into a big argument about bureaucracy, but so many people are so ill informed about why it is so important, and that’s frustrating.
Edit: No response? Nothing? Huh, what a surprise.
Anyway, it turns out that debunking your crap is way easier than I thought it would be, because it’s so paper thin, so I may as well just do it.
The idea of dismantling these agencies isn’t novel. Republicans have long run on the idea that the federal government is too big and needs to be streamlined. Abolishing the Department of Education, in particular, has been a Republican Party goal since the agency was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
President Ronald Reagan made it a standard applause line.
But there’s a reason it hasn’t happened.
There are so many roadblocks to any such effort, experts said, that none could identify the last time a high-level department was entirely wiped off the map.
Literally this is just campaign rhetoric that never happens. Exactly the propagandistic lie I said it was. Your own article frames it as such. They are fascists and they are full of shit.
With all due respect: As someone who works directly with this kind of thing, you need to know that this is more than rhetoric.
And it is in the process of happening already. Trump did tons of damage to the administrative state at the federal level, and GOP state governments are doing it in their respective states across the country. You maybe just haven’t been made aware of it because it’s “boring” and not “sexy,” so it gets next to no coverage.
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Look at how they’re dismantling the IRS.
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Look at how SCOTUS just ruled that over half of America’s wetlands (by scientific definition) aren’t actually wetlands, and therefore no longer need protection from the EPA.
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Look at what Trump was doing with the USPS (in cases like these, killing the government’s involvement means private companies do it instead. How convenient. And how do those companies curry favor with a fascist leader?
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You can find lists and lists of regulations that have been killed since 2016. This is very real.
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There are regulations that have been in place for decades that are being gutted or removed completely.
Did you read the plan they put out at all? It’s already underway.
You seem to be missing the point. Fascism demands complete control. That means when millions of career scientists who’s research goes against your goals, you purge them.
We’re not quite at that level, but it’s in their 2025 plan. Part of it is to, over time, replace career public servants who do their job with no bias, with gop lackeys.
Complete control doesn’t always mean more. It also means purging those who may stand against you.
You’re just so confidently incorrect, and I can tell you haven’t actually looked at their very real plans for the near future. Yes, they’ve talked about it in the past… And? Now they’re in the position to do it, so they are doing what they’ve always talked/dreamed/wished about.
Business plays a big role in allowing fascism to take hold, historically. Please remember that.
Edit: added more examples as they’re coming to me
None of this actually addresses the point that I was originally making, which is that bureaucracy is inherently conservative.
Conservatives dismantling certain kinds of regulation has no bearing on that.
Fascism needs bureaucracy in order to function.
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Edit: No response? Nothing? Huh, what a surprise.
People have lives, asshole. I just moved my entire house twice in the last two weeks, but I’m so sorry I didn’t drop fucking everything to answer you. I can answer what you’ve said, but after that bullshit you’d have to tell me you’re actually interested in what I have to say, otherwise I won’t bother.
Truly: don’t bother.
You should still inform yourself about the (stated) goals of the modern conservative movement in the US.
Okay, so it sounds like you’re saying you’re not curious about what I have to say because you have judged me too ignorant to have anything worth saying.
Of course how you arrive at this position without being curious about what I think in the first place is a bit of a mystery.
Last week, for anyone else feeling a sense of déjà vu. It’s nice of BBC to catch up.
Not saying this is the case, but they should take their time to fact check and develop a story like this.
