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this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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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.
Oh definitely. Desperately.
Thing is. I don't even think it would be that difficult to change. It's not like it's the first time we've ever had newer versions of forms. And the change isn't even drastic, just de-gender the terms. Partner 1 and Partner 2, Parent 1 and Parent 2.
One of the simple benefits of the paper-based way Japan tends to favour is that it can be updated and overriden by the person performing the process.
Boy, thank God that you don't have to deal with the draconian legacy codebases that governments have. There's a reason no sane engineer wants to get even near them, and it's because any change, no matter how small it is, completely breaks the entire system and no-one knows how.
Sure, a new system could be developed from the side, but implies getting engineers in a higher level than interns and governments don't have good reasons to hire them. Their broken system gives them the perfect excuse for their bullshittery.
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:
https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump-heritage-857eb794e505f1c6710eb03fd5b58981
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2024-gop-hopefuls-abolish-federal-agencies-experts-long/story?id=103160902
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.
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.
Look at how they're dismantling the IRS.
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.
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?
You can find lists and lists of regulations that have been killed since 2016. This is very real.
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.
Yes, everything needs bureaucracy to function.
In fascism, bureaucracy is not use as intended, it's just a tool. Fascists (like they do with everything) will pick and choose between agencies, rules, and even individual career scientists with families, and use and manipulate them to fit their needs and reach their desired ends. And usually toss them away after.
So yes, in that way they do need it.
I believe that I did originally differentiate between a more "traditional" definition of the term 'conservative," and said that it probably would fit that definition in that it is meant as a check to slow progress slightly so we don't do insanely stupid shit that puts millions/billions of people in harms way without them even knowing. Not without doing a little math first anyway.
But when it comes to fascists, it's simply a tool. It will slow/stop when they need it to, and it'll speed up (or more likely, disappear completely), when they want that. They use it to their own ends.
But that says nothing inherently about bureaucracy itself. Which is something a modern society needs to function properly and safely.
You seem to think bureaucracy is synonymous with organisation, which it isn't. Bureaucracy is about exercising power through rule-keeping. An important aspect of bureaucracy is that it is mandatory and monopolistic. It is imposed by force, and tends to be quite disordered and disruptive to peace for that reason.
Societies don't need bureaucracy to function, but top-down societies - like fascism and representative democracy - do. Horizontalist societies can organise without bureaucratic bullshit telling everyone how to live their lives.
And it always has the feature that it is used selectively, and it favours in-groups, which is another way in which it is conservative. The fact you think this isn't an inherent feature of your own bureaucracy tells me that you are privileged enough to be favoured by the system as it currently is, and inattentive enough not to see how inconsistent it really is.
You already said it's your job, as some sort of assertion that you must be right. In my experience people who do that aren't very good at their jobs, because otherwise they'd be able to explain their reasons and not fall back on an appeal to authority. You sound like exactly the kind of small-minded asshole that thrives in bureaucracy.
Also, if you have to admit that bureaucracy actually is conservative, and you're talking about some special brand of conservatism that you think is different to that, then I don't even know where you disagree with me.
A bureaucracy is when a government is set up to allow people who are career experts in their respective fields to make policy decisions that make sense, rather than clueless politicians. They are apolitical by definition. It can only really be considered "conservative" in that it, by design, slows things down to make sure that the rules and laws we are making are safe, make sense, won't kill people (quickly or slowly), etc. I don't mean conservative in a political way.
When you remove replace those experts with unqualified stooges (see current GOP House budget that reduces EPA funding by 40%. See Trump rule that removed protections from over 60% of America's wetlands. See GOP's literal stated goals), it stops functioning. Everything stops functioning. Which is the intention of the fascistic "conservatives" that are running the GOP.
They are breaking down any such system that may improve people's lives. They're openly doing it, and gloating about it:
And of course, they're doing it to the IRS, because obviously that one makes the rest much easier to gut.
I said already that fascists will pick and choose when convenient, but the idea that "conservatives" (as they are currently defined in the US) are not currently dismantling all sorts of bureaucracy that literally keeps people from dying, is absurd.
Can you not see it? They want to "dismantle the administrative state," as they say themselves. When that plays out, and we've reverted back to a form of feudalism, they see themselves as being the new feudal lords. THAT is when they "rebuild" the state into something built entirely to serve their own interests. Fascism designed from the ground up, with hundreds of years of lessons on what pitfalls to avoid in order to stay in power indefinitely.
When you start taking climate change into account, it starts to make even more sense. Big time preppers like Steve Huffman (spez) see themselves as the leaders of a feudalistic, post climate wars world.
I wish I was kidding. I have a source for that last part specifically if you want to read it. It's insanity. Huffman is a psycho.
You literally just ignored everything I said or directly nay-sayed it and kept banging the same drum which is isn't even relevant to this discussion.
It's pretty clear you're not interested in what I have to say.
Also?
Bless. You sweet soul.
Lol ok. Clearly you're the one with no interest in an actual conversation. I made a pretty well thought out comment and I'm not even sure you read it.
I guess I'm going to be the one to tell you, but that's exactly what bureaucracy means. Just because you have some warped definition in your mind, doesn't make it true.
I can't say I'm not curious to hear what you believe to be incorrect about what I said...
I'm actually starting to think that maybe you don't know what the word actually means? It's almost like maybe the only context you've seen/heard it used is from some commentator on YouTube that HATES bureaucracy so they only ever frame it in a certain way. And because of that, your concept of what it actually means, is completely skewed.
That's just the vibe I'm getting.
But ok hoss, let's hear it: What is "bureaucracy"?
I already told you the answer. It is literally two of my comments above this one.
You need to do better than that. I want to understand what you're saying here, but it is difficult. I would love to have a real conversation about this, but if you can't read what I've already written and respond to it, and you can't even pretend to be genuinely curious about what I have to say - not what I think of what you have to say, there is a difference - then I think we're done here.
If you can't admit curiosity and demonstrate it by responding to what I've said, I won't reply. If you can actually do those things after all this defensiveness then you will thoroughly surprise me, which is a genuine gift in this day and age.
Strikes me as awfully convenient that there's no such thing as a bad guy and all bad ideas are easily dismissed as "campaign rhetoric"...
I didn't say any of what you're attributing to me.
I'm not sure what you think I've attributed to you, I read what you wrote and shared my impression of it. If my impression is incorrect in some painfully obvious (to you) way, maybe you could take the time to explain that instead of simply calling me a liar?
I don't know... like I didn't say this. This is so obviously a strawman that I don't think it warrants any more explanation, unless you can explain how what I said amounts to this.
Such a bad faith first impression doesn't encourage me to share more, thanks anyway.
I'm sorry, the argument you laid out is spurious and nonsensical. I did the best I could to understand it but it really does seem like something that would apply to literally any subject based on some unstated preference. Did you mean to say something other than "campaign rhetoric therefore obvious lie because it's impossible for campaigns to be honest"?
How is it spurious and nonsensical? If you can explain that, then you have something more than a strawman, but so far you don't.
And I could reiterate what I've obviously already said, but I would just be repeating myself. I don't know where your misunderstanding roots from because you're not explaining yourself, so I don't know how to help you.
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.
I'm saying this conversation has been over for like a week, I have no interest in continuing dead threads for some waste of time back and forth that will accomplish literally nothing. Have a nice day.
Okay, so... the fact I took a week to reply is what made you lose interest? That's not very convincing.
Or is it the fact you believe it will accomplish "literally nothing"? Are you convinced it will achieve nothing because you lack the curiosity that would be prerequisite to you learning something? I'm afraid that's circular.
To be honest, I just don't feel like spending any additional time and energy having a deeply depressing conversation I've had countless times already. I just don't want to talk about the granular specifics of how conservatives are dismantling our democracy right now. Nothing personal.
So no interest? Nothing? Huh, what a surprise.
Well anyway, you don't even seem to know what I mean by bureaucracy, but off you go then.
Buddy, my JOB is bureaucracy. But sure, I'll defer to you.
The fact that you're so fixating on this is starting to become a bit suspicious.
Just to let you know for future attempts at gaslighting.
Wow, that completely contentless comment was so convincing.
If you're not interested in what I have to say, why are you still replying?
Why indeed...
It's a good question. If you think I'm obviously not worth listening to, then what is the purpose of your replies?
What is the purpose of this reply? It's just an empty nothing. Do you just need to get the last word? Is that all this is?
I truly don't believe you read my last comment. The one before my question.
This one?
You want a response to the content of this comment? What about it? What is so important? Your appeal to your JOB? Your suspicion about me because... I kept replying? Your accusing me of gaslighting?
What exactly is it about this comment that you want me to read and understand?