Naive antinuclear movement

As a democratic country since 120 years ago, Japan must have appreciated freedom of speech. A bad habit, however, is they tend to form "a mood" in which a different opinion may be coldly looked on.

A LDP (Liberal Democratic Party, the governing party.) member and a cadreman, Shoichi Nakagawa, suddenly became famous these days because of his 'careless' statement, "Japan may be armed with nuclear weapons." Some of you may know this issue has been a taboo in Japan after WWII. Several years ago, a cabinet member resigned his job due to his similar statement on nuclear weapons; citizens and mass media didn't allow him to remain a cabine member at that time. But I suppose this time Nakagawa would be survive although he also is a cadreman (not a minister).

Obviously the general opinion in Japan has been changed at least among young people below 40. Older people, on the other hand, don't seem to allow such an opinion because they have fewer opportunities to get away from TV. In other words, TVs are typically dragging anti-war sentiment, that is, they can't let this opinion exist. (One of the evidences how TVs are irrtional about nucler weapons, go to this article.)

A funny thing is that they protest nukes very loudly when it comes to Japan or America while they seem indifferent when China or North Korea does the same thing. To begin with, Japan didn't even started discussing it while North Korea is actually done with experiment. Why didn't they freak out when North Korea did it?

Furthermore, the antinuke movement attempts to shut out different opinions. They never say "let's talk, and we'll know it." What they want to do is cast a slogan and make people follow it. I'd sarcastically confess that's very funny.

If we discuss it throughly, and even if we reach an conclusion that not having it is our way, that should be respected. What I can't stand is I'm a citizen of an immature country where a variety of opinions is avoided!

Several years ago when a cabinet member resigned as mentioned above, I was teaching math to high school students. We were talking about the news. And I asked, "You know there are some people who insist that we should have nuclear weapons, right? Their reason is 'Japan was attacked by nukes because we didn't have ability to attack them with nukes.' How do you refute this logic?" They looked very shocked and frightened to hear that, and I can't forget the faces they showed to me. Probably they have never discussed such a touchy issue in their history class although that's the principal one for Japanese. Well, looks like teachers in Japan have been mass-producing students who don't know what 'thinking' is all about.