People, press, or other parties demarcate politicians or people
between right and left, conservative and liberal. But that appears to be
increasingly challenging.
Last month I attended a lecture. The speaker is basically pro
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP, which is by the way
conservative), advocates the Emperor system, quotes the Sankei Shimbun (most conservative broadsheet), supports the new security laws. These
features fall into the traditional right wing category. At the same, he strongly
opposes some vested interests such as global multinationals that exploit
workers. On that point, he sounds very similar to the Japan Communist Party, or
Senator Bernie Sanders, who are usually categorized as far left.
In the U.S. Presidential campaign, Senator Sanders of the Democratic
Party and Mr. Donald Trump of the Republican Party are making the same points
to recover jobs that went overseas and both stress they are free from lobbyists.
Mr. Trump tries to reduce military costs and does not mind if the U.S. military
withdraws from Japan. This is completely in line with the Japanese left wing.
All this makes the Democrats’ frontrunner Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton look
like most “conservative.”
I used to regard myself as liberal, but my view is highly mixed
these days. Above all, I am totally against wars, which is categorized as left.
For this very reason, however, I cannot stop crying when I remember the last
exhibition of the museum in the Yasukuni Shrine, a myriad of letters written by
kamikaze fighters to their family right before they took off. Some people might
consider this as right wing.
From my personal experience raised by working parents and growing
up in a childcare center, I know how it is like, and therefore I completely
support the idea of fulltime moms especially for pre-school children. Raising children is a very important task which should not be juggled with something else equally important. One has to make a priority; otherwise, either or both will suffer. People raised by too busy parents could have some fundamental problems in love, I know from my own experience! On that front, I am confident to be super conservative.
A
huge gap between rich and poor is not good, but I also think too
generous welfare creates lazy people. What we need is a system in which
serious
and diligent professionals are better rewarded. I intend to write an
angry
letter to parliamentarians in my constituency about the upcoming tax
increase for upper middle class paid workers. Since I was a child I have
studied and worked
very hard from my humble background to obtain my current income,
and I cannot permit increased part of it goes to people exploiting
welfare and
social benefit systems.
Long story short, I am basically pro small government in which people
are encouraged to make plans and work diligently. At the same time, more merit grants
should be awarded to brilliant students from less income families to ensure
education opportunities to all that work hard. Indeed, this is an important point, not
“just all” as Prime Minister Abe claims, but all industrious people, not lazy
ones.
Katsura-rikyu in Kyoto: I love such a traditional (conservative?) view, too.
