Just so that you know, by far the worst of japan's war crimes & general crimes against humanity were part/result of their colonial machinations. The current klan mindset stem from that same past.
As I said, so? You're making statements without arguments. Is your argument that because colonialism as we think of it today was Western, and because said colonialism has had many inhumane results, that it shows Western culture has its negative points as well? If so, I don't disagree. The good thing is that Western governments have also scaled back on international exploitation and war crimes significantly. I'd also argue that foreign policy is mostly out of the hands of the citizens regardless of the culture they belong to, and that the success of the crimes committed by governments is more a side-effect of a prosperous and educated population capable of inventing better ships and guns in addition to the many things unrelated to warfare it brings.
The word that comes to mind for the Yakuza isn't "sleazy".
Per Wiki, regarding the largest Yakuza group:
"The Yamaguchi-gumi are among the world's wealthiest gangsters, bringing in billions of dollars a year from
extortion,
gambling, the
sex industry,
arms and
drug trafficking, and
real estate and
construction kickback schemes. They are also involved in
stock market manipulation and
Internet pornography."
Political corruption and vice are textbook sleazy to me.
This is like a trivial version of a niche ideology popular with some well off silicon valley manchildren who call themselves neoreactionaries. Here's something worth reading in regards to it/them:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/
This appears to be a guide for debating the person you perceive me to be, so I'm not sure why you're telling me to read it. In any case, I'll respond to the points that you apparently should have brought up or fit wrt my arguments...
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1: Is everything getting worse?"
Have I argued this? I actually don't personally consider illegal immigration to be a huge problem. A moderate one at worst, and one that doesn't effect me personally. My argument was simply that using "xenophobia" and "racism" in arguments over stopping illegal immigration is a meaningless boogieman, and that successful xenophobic and racist nations already exist. In general I think society has gradually gotten better; I attribute a lot of that to technological improvements rather than government policy, but as someone with libertarian-leaning views, I can't deny that social liberties continue to improve, and the nation's move away from conventional warfare is a great thing too.
"2: Are traditional monarchies better places to live?"
Uh I have said stuff in favor of Thailand before relative to many of their neighbors, although I don't know that a monarchy with a bazillion military coups can be called traditional. This one doesn't apply to me.
"
3: What is progress?"
OK this one looks more up my ally, since my main beef is the dogma of racism or xenophobia being an automatic evil. Unfortunately it talks mostly about criticism of social welfare and other things unrelated to my argument. Other parts seem to address a philosophy that prides itself on not changing as an opposition to any ideology that represents "progress", and I don't believe that status quo or progress are inherently good or bad.
Skipping 4, unrelated, found the beef
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5: Are modern ideas about race and gender wrongheaded and dangerous?"
Specifically
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5.3.1: But what if I am racist? Isn’t it possible that fertile minorities and immigrants are hiding a fertility deficit among precious, precious, white people?"
I don't care about skin color. I often hope for the day that China wrecks our shit tbh. Anecdotally, all of my worst life experiences have involved other white people, and there are certain aspects of white American culture that I see as very poisonous (namely consumer culture) and would love to see fixed by new generations.
"
5.3.2: Are we headed for an idiocracy?"
Unfortunately they just talk about IQ studies which isn't something I'm particularly interested in either. They even set up the educated vs uneducated situation, but fail to address it anywhere in their discussion. I would have hoped that they at least tried to say something about how immigrants usually achieve more than long-term citizens (something I think I've already acknowledged in this thread), or about how minority groups once underrepresented in higher education are suddenly booming, but it doesn't even touch on it, let alone the things I'm discussing that they would disagree with.
"5.4: Aren’t modern dogmas about race and sex and sexuality stupid and evil?"
Again, little substance, and little I care about. They bring up IQ again, but bizarrely seem to accept a claim that blacks are of lower IQ in order to make an argument that the degree to which contemporary racists believe there is an IQ gap would have them received as liberal hippies 200 years ago for not being extreme enough. Some kind of reverse slippery slope argument.
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5.4.1: But there’s a clear difference between the past policies Reactionaries support and the modern ones they oppose. Past policies were going for equality of opportunity, modern ones for equality of results. Isn’t seeking equality of results laden with too many assumptions?"
I don't deny that discrimination exists. Indeed, the studies they link even show that blacks also significantly hold prejudices against other blacks. Of course, they say that we need to fix equality of opportunity first, but don't offer any substantial advice on how to do so, nor on how "reactionary" beliefs seek to reduce opportunity. I mean, if 88% of white people and 48% of black people show a racial bias in favor of whites, what does this really mean? Additionally, I don't necessarily have an issue with affirmative action or other things that try for an equality of results. I believe that if person A from a shitty background that busts his ass to get a score of XXXX on some exam, and a person B that enjoyed prep schools his entire life manages a score of XXXX+50, there is plenty reason to believe that person A is a more motivated and will be a better student or employee.
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5.4.2: What about the studies that have shown black people have lower IQ/higher violence/other undesirable trait than white people?"
"
5.4.2.1: But this is exactly the kind of discussion progressives won’t let us have! It is an unquestioned dogma of our society that all cross-racial differences must be based entirely on discrimination! In fact, people educated in public schools are incapable of even conceiving of the possibility that they could be otherwise! How are we supposed to be able to disentangle equality of opportunity from equality of results in such people?"
I'll admit that I didn't know 60% of blacks think that discrimination is a negligible part of racial disparities in America, that was a nice graph. Otherwise, you're helping to prove my point by not addressing my argument at all that certain human populations, often self-segregating based on ethnicity, can have different levels of intelligence.
"
5.6: One particularly annoying politically correct idea is the demand that everyone feel guilty about colonialism. Colonialism helped industrialize the developing world. Wasn’t the Progressive attempt to “help” the developing world through enforced decolonization and self-rule actually a big step backwards?"
Since we're also talking about colonialism, Western civilization, and Japan, I'll add that I think colonialism had extremely mixed results. It left Africa in disarray and raped China and had no positive effects there. I think British colonialism curtailed many barbaric Indian practices like bride burning, and gave them a reasonable sense of law, although obviously the millions killed during the Bengal famine aren't going to call it a net positive. In the long run, it did transmit many positive elements of Western culture with its citizens moving and establishing nations that would eventually lead world progression (America fuck yeah), although the process of colonialism used was not necessary for that to happen. I think neocolonialism as practiced through international trade is a much nicer alternative.
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5.6.1.1: Weren’t a lot of those colonial wars and human rights abuses actually caused by demotism and Progressivism? If people hadn’t revolted against their colonial masters, there wouldn’t have been these bloody colonial revolts."
As someone that believes strongly in the right of both individuals and populations to defend themselves, I have no issue with revolutionaries shedding the blood of their captors. I have no issue with people using radical leftist/progressive rhetoric in order to attain those goals, because in the long run communist coups collapse on themselves and turn to capitalism at one point or another.
So yeah not sure how much of that clears my positions on things. The author of that article doesn't seem to have any kind of strong dislike or opinion at all on the kind of things that get the r-word thrown around here.