Forum - View topic

Hey, Answerman! - Whistling in the Dark

rinmackie wrote:

Japanese homosexuals don't have access to healthcare? Really? I've never heard that. As for otaku voting for Taro Aso, sure, maybe a few did, but I'd imagine most otaku and Japanese young people don't really vote. Generalizing, much?

You're not the only one that find that ridiculous too. I call BS on that too because Japan has one of the best healthcare around the world, their healthcare even surpass USA's healthcare system. I remember listening on NPR that the cost of healthcare in Japan is low (there is a drawback though, it's hard for me to understand because I'm not a expert on healthcare system). This one got my attention:

NPR wrote:

Japanese insurers are a lot more accommodating than their American counterparts. For one thing, they can't deny a claim. And they have to cover everybody. Even an applicant with heart disease can't be turned down, says Ikegami, the professor. "That is forbidden."

There was however 2 incidents (which I know, are there any more??) where patient get rejected by hospitals in Japan. One involved a pregnant women in her 30's, and a man dies after being rejected from hospital 14 times. But a homosexuals being rejected from healthcare, really?? I'm going to need a news article validating this to see if this is true, because I never heard of this before, and yes I do read news from Japan.

mdo7 wrote:

rinmackie wrote: Japanese homosexuals don't have access to healthcare? Really? I've never heard that. As for otaku voting for Taro Aso, sure, maybe a few did, but I'd imagine most otaku and Japanese young people don't really vote. Generalizing, much? You're not the only one that find that ridiculous too. I call BS on that too because Japan has one of the best healthcare around the world, their healthcare even surpass USA's healthcare system. I remember listening on NPR that the cost of healthcare in Japan is low (there is a drawback though, it's hard for me to understand because I'm not a expert on healthcare system). This one got my attention: NPR wrote: Japanese insurers are a lot more accommodating than their American counterparts. For one thing, they can't deny a claim. And they have to cover everybody. Even an applicant with heart disease can't be turned down, says Ikegami, the professor. "That is forbidden." There was however 2 incidents (which I know, are there any more??) where patient get rejected by hospitals in Japan. One involved a pregnant women in her 30's, and a man dies after being rejected from hospital 14 times. But a homosexuals being rejected from healthcare, really?? I'm going to need a news article validating this to see if this is true, because I never heard of this before, and yes I do read news from Japan.

I went ahead and took out the bit that suggested that homosexuals can't get health care - I don't think that's what he was trying to say, anyway. But was misleadingly phrased, so apologies for that.

I don't get it. Wouldn't newtime fans be more impressed by Redline than older ones? I would assume most people start off with style-over-substance action-oriented anime anyway, at least once they realize there's more to anime than the shows left on [adult swim] or Naruto/Yugioh/Pokemon.

How are homosexuals in Japan denied "rights as human beings"? A quick google search has not provided a terribly large number of examples.

What Zac and his guest on ANNCast were talking about was this sort of hypothetical scenario where we, as a culture, as a global culture, might at some point be evolved enough to look at homosexual relationships in our entertainment and just think of it as normal. Without either dismissing it as "unnatural" or writing it off as "fanservice." A time, hopefully within our lifetime, when same-sex relationships could be casually inserted into all forms of our entertainment without incident or sensationalism.

Marriage is generally considered a human right

Look, if you want a proper bigotry parallel to the reproductive argument, take the minister who declared that the solution to Japan's lowering birth rate was to get Japanese women to go back to popping out babies instead of being all selfish and only having as many children as they can afford. Because that's a woman's job, you know.

Not quite. "Human rights", in a broad sense, are universally recognized natural and legal rights; marriage isn't one of them. Marriage (and particularly same-sex marriage) is a "Civil right" -- hence, it isn't applicable on a global scale. With that being said, a government or regime doesn't really feel morally obligated to acknowledge said marriages. So, you should probably substitute occasionally for "generally".

Ignoring the sarcasm, um, yeah, that's pretty much accurate! That is the whole entire intrinsic purpose of sexual reproduction; so that offspring can inherit those genes and propagate them in succeeding generations. Nothing more. Many Japanese women opting to not have children AT ALL. I've read before that no population, civilization or culture with a fertility rate of 1.9 has ever reversed that loss of population and it continues to spiral downward. Japan has a fertility rate of 1.27, and an accelerating increase of an aged segment of the population (65 and above). The country will experience a 25% decrease within the next 38 years, and an 18% decrease in its workforce within the next 18 years. That not only decreases the nation's productivity, lowering its GDP, it also increases the potential of the retirement age being pushed up to 77 in a country with an already detrimental work environment -- especially in the corporate setting -- that's led to a phenomenon such as 過労死 or Karōshi. I think the nation has the ethical right to explore whatever effective methods it can to spur a rising birth rate, as to ward off the real prospect of its own demise.

"The number of women aged between 15 and 50 is fixed. Because the number of birth-giving machines and devices is fixed, all we can ask for is for them to do their best per head, although it may not be so appropriate to call them machines."

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a16

Maybe I needed to be clear on what the man's actual quote was:

Quote:

"The number of women aged between 15 and 50 is fixed. Because the number of birth-giving machines and devices is fixed, all we can ask for is for them to do their best per head, although it may not be so appropriate to call them machines."

So yeah. His "ethical right," my ass.

Also, god forbid they start courting immigrants or something. Nope, gotta make those breeders breed.

And really, "the intrinsic purpose of sexual reproduction"? Didn't we have this stupid argument already on the forum at last week's podcast? If we're getting into this again, I'm tapping out.

Being an Otaku says more about your character than it does about your biology.

To be fairly honest, [Tsubasa Chronicle] is arguably one of my favourite anime, and my favourite manga, as well as their spinoffs/crossovers (xxxHOLiC, Card Captor Sakura).

Also, god forbid they start courting immigrants or something.

The issue comes in when you don't have legal civil unions with full health care benefits for spouses - not only can your same-sex partner not join your health care plan, you can't visit them in the hospital or legally deal with their affairs otherwise, etcetera. Same as it is everywhere else that doesn't recognize same-sex marriages as legal.

the most IMPORTANT thing in my opinion, is that Japanese culture doesn't have any sort of law or safeguard against discrimination - be it in the workplace, housing, education, whatever. at least here in the West you can sue if you have the misfortune of losing or job or getting a housing loan denied simply because of your sexual orientation; not so in Japan. the reported cases of this happening are very few, because most LGBT folks in Japan typically are not open about their sexuality in any way.