Were the Japanese sincere about a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere?
Yes, a high proportion of the Japanese people were surprisingly bought into the concept — this can be seen from, for example, the diaries of WW2 Japanese soldiers who often wrote of the noble purpose of their war.At the same time, of course, the reality was very different from the concept; even when they meant well, the Japanese occupiers were often incapable of seeing the occupied people’s point of view and they wasted whatever goodwill they started with. They were unable to overcome the fundamental contradiction in their position:We are doing this for the good of all Asians together, for we are as brothersWe get to tell everyone else what to doMany in the Japanese leadership, and many individual Japanese, of course, were probably completely and self-consciously insincere. To the Japanese elite back in Japan, I doubt there was much sense that the Co-prosperity Sphere concept was anything other than a tool to manipulate the Japanese people and conquer other parts of Asia.But for many ordinary Japanese, the concept was quite real and they believed, despite substantial evidence to the contrary, that they were making sacrifices in a good cause.This goes to show how little value ‘sincerity’ by itself actually has, compared to critical thinking!
Why are some liberals so condescending toward Trump supporters? Do they really feel they are superior?
They can’t believe anyone voted for someone who has spouted so much hate speech, who has so few coherent ideas, and whose tendencies seem too patently autocratic.It’s not about liberals feeling “superior”: it’s about us being morally aghast that you guys got behind a demi-man who called Mexicans “rapists” in his campaign announcement, has degraded women, attacked anyone who dares criticize him, waged a systematic war on the very free press whose constant attention to him probably factored in his victory, attacked a Gold Star family and compared his “sacrifices” as real-estate billionaire to those of the young and dead Muslim-American soldier Humayun Khan, who besmirched John McCain’s status as a war hero — when was Trump ever in Vietnam?, who wants to create a registry for Muslims (much as Hitler did for Jews — bad precedent), who has the zealous support of the KKK, who cozied up to Putin (whose government interfered in the election — in the country whose security the president is supposed to ensure), who has been nominating plutocrats and alt-right loons to very lofty and powerful positions, who promises to deport millions and break up families, to “build a Wall and make Mexico pay for it” (good luck), who will lead us into trade wars and likely encourage fiscal policy that will lead to another huge financial meltdown, calls climate change a hoax propagated by China (and therefore embraces destructive industries and deregulation, and has no agenda to help mitigate the first anthropogenic extinction in our planet’s history), etc., etc., etc.We are disappointed to think we live in a country in which our fellow citizens think that these things are presidential, that they befit the leader of the free world. We are horrified to think that America elected its own image, and that image is this. The man’s affronts to common decency and infantile vulnerability to any provocation should have disqualified him in the minds of all decent and sane people.So what the fuck happened? I am no great fan of Hillary’s. I don’t think Washington is functioning properly. But electing this wholly selfish, power-hungry golem to our highest office was not a wise alternative.It’s not so much about superiority. The feeling is “This is America in the twenty-first century! How could you?”
Why are liberals complaining about President Trump is a ''liar'', while every Democrat is a liar too, but they don’t have a problem to vote for them despite that?
Mostly because of the amount of times Trump lies or talks about things he does not understand, and gets basic things wrong, and then lies about how great of an understanding he has on that topic, and insults everyone who questions him or even, in his Secretary Defense’s case, challenges them to an IQ test.Educated liberals and educated conservatives don’t view Trump’s lies as morally or factually equivalent with a politician maybe exaggerating, or saying something that then turns out to not be true.Most people do not view Obama saying ‘you can keep your doctor’ as the same thing as Trump saying ‘A reporter for Time magazine — and I have been on their cover 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time magazine,’ and then he has fake Times photos at his golf course.One is, at worst, a politician lying to get voters to support something (but probably more likely incompetence in planning for possible second order effects), the other is, at worst, indicative of a mental disorder.Trump has literally challenged a member of his cabinet to an IQ contest on national television. That is not normal.Its not just that Trump is lying, it is how inane the things he lies about are, how much he lies to keep his own ego afloat, and how obviously false his lies are.Trump is clearly not a mature adult. There are plenty of other celebrities who also fit that description, but Trump is in a position to constantly make himself an embarrassment. A solid majority of the US population notices this.Some conservatives may support him in spite of this fact, as they view allegiance to their party as very important, but that doesn’t change the fact that they think he is plain unpresidential, at best.Edit:Now Trump has been on Times 14 times, but at the time he made the comment on Jan 23 I suspect he hadn’t yet been on 14 times.That isn’t even the issue though. He is also talking about how he believes he was on the cover more than any other President.