From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: "New fingerprint Procedure"
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 16:54:45 GMT

In article <HARKCOM.92Apr6092917@spinach.pa.yokogawa.co.jp> harkcom@spinach.pa.yokogawa.co.jp (Alton Harkcom) writes:
>In article <SMITTIE.92Apr2182649@beach.csulb.edu> smittie@beach.csulb.edu
>   (Smittie) writes:
>
>   Not completely...  My fears are my own (as are anyone's) but my worries
>about alien registration were not born of 'rumors' and 'exagerrations' but
>of being told that nasty things can happen to me if I don't carry it.  I was
>told this by the guy handling my registration.  He was in no way polite
>about it either.  Then after hearing the horror stories I decided to check
>out the penalties.

Then you should have chalked it up to a bad day by a nasty person whose path 
it was your misfortune to have crossed. Every place I registered, the people
were incredibly polite, and were very apologetic about asking for my 
fingerprint.

>   Highly unlikley and 'impossible' are two different things.  For a
>newcomer to Japan there is an awful lot of bullshit to sift through.
>Making quick judgements that those who tell of bad things are liers is
>not a safe thing to do...

As you admit that it is an unlikely scenario, why does that bother you?
And you surely must have gained enough experience by now to realize that
you  are in no real danger of experiencing any of those "horrors".

>   Those horror stories I was told may have been true...  Who are you to
>say they were not?  Who was I (a newcomer) to say they were not?

"May have been true"? They may not have been true as well. 

>
>   And if the highway department was rude in pointing out that I would
>suffer greatly from not obeying those rules I would have felt just as
>threatened...

Then if your complaint was about the "rudeness" of your registrar, you should
have reported him to his supervisor; the Japanese are VERY concerned about
appearances in these matters. 

>   If that were all that it served as then the protests would not be so
>large (both Japanese and foreign)...

You have yet to demonstrate that it is anything else (other than by explicit
references to, perhaps, apocryphal stories).

>   I complied with the rules and sought no changes at the time as I was
>ignorant of the issues involved.  I did complain about the bad treatment
>I received.

Yet I don't see that it is bad treatment at all. Unless you are referring to
"rudeness" which I submit is an entirely seperate issue.

>   Those 'ideals' you claim that I am supporting are the concerns of even
>native Japanese...

Of "some" native Japanese, surely not all.

> =}I am of the opinion that each country should be free to establish their own
> =}system of immigration controls and those who wish to visit other countries
> =}should respect those controls.
>
>   We agree on this point.

Then what is your arguement?

> =} I do not think that Japan's immigration
> =}control policies are significantly different from other industrialized
> =}nations. I do not see Japan's immigration policies as discriminatory (I'll
> =}deal with Japan born Koreans in a minute).
>
>   We do not agree on this point.

Fine. You seem to think it is therefore incumbent upon Japan to change, or
are we misreading your entire complaint?
>
> =}Mr. Harkcom, as I understand it, believes that he is or should be free to
> =}influence a foreign government's policies even though he is not a citizen
> =}of that country.
>
>   Isn't that one of the points of 'internationalization'?

Perhaps. As is their right to ignore your protestations.

> =}I do not believe that I have the right to move to a foreign country and then
> =}tell them how to run their country, even in something such as their
> =}immigration policies.

>   So you want to restrict those who are not citizens from expressing their
>opinions of such things?  I didn't think so...  However, it does seem that
>you don't want those who's opinions differ from yours to express their
>opinions...

I don't believe he has said you shouldn't be free to express your opinions.
He is merely disagreeing strongly them. And he is pointing out that you really
have no reason to expect another society to change for you.

Mike
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Organization: Psychology, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA