From: harkcom@spinach.pa.yokogawa.co.jp (Alton Harkcom)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: "New fingerprint Procedure"
Date: 6 Apr 92 00:29:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: spinach.HARKCOM.92Apr6092917
	<SMITTIE.92Apr2182649@beach.csulb.edu>
Organization: Yokogawa Electric Corporation, Tokyo, Japan
In-reply-to: smittie@beach.csulb.edu's message of 3 Apr 92 02:26:57 GMT

In article <SMITTIE.92Apr2182649@beach.csulb.edu> smittie@beach.csulb.edu
   (Smittie) writes:

 =}Thus, Mr. Harkcom's fears were based sorely on his own exaggerations and
 =}the few rumors he had heard.

   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.

 =} The scenario fabricated above is a highly unlikely one,

   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...

 =} completely without foundation.

   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?

 =} Anyone who drives a car is subject to the same type of rules.

   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...

 =}The only difference is, in the case of Japan, it is a license to be in
 =}their country.

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

 =}I choose to comply with the wishes of a host country while Mr. Harkcom
 =}seeks to change them to meet his ideals.

   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.

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

 =}  Asinine is misspelled.

   But you understood it.  I wish you would read the rest of what I write
so carefully...

 =}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.

 =} 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.

 =}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'?

 =}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...

Al
Xref: sparky soc.culture.japan:3532 soc.culture.korean:2114 soc.culture.china:13111 soc.culture.taiwan:7520 soc.culture.hongkong:5804