Poll of the Day > Why do people compare Nazi Germany to Imperial Japan?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Nazi Germany was much worse. America had no right to bomb Japanese civilians

From what Ive heard Imperial Japan was doing some pretty horrific things

Bombing cities was a terrible thing to be sure, but if history is to be believed it may have been overall a better choice. Would it really be better if we were still at war with them or if they actually defeated us?

---

Have you heard what Japan did in China in the 1930s/1940s?

---

Japan was extremely brutal. I'll be the one to acknowledge that and also denounce the atomic bombs!

https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go

Obviously quite a long watch, but there's plenty there to debunk the American gov's reasoning.

---

The best part of war is you dont have to be just
oh wait thats the worst part

---

Nanaue posted...

Nazi Germany was much worse. America had no right to bomb Japanese civilians

They were both horrific

The logic justifying the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is questionable, but I won't lose sleep over it. The Japanese did far worse to their neighbours and still won't acknowledge it.

---

Nanaue posted...

Nazi Germany was much worse. America had no right to bomb Japanese civilians

Japan literally had contests chopping the heads off men in a village before turning all the women into prostitutes.

Who won the contests?

---

Nanaue posted...

Nazi Germany was much worse. America had no right to bomb Japanese civilians

It was the imperial governments fault for not surrendering when they were beaten. We were carpet bombing thier cities before the a-bombs were dropped and they still didn't bother to surrender, instead they were talking about thier will to fight to last man. If anything, the a-bombs gave them a way to save face and actually surrender. And let's not forget, the Japanese ultimately started the war on America with thier pre-emptive strike on Pearl Harbor. It was not like America was arbitrarily picking on poor ole Japan.

---

Japan had a chance to cover up more of thier atrocities and experiments since they wern't actually invaded unlike Germany who had to abandon thier Concentration camps due to encroaching forces. Atleast, that's my theory.

DragonClaw01 posted...

It was the imperial governments fault for not surrendering when they were beaten. We were carpet bombing thier cities before the a-bombs were dropped and they still didn't bother to surrender, instead they were talking about thier will to fight to last man. If anything, the a-bombs gave them a way to save face and actually surrender. And let's not forget, the Japanese ultimately started the war on America with thier pre-emptive strike on Pearl Harbor. It was not like America was arbitrarily picking on poor ole Japan.

Yeah, Japan quite literally wanted to fight on forever, in some cases they nearly did, there were holdouts that lasted for decades after the War. Were there other solutions? Possibly, but ultimately you can nitpick and retrospect the decisions of anybody after many decades.

In War there is no Justice or moral high ground, it's either be destroyed or force your enemies hand or. Sometimes the latter doesn't even work as seen in the lead-up after WW1 and reasons why WW2 happened.

DragonClaw01 posted...

It was the imperial governments fault for not surrendering when they were beaten. We were carpet bombing thier cities before the a-bombs were dropped and they still didn't bother to surrender, instead they were talking about thier will to fight to last man. If anything, the a-bombs gave them a way to save face and actually surrender. And let's not forget, the Japanese ultimately started the war on America with thier pre-emptive strike on Pearl Harbor. It was not like America was arbitrarily picking on poor ole Japan.

From what I have understood, the US had intel that Japan was a matter of weeks away from surrendering to the Soviets, but they preferred Japan to surrender to them.

---

Nichtcrawler X posted...

From what I have understood, the US had intel that Japan was a matter of weeks away from surrendering to the Soviets, but they preferred Japan to surrender to them.

I had always heard there were two roughly equivalent factions where one wanted to surrender and one was dead set on fighting to the end. I've never heard they were imminently about to surrender to the USSR, but as the western front had ended the USSR was about to divert their forces to the eastern front and that was a factor at hand in the decision to nuke.

Nanaue posted...

Nazi Germany was much worse. America had no right to bomb Japanese civilians

Go listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History on Imperial Japan, "Supernova in the East." Free on Spotify.

Not justifying the bomb but you will have a different view of WWII Japan.

---

Nichtcrawler X posted...

From what I have understood, the US had intel that Japan was a matter of weeks away from surrendering to the Soviets, but they preferred Japan to surrender to them.

That's not how it worked. The Allies agreed at both Cairo and Potsdam that there would be no individual terms of victory. Defeated enemies surrendered to the US, USSR, and UK together and nobody was allowed to prematurely set terms for their own benefit.

Whether OP is trolling or not, English language teaching of WWII does a poor job of contextualizing Japan's Empire. They didn't have the same need for specific death camps that lets people easily conceptualize the Holocaust. They just spread their terror over the entire Asian continent and wiped out villages or littered corpses through the jungle on death marches or just turned people into slaves that they disappeared when they weren't useful. Japan deserved everything that happened to it and it was a good thing they were defeated.

Nanaue posted...

Nazi Germany was much worse. America had no right to bomb Japanese civilians

It's not a fucking contest as to which country deserved to be nuked the most. Fascist Japan was horrific. 15,000,000 deaths of Chinese people at a minimum if I recall correctly. Does that excuse the annihilation of Japanese cities? No, but you don't need to downplay Japan's atrocities or insinuate that we should have nuked German civilians instead in order to argue that.
This is either bait, ignorance, or both.

And fuck fascist Italy, too, while we're at it. Fuck all fascism.

---

Facist Japan was arguably worse than Nazi Germany. The reason Germany is so vilified has more to do with the fact that they were murdering white Europeans while Japan was mainly killing Chinese and Koreans. What do you know, people back then were pretty racist.

---

Japan did such fucked up things that even the nazis were like, dude stop.

---

So what exactly is fascism? Im not after a dictionary definition but like what actually is it in practice?

What does a fascist government/country look like?

---

FatalAccident posted...

So what exactly is fascism? Im not after a dictionary definition but like what actually is it in practice?

What does a fascist government/country look like?

Authoritarian government based on hyper nationalism/masculinity/militarism. Those in charge are seen as superhuman embodiments of these ideals, those on the bottom believe that through following these ideals they too can become superhuman leaders of the nation. It is viewed as meritocratic despite obviously not being so.

It focuses on glorifying and mythologizing a perceived noble past (eg, the Roman Empire in Italy, the Holy Roman Empire in Germany, Napoleonic France for both of them) and seeking a return to "traditional" values focused on conquest and violence, while expelling "evil" from within the nation and its neighbours. It appeals to very simplistic perceptions of how the world works.

Those from outside the primary group are viewed as completely expendable. Fascism cannot tolerate perceived "weakness", as strength is seen as a zero sum game, and so anything that hurts those outside the primary group is seen as beneficial to the primary group.

In practice, this all means establishing a police state to crack down on those outside the primary group, seizing control of the economy and focusing it on military conquest, an insane enthusiasm for war among even the common people, and a cult like movement around the nation's leaders.

Obviously this has a lot of overlap with other political movements because fascism isn't really that unique. It evolved as an extreme view of views that were already fairly widely held at the time.

---

Ok thanks. Any fascist governments today? Obvs we had nazi Germany but are there any current examples of fascism?

---

Fascism has become a dirty word so to my knowledge there are no nations that call themselves fascist (maybe Belarus? I'm sure it can be googled). But obviously you can look at a host of nations and see fascist influences, from North Korea to Russia to the good ol' US of A

---

Blightzkrieg posted...

North Korea to Russia

I did think of NK but thats always struck me as more communist than fascist - are the two not mutually exclusive?

And looking at your description Russia makes sense only cause of deifying putin but even then Im not totally convinced for more or less same reason Im not quite convinced of NK. Unless of course its possible to just borrow features of fascism to facilitate another type of government style

---

FatalAccident posted...

are the two not mutually exclusive

True communism is the opposite of fascism, but Russia, China and North Korea are about as close to true communism as the US is to true democracy.

rjsilverthorn posted...

True communism is the opposite of fascism, but Russia, China and North Korea are about as close to true communism as the US is to true democracy.

What do you think a "true democracy" is?

Maybe the old Greek system were people were just randomly chosen from the populace?

---

Nichtcrawler X posted...

Maybe the old Greek system were people were just randomly chosen from the populace?

True democracy is the people directly voting on things, but that doesn't really scale well to modern society. The closest we get to that is when a proposition makes it onto a ballot.

To clarify I wasn't trying to be negative about it, I was just making a point that plenty of countries have a government that doesn't really follow the philosophy it was based on.

rjsilverthorn posted...

True democracy is the people directly voting on things, but that doesn't really scale well to modern society

Amazingly, we can actually do that now, it's called social media.

FatalAccident posted...

I did think of NK but thats always struck me as more communist than fascist - are the two not mutually exclusive?

And looking at your description Russia makes sense only cause of deifying putin but even then Im not totally convinced for more or less same reason Im not quite convinced of NK. Unless of course its possible to just borrow features of fascism to facilitate another type of government style

I just think it's generally inaccurate to look at governmental systems as being in their own little boxes with no overlap, especially as there's often such a huge difference between the philosophical motivations behind a government's actions and what those actions are.

Fascism was formed partly as a direct response and push back against communism, but that doesn't mean they can't influence one another or act in similar ways. When we look at politics through the lens of a left/right axis, or a four quadrant system, or whatever, we need to keep in mind these visual aids were created to help reflect reality and not the other way around.

Speaking of communism specifically, Marx/Lenin envisioned communism as a stateless, international movement, Stalin interpreted it as a hyper nationalist (almost fascist) state, and modern China is a very international-trade and business focused entity (being super, SUPER broad here). They're all very different ways of representing what are theoretically the same ideas.

Now you could argue that's because the concept of communism is broad and has evolved, or that different entities misinterpret or deliberately warp what communism is into something else. But it's not always helpful to get hyper focused on how different nations define themselves or label their ideas.

---

rjsilverthorn posted...

True communism is the opposite of fascism, but Russia, China and North Korea are about as close to true communism as the US is to true democracy.

minor correction, True communism is the opposite of True fascism... since both systems do have their nuances

---

I would say the big difference between a fascist state & a communist states is the later tends to have a centrally planned economy, while the former relies on a private, albeit usually corporatist, economy. Both are essentially autocracies, so rely on the same tricks to stay in power: military control, secret police, suppression of free speech in favor of government propaganda, ect, so the distinctions are often hard to tell. I would say that China is less of communist state now a days and more of an authoritarian capitalist state, aka fascist by that definition.

---

Yet again, Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless utopia. The Soviet Union's branding did not make it communist any more than North Korea's branding makes it a democratic republic.

---

Language is about being understandable. When you say Communism most people, especially from the 20th century are going to think of the political system implemented by the Soviet Union & adopted by China, Cuba, North Korea, ect. The Soviet Union may have appropriated the term, but they ultimately made it thier own

---

they chose not to surrender, even after the first bomb
---

Krazy_Kirby posted...

they chose not to surrender, even after the first bomb

Wasn't it the case where the surrender faction gained power after the first but they wanted to negotiate terms and the US dropped the second for an unconditional surrender which allowed us to force them to give up their right to war?

BlackScythe0 posted...

Wasn't it the case where the surrender faction gained power after the first but they wanted to negotiate terms and the US dropped the second for an unconditional surrender which allowed us to force them to give up their right to war?

Kirby isnt exactly the intellectual powerhouse he thinks he is.

The rape and murder of civilians was extremely honorable

---

Cruddy_horse posted...

Japan had a chance to cover up more of thier atrocities and experiments since they wern't actually invaded unlike Germany who had to abandon thier Concentration camps due to encroaching forces. Atleast, that's my theory.

Yeah, Japan quite literally wanted to fight on forever, in some cases they nearly did, there were holdouts that lasted for decades after the War. Were there other solutions? Possibly, but ultimately you can nitpick and retrospect the decisions of anybody after many decades.

In War there is no Justice or moral high ground, it's either be destroyed or force your enemies hand or. Sometimes the latter doesn't even work as seen in the lead-up after WW1 and reasons why WW2 happened.

There is a high ground Nazis were the lowest of the low for killing fellow Germans belonging to a different religion.

Nanaue posted...

There is a high ground Nazis were the lowest of the low for killing fellow Germans belonging to a different religion.

So killing based on xenophobic ideals is somehow better than killing for religious ideals? Now I know you're just trolling, what a disgusting person you are for thinking any of this.

Nanaue posted...

There is a high ground Nazis were the lowest of the low for killing fellow Germans belonging to a different religion.

I'm sorry, but your ignorance about the shit Japan did during that era is really fucking gross, as are your attempts to tier which instances of mass murder were more deplorable.

---

BlackScythe0 posted...

Wasn't it the case where the surrender faction gained power after the first but they wanted to negotiate terms and the US dropped the second for an unconditional surrender which allowed us to force them to give up their right to war?

Not really. There were plenty of people on both sides both before and after the nuclear attacks. Even after the second bomb there was a concerted attempt to prevent the broadcast of the surrender message the emperor recorded. Not to mention all the holdouts across Asia that just kept fighting because they refused to believe any surrender declaration could be real.

Had Japan not surrendered they would've started losing territory to the USSR and they would never get any of that shit back. There's still tensions with Russia over the Kuril Islands/Northern Territories.

Nanaue posted...

There is a high ground Nazis were the lowest of the low for killing fellow Germans belonging to a different religion.

To understand the Holocaust as "Germans killing other Germans of a weird religion" is to not even really have any idea what the Holocaust was. That Jews (who are also a race, not just a religion) were not considered to be German (or even human) was the centerpiece of Nazi propaganda about them. A massive number of the Jews killed were not German and a massive number of Holocaust victims were disabled, undesired ethnicities, and/or "enemies" of Nazism.

SomeUsername529 posted...

To understand the Holocaust as "Germans killing other Germans of a weird religion" is to not even really have any idea what the Holocaust was. That Jews (who are also a race, not just a religion) were not considered to be German (or even human) was the centerpiece of Nazi propaganda about them. A massive number of the Jews killed were not German and a massive number of Holocaust victims were disabled, undesired ethnicities, and/or "enemies" of Nazism.

Genocidal ideologies often "denationalize" the victims as the first step towards totally dehumanizing them.

The Nazis insisted that Jews never had been, and never could be, true German citizens; that they were resident aliens who had somehow tricked their way into getting their hands on scraps of paper that claimed German citizenship.

Similarly, Hutu Power ideologues in Rwanda clung to the "Hamitic hypothesis" promoted by the Belgian colonial authorities to explain the "difference" between Hutu and Tutsi: that the Tutsi had originated from a different region, and that this difference marked them and had deeper meaning. To Hutu Power it meant the Tutsi were strangers, squatters who had taken over the best rooms in the house and had no right to any of it.

---

Krazy_Kirby posted...

they chose not to surrender, even after the first bomb

And that makes it fair to target civilians? Never did, never will.

Or let me slightly rephrase that, the moment your war efforts are claiming more civilian lives, than soldier and commander lives, something is going heinously wrong.

---