I'm still miserable with a cold, and yet the problems at work continue. Yesterday after work I stopped at the post office to pick up my "Postal Savings" card. It has my name in katakana on it—wild! On the way back to the station, I stopped at a 7-11 for something warm to eat and drink, since it was cold and raining. Taking the stairs up to the 2nd floor, I saw a homeless person asleep on the landing. Someone else passed by, casting the homeless person a sideways glance and hurrying by. I certainly felt uncomfortable, me carrying warm food and beverage. Now I'm no bleeding-heart liberal by any means: if someone asks me for money, nine times out of ten I'll tell them to piss off because I've seen panhandlers in the U.S. buy cigarettes and booze with their ill-gotten gains. Not to mention some punk-ass kids at OSU who were better off than me panhandling on High St because they had no pride and stupid people would actually give them money. However, the person was huddled up, and if they'd asked me for my package from 7-11, I think I would've handed it over. I claim to be human after all. But they were asleep, and I walked on by.

So I told Sachie about it later, how I felt guilty, and she smirked and told me about the "homeless" around Fujisawa. Apparently in Japan, under certain conditions you can claim to be homeless and receive money from the government. Sachie said that there've been news stories about those "homeless" people who are so by choice. Hey, if you can sit around doing nothing all day and get paid for it, why not? Those who don't have pride might. Supposedly the government offered some homeless people subsidized housing if they'd only get a job and work—perhaps since having homeless people makes the government look bad—but they refused. One of the regulars at the Campari Club, Kawabe-san, is a government worker who had to deal with such affairs. Some self-righteous people would go to the city office to complain, saying the government should help those people find housing. So Kawabe-san went around to the homeless, offering government assistance—and he was refused every time. So the self-righteous people come back saying, "I thought you said you'd do something about those homeless people!" "But I did," says the government worker, "The homeless people didn't want my help." "Liar!" exclaims the self-righteous person, "You just don't want to 'waste' more tax money on the needy!"

This is a striking parallel to the American entitlement system, where the system is abused more often than it is for legitimate purposes. So socialism in Japan doesn't work any better than socialism in the U.S. One piece of socialism I wouldn't mind adopting, though, is standardized health care. It's a fool's errand to leave the general public's health up to capitalistic institutions: of course the rich will get the best health care because they can pay for it, and the poor will not because they cannot. Wealth is not a measure of a person's intrinsic worth. Further, everyone all around will get shafted because of cutting corners to improve profit margins. The government's job is to defend the best interests of its citizens as a whole.

We see the character of those self-righteous people who claim that we should help the homeless, etc. I'd like to ask that person: "Why don't you help the homeless your damn self instead of trying to force others to clean up what your conscience can't deal with?" If it bothers you so much, do something about it! Volunteer, donate money, organize groups to help. Don't, however, say it's everyone's responsibility, because it isn't. If enough people think it's a problem and start pitching in, then the government won't have to intervene. If not enough people are concerned, then it probably isn't the government's job to begin with. (Compare this socialist concern against socialized medicine in that everyone is concerned about their health and their ability to preserve it.)

Everyone is obligated to look out for themselves. Just because we live in a society doesn't mean our neighbors have to worry if we can't eat steak every night. Granted, we can't and shouldn't always turn our heads the other way, because it affects us too. By the same token, society can't exist trying to protect everyone from himself—at some point, they have to become their own responsibility, and be responsible for their own actions and condition. Perhaps if American society did that, there would be fewer stupid laws in the U.S.!