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If he did not get home in 1946 I don’t exist. Am I being selfish and cold hearted?

One of the reasons I love Japan: The sense of duty in the average Japanese citizen is over the top, and I really like that (and wish more Americans were like that).

However, I think that fact was also a factor in the decision to drop the bomb.

When the US was taking back the Aleutian Islands, rather than surrender anyone, the Japanese went through their field hospital and slaughtered all the patients...if they didn't commit suicide, the doctors used grenades to kill them. One of the doctors who participated in this kept a diary, and his diary was raced back to D.C. to make them aware of what we faced...the fervor of the enemy.

Emperor Hirohito ordered his civilians to commit suicide rather than fall under the control of the Americans. In Saipan, many Japanese citizens complied, with families running off of what is now called "Suicide Cliff" rather than become subject to US Marine control.

Kamikazes...enough said.

We had destroyed their entire navy...literally, they had few ships left. They sacrificed their last ships in a suicide attack. And yet, they would not surrender.

This was an enemy unlike all other enemies of the US.

We can argue whether the bomb should have been dropped from a moral perspective. But, I can certainly see why the decision was made, given the mass suicides and civilian fighting the US expected to see if we invaded the main islands of Japan.

You can argue that we should have done a demonstration first which in my view would not have caused surrender.

Don’t see how starving them out with a blockade would have been any more moral.

It took two to cause them to finally do it. Unbelievable in and of itself.

And that is what you like about the the Japanese culture? That they are the most militaristic and that they committed suicide rather than surrender? Maybe you did not word that the best way possible.

I think I worded it fine, although I admit I did not word it in a way that would prevent someone who choses to interpret it in the worst way possible from doing so.

Their personal honor, their personal self interest is measured in how they honor others, how they satisfy their duty to others. They feel a true personal obligation to the society as a whole. Restaurant owners make sure that the sidewalk and street is clean in front of their store...no need for the city to handle that...tragedy of the commons is less of a problem there. Even their rooftops are clean.

Their schools don't need janitors, because the students clean the classrooms and the bathrooms themselves--think about that. In the US, students sue for inhumane treatment and win, when they are tasked with cleaning bathrooms as a punishment. In Japan, cleaning bathrooms is a thing of honor...a matter of personal pride.

Attention to detail and quality is overwhelming there. There is very little "can I get away with this" thinking over there (unlike in US...of course, China is worse than the US in that regard). That is what I like about Japan culture...their sense of duty.

The suicides etc. is an over the top by product of their sense of duty to society...a product of their leadership's unfair exploitation of their sense of duty. Obviously, there is a balance to be maintained. I just think we could move more in their direction and thereby improve our own society. But, we don't value integration and unity, we value diversity and disunity.

spare the Emperor. Same with the generals, Yamashita, and Homma for war crimes.

Contrast that with the Narzi scum at Nuremburg, each trying to save their own skin.

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