Our goal is to write a new constitution of our own that envisions a new era and serves a new role.

It is long overdue. Japan must come into its adulthood.

Are there no younger lawmakers than this guy in Japan? Incredible really.

Old age I'm sure will have some old thinking and that's not what this country is in need of.

These are the people who want to bring back the evil old days of authoritarianism and militarism. You know this by what they have stood for over the years. Of course a Japan without Article 9 will only be a second-rate tool of the American military state. Japan's youth, what little there will be, will die in America's foreign wars in the name of "collective self-defense." That youth will be likely be conscripted.

Old men sending youth off to war. That is the "adulthood" we have to look forward to if the Japanese right wing gets its way.

They need to be thinking about the bigger picture here and dealing with Japan's current condition. The Healthy Future of a Nation is at stake.

Even more than Japan needs a new constitution, it needs some good men capable of competently writing one.

I doubt any of these ultra-right geezers proposing a new constitution could tell you three major points of any of the great constitutions of world history. I doubt they could name three great men who wrote great constitutions.

I doubt they could name three great men who wrote great constitutions.

They can all name Douglas MacArthur. If the politicians want Japan to succeed, they should simply revert back to the post war policies which MacArthur enacted, mainly the dissolution of the zaibatsu, and empowering the people to be free to pursue their own destinies.

But thiese last parts of MacArthur's policies were rescinded, resulting in the return of the zaibatsu, and their morphing into Japan Inc. and decades of power for their puppets, the LDP.

If Japan wants to start a new era, it should break up the big conglomerates (abolishing their monopolies), enact strict anti trust regulation, enforce anti price-fixing regulations, and break the power of the large bureaucracies who are the pawns of Japan Inc, and who are unelected and unanswerable to the people.

But this is too much for most politicians, as it would mean reducing their own power, and giving it to the people they are supposed to serve. Such a thing could never be tolerated. So instead, the government will foment a faux crisis with China, using the crisis to instill fear in the people, who will look to the politicians to protect them. The politicians will tell the people what they think they want to hear, that the politicians can protect them by increasing military spending, etc. The same old song, played to the same tune politicians have whistled since the time of Plato.

Several years ago the Liberal Democratic Party actually made some proposals for constitutional amendments. However I am not sure if a draft was ever submitted to the Diet and whether the Liberal Democratic Party's constitutional amendment draft was ever endorsed by a national referendum. But I believe all articles of the present constitution from the preamble to the provisions have been reviewed and revised. Basically this draft is suppose to have been designed to meet the need of times and respond to the new challenges. My understanding of some of the main points of the revised constitution are a prescription on the use of the national flag and the national anthem, the right of self-defense, and a emergency article. Does anyone have any current information on this matter?

I've never read anything quite as terrifying as this quote. He truly is power-mad. He doesn't just want to change a single clause, he wants to rewrite the whole thing.

If Abe is to be judged by the company he keeps then he's likely to reinstate the feudal system with himself as the new Shogun and make disobedience to his word an execution offense.

655321 -- totally agree. 96 year-old men are not who Japan should be turning to to write a constitution.

And they absolutely should write their own and definitely can.

Its time to truly end the occupation and create a Japanese constitution.

No one is suggesting it has to be ultra-nationalist, or right-wing. But its time for Japan to take ownership of itself again.

That's the same LDP people who want to remove the notion of "Natural rights" from the constitution and replace it with "Duty to the State", or who suggest that "Freedom of expression" should be conditioned by "public order" (LDP pamphlet 2013).

http://japanfocus.org/-Lawrence-Repeta/3969 Japan’s Democracy at Risk – The LDP’s Ten Most Dangerous Proposals for Constitutional Change 危機に瀕する日本の民主主義　自民党憲法改正案、最も危険な10項目 The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 28, No. 3, July 15, 2013.

Such individuals are anathema to the LDP view of the relationship between people and government. Immediately following its rejection of universal rights in favor of rights based on “the history, tradition and culture of Japan,” the LDP Q&A pamphlet addresses the western influence on Japan’s Constitution: “[T]he current Constitution includes some provisions based on the western theory of natural rights. We believe these provisions should be revised.”