Early reports from Japan are that the people are doing quite well on their own, have relied on rugged individualism, and are grateful that the government has not gotten in the way of emergency response.
How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again! (Mark Twain)
Piece of Mindful 
Tidal waves in Indonesia killed how many?
How ’bout Haiti? How many died in it’s earthquake?
Again, the more free a nation is the more likely they’ll survive disasters.
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That’s not very well reasoned, Swede. Unless you give us some notion of “freedom” that somehow fits into the train of thought that leads to that conclusion, I’m going to catalog that statement along with other evidence that is leading me to believe that you might be functionally illiterate.
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Swede-
What the fuck is wrong with you? Japan hasn’t survived anything – reports are that over 10,000 people have been killed, three nuclear power plants are in danger of melting down, and millions of people may not be able to return home because of the tsunami and resulting radiation leaks from the power plants. But yeah, you’re totally right – they’re comin’ out smellin’ like roses.
And Indonesia and Haiti are both democracies. I doubt you have any idea how their governments are set up, or their relative level of “freedom” compared to Japan.
Oh, and just to answer your questions, about a quarter of a million people died in both the 2005 tsunami and the 2010 earthquake in Japan. Perhaps we should develop a scale of how many people have to die in a given event in order to prove one of your ridiculous pre-conceived notions.
But I doubt it matters. Everything fits into your idiotic narrative.
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10K even 20k is small in comparison to 170K in Haiti and Indonesia.
Freedom increases survivability.
The “freedom index” is a combination of of business, trade, fiscal, monetary, investment, financial freedom. Also includes freedom from corruption and labor freedom, property rights and govt. spending.
Japan rate a score of 20 out of 184 countries. Haiti rates a 133 and Indy a 116. Your buddies in Cuba rate 177, 2 below Venezuela at 175.
I’d link the rankings but you’d just disparage the messenger.
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Moi? Disparage Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank funded by American billionaires?
Naaah!
You’d have some credibility if you ever gave evidence of having done anything but churn through right wing materials to reinforce your right wing views. This is the great failing of the American education system that liberals are trying so hard to preserve – they do not teach critical thinking skills. This is why I say you are functionally illiterate.
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More fuel for the fire. From Ed at Hot Air.
“Well, the question here is whether wealth allows for adaptation — or whether an economic system’s openness to adaptation leads to the wealth necessary to recover from disasters. The wealth of Western democracies based on capitalism owes its existence to economic and political environments where capital could flow freely to innovation and adaptation. Centrally-planned economies do not have that allowance for innovation and adaptation, even the so-called “enlightened” environment in China, where the reins have been loosened on central control but are far from removed. Furthermore, a system unused to adaptation in normal practice would hardly have the skills or the players necessary to implement that adaptation under crisis conditions. In fact, those systems tend to punish those with talent for innovation and management of capital outside of an unaccountable bureaucracy, which makes their presence rare in catastrophic conditions in centrally-controlled economies.”
Of course the more freer a country the more wealth it amasses.
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Can’t disagree with that. Now, if you and your source here would also address colonialism, neo-colonialism, monopoly and oligopoly, distribution of wealth, militarism, globalization … we’d get a more complete picture. He seems to be talking about the old Soviet Union – what century did you get this information from?
And as Chomsky has been saying for decades, the US is a centrally planned economy based on military spending to stimulate, do R&D and suck up unemployment. We just don’t talk about ourselves that way.
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Why doesn’t freedom improve literacy? Or knowledge? Seems there’s a whole lot of people out there bursting with freedom and ignorance.
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Beyond the form of government is the capability of the people.
Japanese: some of the most capable people on earth. Highly intelligent, orderly, smart enough to foster a homogeneous society that helps maintain a sense of community and belonging so that in times of crisis we don’t see looting and raping.
Haitians: could be like the Japanese, but their sole problem is that the Americans went down there and took all their jobs and resources and left them hanging with poor planning and seething rage against the “man”, so they loot and rape when things go bad. It’s our fault.
Chile: their earthquake in the same time frame as Haiti’s was stronger, but fortunately they are farther from the US, so their more European population was wealthier with the human capital to build and survive with less loss and looting.
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Huh? The survivability of the earthquake is due to heavy spending and regulation by the government of Japan, for example on tsunami walls and building codes.
There isn’t much you can do about a 10m wall of water sweeping over your defenses, but the Japanese people are implementing the government-required practices (there are regular national drills of what to do in a disaster), and the authorities at all levels are directly involved.
Of course there are thousands of stories of individual adaptation and heroism, but the preparedness and execution of a disaster plan is overwhelmingly a national effort planned and paid for by the government and implemented by everybody from the oldest grandma to the prime minister and the head of the military.
“…rugged individualism … grateful that the government has not gotten in the way…” What are you talking about?
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