March 11, 2020. In the midst of the national crisis of novel pneumonia, opposition parties tied down the prime minister and the health minister for long hours in the Budget Committee, firing off “meaningless questions.” Yet they then criticized the government for being slow. Politics that cannot distinguish priorities or weight is the very symbol of Japan’s weakness in crisis.

March 11, 2020
They tie down the prime minister and the minister of health, labor and welfare for long hours in the Budget Committee, fire off one “meaningless question” after another, and then fail to notice the contradiction when they criticize the government for being slow in its response.
There is no other way to describe them than fools.
The following is a continuation of Ruri Abiru’s essay.
Do not drag the people down with you
This is something I heard from Ryuzo Sejima, a former military officer known as the “Showa staff officer.”
Before the war, in preparation for disasters such as major earthquakes, detailed plans had been prepared concerning which unit would be dispatched where, depending on what happened and where.
There are probably people even now who privately conduct simulations, but now is precisely the time to share, at the national level, preparations for the Tokai earthquake and a Tokyo inland earthquake that will surely come in the near future.
When the moment comes, what we can rely on is not the police or fire departments, but none other than the Self-Defense Forces.
However, the Self-Defense Forces operate under a positive list, meaning that only what they are allowed to do is defined.
By contrast, foreign militaries operate under a negative list, meaning that only what they must not do is defined, and they respond flexibly to every situation.
With the two wheels of an emergency clause and explicit mention of the Self-Defense Forces in the Constitution, Japan must be transformed into a nation strong in crises.
Nevertheless, Yukio Edano, leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party, Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the Democratic Party for the People, and even Shigeru Ishiba from within the Liberal Democratic Party, criticized linking the novel pneumonia to constitutional revision as “going too far.”
But what kind of attitude is it to refuse even to allow discussion?
They are free to rest comfortably in “ostrich peace,” sticking their heads in the sand and turning their eyes away from the danger approaching them.
But I ask that they not drag the people down with them.
When the PKO law for the Self-Defense Forces was enacted, opposition parties and the media opposed overseas dispatches of the Self-Defense Forces, saying, “Once the Self-Defense Forces are dispatched even once, there will be no brakes.”
Naoto Kan refused to step down from the question stand even after his allotted time had ended.
Yet the moment he himself became prime minister, he completely reversed himself and said, “The Self-Defense Forces are Japan’s pride.”
Is it not time to settle such barren arguments?
When the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred, Edano, as chief cabinet secretary, was pursued day and night by the response.
He should be able to make constructive proposals to the government based on his own experience.
That would impress the people more.
Yet the opposition parties aim their spearhead day after day at the “Cherry Blossom Viewing Party.”
No matter how much they pursue it, the approval ratings of the opposition parties do not rise.
Rather, they fall.
Edano himself often says, “Post-Abe means Edano.”
But voters cannot possibly think of entrusting government to opposition parties that can do nothing but seize on the administration’s wording and drag it down.
Like the opposition parties in Britain, they could organize a “shadow cabinet” and present concrete policy visions.
There are any number of things they could do.
But they think only about lowering the approval rating of the administration.
They do not have the idea of gaining points by responding to the expectations of the people.
They only have the idea of subtracting points by dragging down the other side.
Meaningless questions
On February 12, Kiyomi Tsujimoto of the Constitutional Democratic Party asked a question about a bureaucrat’s scandal based on a weekly magazine article, and Prime Minister Abe heckled, “That is a meaningless question.”
The opposition parties made this an issue, and budget deliberations stopped.
Akira Koike, head of the Secretariat of the Communist Party, criticized it, saying, “I think it is the worst statement in history.”
He was making a fuss, saying that unless Prime Minister Abe apologized and withdrew the statement, they would submit a disciplinary motion.
But while the people are frightened by the fear of novel pneumonia, do they truly think that it was a “meaningful question”?
It was rather Tsujimoto who should have apologized, for taking away the precious time of a prime minister pressed to respond to a crisis and hurling something like a meaningless question at him.
On February 13, a remark by Hideya Sugio, also of the Constitutional Democratic Party, became a problem.
At a meeting attended by Mizuho Fukushima, he took the microphone and said with a laugh, “I have caught a bit of a cold, and I cannot stop coughing, but it is not the novel coronavirus, so please rest assured……”
It is said that laughter arose from the audience at this inappropriate greeting.
In the end, that is the extent of their sense of crisis.
There are also voices criticizing the Abe administration’s response as slow, but what would have happened if it had been the Yukio Hatoyama administration or the Naoto Kan administration?
It would not be surprising if they had started saying something like, “The Japanese archipelago does not belong only to the Japanese people.
Let us accept Chinese people with a spirit of fraternity.” (laughs)
Furthermore, they might even have started saying that Chinese people coming to Japan should also be given permanent residency and local voting rights.
To begin with, they tie down the prime minister and the minister of health, labor and welfare for long hours in the Budget Committee, fire off one “meaningless question” after another, and then fail to notice the contradiction when they criticize the government for being slow in its response.
There is no other way to describe them than fools.
I have my own “definition of a fool.”
A fool is not someone who lacks academic ability or education.
A fool is a person who does not understand priorities or the relative weight of things.
This essay continues.