“Otaku” is a mildly derogatory term for a geeky white guy who casts himself in the role of defender of all things Nipponian. I’m surprised you’re unfamiliar with it.

Just as I thought, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

Otaku hardly means “a geeky white guy who casts himself in the role of defender of all things Nipponian.” Otaku just means someone who is so very interested in something that it becomes all they care about and all they think about nearly day in and day out. Perhaps even to the point that if they do work, all their income is spent on this obsession. The most common example would be the Anime Otaku, but people often refer to themselves as ‘Travel Otaku’ because the second they get a vacation, they go traveling, spend many hours when they should be at work researching where to go on their next vacation.

You can confirm in the dictionary (4):

http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/se.....amp;mode=0

Now, this little diversion has nothing to do with the issue at hand, but what it does show is you will just say random stuff you know nothing about in the hope that the person you are talking to also knows little or nothing about so that you can dictate to them your own meaning that fits your purpose, regardless of truth, factuality, or morality, just so that you can ‘win’.

BTW, I think the word you are looking for is Nipponese, not Nipponian.

“Otaku” is a mildly derogatory term for a geeky white guy who casts himself in the role of defender of all things Nipponian. I’m surprised you’re unfamiliar with it.

Neither you nor I will ever personally suffer regardless of what decision the Korean government takes in this matter, so your question is pointless.

WTF? Why do you and wjk seem to think I’m your bitch? Answer your own strawmen, otaku.

No, you’re not ‘my bitch’, I just thought you were a decent enough person to answer a my question. And what does “strawmen otaku” mean anyway?

As for your question, it was answered long, long ago. #53, Hans Castorp

Since you insist on the comparison between Austria and Korea, let me also remind you that those attempts at restitution in Central Europe have been by individuals going through the courts, something no one here has opposed; the Austrian and German governments haven’t been making Uri Party style lists of “collaborators” and siccing committees on their descendants.

I agree with you on your example of something such as the hope diamond. Since the very beginning I have been saying the same thing thinking of paintings and other things of the sort. I agree with what was going on in Germany/Austria etc, however what seems to be going on with the Uri party in S. Korea is not the same thing, and I do not agree with them. This is not about returning the hope diamond or a painting to the original owner, this is about punishing people financially and socially for what their parents and grandparents generations political beliefs were.

Now, if you could please answer my question as to how willingly you would turn over everything you’ve ever possessed and move into a cardboard box under the highway overpass because your grandfather provided for his children in hopes of a better life instead of getting himself and your whole family killed, I would appreciate it. I would like to know if you truly believe this is right, or if you believe it is right as long as you don’t stand to suffer.

If my grandfather stole the Hope Diamond and left it to me when I died, do I have the right to keep it simply because I did not steal it myself? Your argument appears to lead to the conclusion that yes, I do.

Well, it depends a lot on your jurisdiction, but you may be able to keep the diamond under those circumstances. After signifigant amounts of time have passed, the law in many places starts favoring the one who posesses an item or a property, rather than the one who holds actual title, especially in cases where the true owner has given up on trying to get the item back. At any rate though, that’s not necessarily how things work in South Korea (although the 1990 case mentioned in the Herald seems to indicate that it is). This quote in the Times also seems telling:

The government will take away property owned by people with four types of ancestors according to a special law established in December to confiscate the assets of collaborators

So not only is the government violating the Constitution by passing an ex post facto law, they’re also violating the Constitution by treatng people unfavorably based on the actions of their ancestors. Nice.

Also, you still haven’t told me what you would do if the government seized everything you had because your grandfather didn’t fight hard enough. I’ve been asking you that since #50.

WTF? Why do you and wjk seem to think I’m your bitch? Answer your own strawmen, otaku.

I notice you do not answer:

In such cases, why should there be no redress?

Do you object to the redress in Germany and Austria on the same grounds as you stated earlier?

Do you think that after the fall of the Kim dynasty in North Korea heirs of South Koreans deprived of their property in the North should have no redress?

All I have consistently said (having managed to avoid the fevered flights of fantasy you willingly succumb to) is that the Korean government has the right to put in place a mechanism to evaluate and do something in regard to the claims of rightful heirs to property that was wrongly expropriated during the Japanese occupation.

Funny, because I thought Richard said almost the same thing as me too

The hope diamond is a single physical item that can be returned, however what it seems the government is going to do is just take ‘properties’ of people who cooperated and profited. (Even more so, because the ‘list’ includes so many people yet only 400 are going to be charged right now, it makes it look like a witch hunt with political motives. Perhaps there will be another round of people charged though. ) Items that can be traced to it’s original owner are different from sending someone to the poor house for ‘thought crimes’ committed by their grandfather.

For your Hope Diamond reference, please jump up to comment #41

But a piece of artwork or any other property that can be traced to it’s original owner and returned to it’s original owner is different then a 10 million won fine (I believe that’s what the punishment along with your family being shamed and all your descendants destined to be unemployable and unable to marry) paid to the government.

Sounds like what I’ve been saying all along. The only difference now is the punishment seems to no longer be a 10K USD fine, but (limitless?) seizure of assets as you corrected me on earlier.

Also, you still haven’t told me what you would do if the government seized everything you had because your grandfather didn’t fight hard enough. I’ve been asking you that since #50.

If my grandfather stole the Hope Diamond and left it to me when I died, do I have the right to keep it simply because I did not steal it myself? Your argument appears to lead to the conclusion that yes, I do.

That has nothing to do with “blood”; it has to do with rightful ownership.

If you don’t like the way I say it, read Richardson’s comment.

Do I have to remind you what the constitution says in Korea? “(3) No citizen shall suffer unfavorable treatment on account of an act not of his own doing but committed by a relative.” You’ve created a rather uphill battle for yourself, you have to argue against the constitution.

To be fair, there is a distinction in most legal systems between criminal law and property law. In property law, the true owner of something is typically entitled to recover it, no matter whether that recovery is to be had from the person who took it, or from the descendants. However 60-100 years after the fact is pretty extreme, since the average statute of limitations on this sort of thing would probably be about 20 years at maximum. Now, while it’s not unheard of for people to recover something even after the statute of limitations would say otherwise, it’s generally required that they spend at least some due diligence in trying to find and recover their property over the years.

But it doesn’t seem like that is what is happening in this situation at all. In this case, the goverment is the one that is proposing to effect a forfeiture against the descendants of past collaborators. It isn’t completely unheard of for a government for seize assets of collaborators — several of the colonies did it in the Revolutionary War, and the Emancipation Proclamation was, if nothing else, a declaration of forfeiture against traitors — but typically these types of seizure come either during or immediately after a conflict. In addition, the laws authorizing such a seizure are usually already in place before the alleged crime and subsequent seizure takes place. If the laws authorizing the seizure of the assets of collaborators weren’t already in place by the end of World War II, then the South Korean government is forcing the forfeiture of those assets ex post facto, which the Constitution expressly forbids. I suppose the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea could have passed such a law, but in any case, it seems a bit late to bring what is essentially a criminal case against ‘traitors’ — many of whom probably died quite a long time ago. To do so against their descendants is basically the ‘unfavorable treatment on account of an act … committed by a relative’ that the Constitution also forbids.

At any rate, if I were one of the people who was going to be investigated, I would really consider the possibility of moving all my assets to France and getting French citizenship — at least until the whole thing blows over.

Second, in many of the possible scenarios to be addressed in the current witch-hunt, it would be exceedingly difficult to prove that X maligned Y so that the Japanese would persecute them, leaving the way for X to obtain Y’s property.

If there are any clear cases where the Japanese confiscated land from Y and granted it to X for their ‘service to the emperor’ (or whatever – but not someone who merely did business with the Japanese and purchases shares of land during the period), then there would very probably be grounds for giving that property back to the rightful heirs. In Austria, this recently happened to the building being rented to the U.S. government and housing the American Embassy (and the descents who inherited the building are now Americans)! However, unlike many of the cases in Europe, however, pieces of art, etc., are not the types of property being called into question.

And if there are clear cases of individuals properties that were originally legally obtained being confiscated by the Japanese colonial government, which have since been obtained by third, fourth, etc. parties, I see no reason why the original family should not get that property back (if the current owners would sell – some may have current homes, business, etc. and it would not be fair to disrupt their lives for something they did not do) or receive fair compensation from the government. Such compensation should not be considered to be from taxes (although that is where the money would have to come from at this point), but via the reparation funds received from Japan in 1965. Interest is a bitch.

What I’m talking about is simple fairness – if it can be proved the property was taken from the legal owners by the colonial government, the family that lost said assets should get them back, or be compensated (i.e., 1965 reparation funds). That of course does not address the millions of Koreans who suffered but had no property to be confiscated, but that’s a different issue.

Finally, a statute of limitations should be established for initiating (but not concluding) claims related to this so that it’s not rehashed time and again. Stability needs some finality is such issues. A possible exception to this will be when Korea reunifies, and folks on both sides will have claims to properties owned before the war, and before the Japanese.

I will take issue with a different comment of Dogbert’s, concerning, “the George W. Bush method of smearing one’s opponent.” Wouldn’t that better be described as the “Dan Rather” method?