Japanese people in general don't give as much thought to individual liberties as do people in some other countries and there is a tendency to acquiesce in the face of authority, with people sort of viewing the government as a paternalistic/maternalistic entity. The short version of that sentence is: This is a nation of sheeple.
A few years ago I was sitting in line down at the container yards in Tokyo when everything shut down for the lunch hour. A bunch of folks in neat work clothes and with arm bands identifying them as being from the Tokyo tax authorities came around to all the trucks to collect fuel samples to check for the presence of kerosene mixed in with the diesel (a method of avoiding fuel taxes). Every driver got down out of his truck and opened their fuel tanks to give a sample....without question.
It was a different story when they got to me. I asked, "When a government entity comes around to confiscate the people's private property, don't you need some kind of warrant? What is your authority for this activity?"
"It's purely voluntary."
"Then I will cooperate."
People are used to the public schools, for example, giving dictates and directives on what the school kids can and can not do outside of school hours, outside school grounds, and even in their own homes.....and people just go "okey-dokey". I'll never forget the time my son's elementary school sent around a paper saying, among other things, that we should have them take a sh+t first thing in the morning prior to sending them to school. I ranted and raved on that one for quite a while.
