Principles and measures of true Democracy. The address of the Southern and Western Liberty Convention, held at Cincinnati, June 11, 1845, to the people ... letter of Elihu Burritt to the convention

Every bucket of sand that might wash away in a typhoon, every rock that might fall from a hilltop is a threat the government must deal with – using lots of concrete. Quietly, almost invisibly, a strong ideology grew up during the past fifty years to support the idea that total control over every inch of hillside and seashore is necessary. This ideology holds that nature is Japan's special enemy, that nature is exceptionally harsh here, and that the Japanese suffer more from natural calamities than do other people. One can taste the flavor of this attitude in the following excerpt from a publication of the Construction Ministry's River Bureau: Earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and droughts have periodically wreaked havoc on Japan. For as long as Japanese history has been recorded, it has been a history of the fight against natural factors... Although Japan is famous for its earthquakes, it is perhaps water-related problems which have been the true bane of Japanese life. In the Japanese islands, where the seasons are punctuated by extremes, extremes which have required people to take vigilant precautions in order to assure survival, water is a constant issue ...»