When Japanese politicians failed to write a constitution to MacArthur’s satisfaction, he had one drafted, in English, in nine days. “We the Japanese people,” it starts, and it goes on to affirm individuals’ rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But though it borrowed from the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, the Japanese constitution was far more liberal, the result of a sort of unchecked New Deal that occupation authorities imposed on the country. The new constitution banned war, prohibited racial discrimination, guaranteed academic freedom, forbade
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