I love the internet. I’m able to look up that cooking recipe that I’ve always wanted to try, find out the next showing of that romantic-comedy I’ve been meaning to see (by myself), and see when the dog beach closes so I can finally bring my imaginary dog on that relaxing stroll to the beach. The convenience it affords me has no bounds. I have listed some pretty innocent things that I use the internet for — also forgot to mention that I occasionally spend some moments of my day writing boring articles on this website — however, the internet can also be used for incredibly nefarious purposes.

In the darkest regions of the internet, you can find a plethora of merchandise sold by groups or individuals that are almost universally illegal.

Here’s a short list of what you can purchase:

• Step-by-Step Guides on How to Make Bombs
• Child Pornography
• Illicit Drugs (Cocaine, Methamphetamine, etc.)
• Contract Killers
• Uranium Ore
• Weapons and Weapon Parts (AK-47s, RPGS, Grenades, etc.)
• Prostitutes

Check out this website for more information:

26 Crazy Things You Can Buy on the Dark Web

This list is not exhaustive and merely provides a list of what can be purchased on the Dark Web. The point is that you can buy anything on the internet and I guess now you can also buy democracies.

Note: Please do not send me messages on how to get on the part of the internet to find these things. I would not know. Also, a lot of things on there are very illegal.

Before we go any further, let’s talk about the internet first. Aside from the conglomeration of memes, various social media, and Amazon, among others, what is the internet? According to Merriam-Webster, it is, “an electronic communications network that connects computer networks and organizational computer facilities around the world.” Nikola Tesla first predicted such a network, though probably not in the form that became reality more than 26 years after his death in 1943. Also, no, former Vice President Al Gore did not invent the internet, however, he did play a critical role in its development.

Below is a condensed answer to an otherwise long answer:

With the many benefits of the internet also comes interspersed the power to abuse those benefits. A key benefit is the immediate dispersal of information which allows us to find out about events such as terrorist attacks as they occur. However, this immediacy breeds the conditions for misinformation as information from these events comes in at such a heightened pace that there is no allowance for a filter or oversight that could weed out the fake information or now commonly referred to as “alternative facts.” This has the potential to create internet “witch-hunts” with an example being during the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013. On reddit.com, a popular online forum, after the release of photos tied to the actual bombers, teams of vigilantes using the website as a base of operations began misidentifying people as the suspected bombers. This complicated the work of crisis response teams and led to harassment of those misidentified along with people related to them. Whose fault is this; the journalists who legitimized these keyboard vigilantes or the reddit users themselves? It’s great that the internet has enlarged the amount of information that is available for us to consume; however, it is crucial that this information is factual and not misleading.

Let’s get back to talking about buying democracies. First, I’m going to introduce the concept of trolling. Urban Dictionary, one of my personal favorite dictionaries, has the most succinct definition of this:

The art of deliberately, cleverly, and secretly pissing people off, usually via the internet, using dialogue. Trolling does not mean just making rude remarks: Shouting swear words at someone doesn’t count as trolling; it’s just flaming, and isn’t funny. Spam isn’t trolling either; it pisses people off, but it’s lame.

The best example of a troll is @KenM. They are usually benign individuals with gentle intentions. You probably have friends that are trolls or are you, yourself, one. There is nothing about them that is malicious, in fact, they tend to have no intentions whatsoever. It is when they have objectives that their friendly nature manifests into something else entirely. I will let @KenM describe his craft.

The 2016 Presidential Elections. I remember seeing the New York Times ticker move from 99% in favor of Clinton to 99% in favor of Trump. Truthfully, I laughed to myself, knowing the end was nigh. Then, I realized the end was nigh. It was definitely a shocking day. How could this have happened? The greatest contributor to Hilary Clinton’s loss was not former FBI Director James Comey, it was internet trolls. According to her, “If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president,” I don’t believe that would be the case. There are many reasons that people say made the Clinton campaign lose the general election. I will list them below:

• Boring
• Too much political baggage
• Rehearsed
• Unrelatable
• Establishment politics
• James Comey

These are all true. She was just a flawed candidate. However, even flawed candidates have a chance of winning. She had no chance of winning. An entire military operation was working against her and in cahoots with her opponent. The use of internet trolls exacerbated her flaws and helped create a cult following around Donald Trump. It is when these benign internet trolls have an objective that they become weaponized. They join the ranks of malware and viruses as cyber weapons in a society that continues to more rely as the sole source of information.

In Russia, there are state-sponsored, “web brigades,” which are large groups of internet trolls that are hired to scour the internet in the pursuit of trolling netizens and creating misinformation. But, it’s not just Russia that is using these brigades, other foreign governments such as Israel and China are also using them as propaganda machines.

Invasion of the troll armies: 'Social media where the war goes on'

These groups are highly organized with their actions being carefully orchestrated in order to deceive and instill confusion in the mass public. They target those less educated; they help establish and perpetuate social media echo chambers. These are places where people with similar views can have them validated repeatedly, giving them affirmation, regardless of how asinine their views may be. When these members of internet-troll established echo chambers leave and enter the general web, they become surrogates for the goals of these web brigades and help further their objectives even if they don’t know it themselves. This multiplier effect expands the misinformed population and can lead to an entire society that does not base their information on facts, but more so, the misinformation that these trolls brought onto the internet. The external validation of these false ideas can lead to an indoctrination of sorts that manifests a populace that is unyielding to truth and will continue to assist the trolls in spreading lies even after these trolls have moved on to another deception campaign. Breitbart News is an example of a social media echo chamber where far-right conservative conspiracies are born and become matured into the mindset of general conservative ideology. Read this article and juxtapose that against the facts that we know about the Russia investigation. More importantly, read the comment section.

Pollak: The Attack on Trump Is Exactly What a Russian Disinformation Campaign Looks Like - Breitbart

Misinformation is a tactic that we don’t think can have such reverberating consequences as swaying whole elections, however, it’s important to realize that democracies fail when the general populace is ignorant. Democracies depend on a population that can debate and give an informed opinion on the best decision on policy for the state. When groups within the population are not willing to debate and otherwise have a misinformed opinion then they are no longer ideal members of a democracy and can no longer help represent the best interests of the state. However, as long as these misinformed groups don’t outnumber the informed then there is not a crisis within the democracy. This is implying that the majority will be the victor, but this is not the case for the United States of America. The U.S. relies on the electoral college to elect the “leader of the free world” (currently disputed). In this system, you can win the popular vote by more than 2.86 million and still lose the contest outright. The U.S. election’s fetish with swing states needs to change and have every individual vote matter. Otherwise, you give the trolls a major advantage in influencing our politics.

How do we end misinformation campaigns? It is through education. We need to drastically increase funding for our public schools from our elementary schools all the way up to universities and colleges. Preschool should be a publicly-funded option and be universally available to all children. Racially-segregated schools should be a relic of the past. There are so many ways that we can better our education system that it deserves its own story, giving it a note at the end of another story would be doing the issue a disservice. However, to combat obfuscation of the truth, the population needs to be educated enough to realize that they are being fed falsehoods and be knowledgeable to reject them outright.

Today, I visited the notorious Imperial Shrine of Yasukuni in central Tokyo. This Shinto Shrine is a dedication to the millions of Japanese war dead whom perished in a brutal era of aggression against their Asian neighbors, under the seemingly innocuous idea of liberation from Western imperialists.

This era lasted from the Meiji Restoration (1869) until the end of the Empire of Japan (1947) in the aftermath of World War II and the beginning of the Allied occupation of Japan. The rouse perpetuated by the Japanese government that they were “liberators” was an attempt to justify its war of conquest and subsequent savage dominion over many colonial possessions in Asia. This blatant propaganda only helped them in furthering their own imperial ambitions and replacing one imperialist with another. Those who subscribed to creating a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” led by the Empire of Japan, also ascribed to a form of racial hierarchy whereas the Japanese were at the top and other groups were viewed as racially inferior. This is evident in An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus, which was a classified government document that describes the superiority of the “Yamato” people, essentially confirming that race theory did influence decisions in the Japanese government. Lastly, I do not use the word “savage” lightly and with regret, find it to be an incredibly accurate description of how the Japanese militaristic regime gained and maintained control of the East.

The shrine’s somber memorial to everyday soldiers remains tarnished by the presence of Class-A war criminals.

This unfortunate stain remains as a testament to not only those countries directly affected by Japanese military campaigns throughout the duration of the self-declared Empire of Japan, but also to the international community at-large that Japan has not reconciled with its controversial past.

Apologists for the Japanese government contend that Japan has already made amends for its actions many times over and the generation that had participated in these crimes have all but gone, however, this argument simplifies what it means to make amends. I would even dare say that it is myopic and even somewhat callous. However, I do concede that there is somewhat of a cognitive dissonance at play here, caused by time, that separates these apologists from the actual events themselves. This makes them not realize the severity and sheer barbarism of the events that they are attempting to defend. However, you do not have to actually experience the atrociousness of these events to empathize. Also, there are less distasteful ways to pay respects to the war dead. The source below may be biased, however, the information presented in the article has merit.

By visiting Yasukuni Shrine, politicians shun another option - World - Chinadaily.com.cn

Next, in order to draw a contrast in regards to atonement for sin, we can compare how Germany has recognized its past transgressions.

Here is a list of the actions that the German government has done which the Japanese government has not done:

1. The German government has created laws in response to the Holocaust in order to prevent Holocaust denial, while Japan has not created laws in response to their crimes such as the “Rape of Nanjing.” This has allowed for academic articles such as, “Analyzing The ‘Photographic Evidence’ of The Nanking Massacre,” to be published which seeks to deny factual evidence to deceive the public.
2. Curriculum at schools have an explicit focus on learning about the Holocaust and other German digressions that happened during the war, this is adverse to Japanese students whereas atrocities such as comfort women and Unit 731 are merely overlooked or are just a footnote in the history books.

3. Reached out in earnest sincerity to neighbors to work towards reconciliation. German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1970 famously knelt down in front of the Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto victims in a powerful showing of humility and humbleness. It can be argued that a gesture such as this has not been done by the Japanese because of culture. The need to save face is an important social concept in Japan.

As you can see from this list, Germany has made significant and purposeful attempts to recognize the wrongs of the past. This is meanwhile, Japan has not lived up to the expectations of her victims. Of course, we cannot exactly juxtapose the war crimes of both countries, however, we can examine the overtures that each have made in light of their war crimes.

A total of 14 Class-A war criminals are enshrined at the memorial. All fourteen have been convicted of war crimes in international tribunals.

A brief description of each individual is listed below:

Yasukuni Shrine: the 14 'Class A' war criminals honoured by Japan

Words alone cannot describe the crimes that these individuals were charged with, instead, I will take a brief portion of my article to include some graphic imagery from the war. These individuals were charged with allowing or overlooking the fact that these crimes were occurring by soldiers under their command. I do not include photos of Unit 731 or Unit 100 because no individuals listed above were charged with the crimes associated with those units due to American-granted immunity.

*Warning Graphic Images*

There are obviously more photos out there, however, these photos were specifically chosen to allow the readers a way to understand the cruelty and malice of the crimes that these war criminals were charged.

The shrine has now even been used by Japan as a political football to send overt messages that Japan will not cower, despite Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution which states:

• Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
• In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

The use of this issue as a political football is offensive to the millions who died under Japanese aggression and only elongates the controversy. The historical revisionism under the Shinzo Abe administration and the conservative movement in Japan is a move that neglects the facts of the past.

I echo the words of George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

As Japan is a global player in the international arena, these actions do have global ramifications as it sends a message that historical revisionism is not problematic. As a key player in international politics, Japan must set an example for other countries and recognize its past. As a call to action, the United States must also pressure Japan to end this glorification of its past.

U.S. Should Be Appalled by Japan's Historical Revisionism

Although the current generation of Japanese were not party to these egregious war crimes, it is now their burden to seek forgiveness from the international community and end the vicious cycle that continues to rot the core of East Asian relations. By not fulfilling this burden, they are not complicit in this controversy, but are party to not seeking unity and a more stable East Asia. It is in their own self-interest to repent for the trespasses of their forefathers and in order to progress diplomatically with their Asian neighbors, it is a prerequisite to peace.

The fundamental nature of the Japanese people in also invalidating any arguments against proved war crimes and idolization of those convicted of such acts is mandatory towards restoring harmony in the region.

It is difficult to provide a definitive answer to how to fully be absolved of the wrongdoings of the past, though one thing is certain, the war criminals of Yasukuni Shrine need to be delegitimized and condemned. Their presence on the shrine grounds cannot be tolerated and their immediate and complete removal is imperative towards creating a lasting peace in East Asia.

The Japanese must curtsy to the pressures from those affected by its wartime crimes.

Japan is a sovereign nation and does not have to perform such acts, however, she does owe her fealty to the victims of war crimes; this will be until those victims are ready to forgive. Any argument of self-determination does not play into the conventional intended definition of the term as defined by the UN Charter (1945). I have not been given reason where countries like China or South Korea would take advantage of the vulnerability that fealty bestows upon a state, however, if that happens then Japan will no longer owe allegiance to those countries. It is not Japan’s place to determine whether forgiveness has been granted upon itself, that is up to the victimized countries. Whether it will take another 80 years or even more, Japan must bow and continue to bow. While those Class-A war criminals remain there, I view it as an indefensible tribute to the worst of humanity.