The Way of Cake is mysterious and paradoxical. A master of the Way can make his neighbors feel they have filled themselves with tasty cake without ever cutting off a piece. The Way allows its disciple to step outside the boundaries of rational thought by partaking of cake while continuing to possess cake.
The Zen of having your cake and eating it too can sometimes seem to be a feature of the Japanese legal system. The rule of law applies, though it is sometimes hard to know what the law actually is. There is a Constitution that protects people from the government — except when the government finds this inconvenient — as well as a criminal justice system founded on the presumption of innocence, but which manages to find pretty much everyone guilty anyways (because prosecutors only ever prosecute people who are actually guilty, you see).
Yet it is in Japan's most recent responses to growing pressure to join the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction that the Way of Cake may be demonstrated in its purest form.
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