My argument is simple.

"Obligation" means something normative. It can not be tested empirically, so the debate is limited to personal sentiment.

Nations don't even have an obligation to their people. However, if a government fails to deliver public services to a level expected by the public, then that government will experience public discontent.

Need your cash Zarf!

> [TI] arsbury wrote:

> Need your cash Zarf!

Fine... sent...

Now back to North Korean ruler talk!

Why all the negativity about North Korea? After all, there are no Evil Oil Companies, no Big Pharmaceuticals in North Korea. There is no Wall Street, no Wal-Mart. There aren

I would rather die (no trolling) fat and happy rather than poor and starved.

I also want to live to the ripe age of 100 instead of perishing at 50 or younger.

So yes, I support Capitalism

Oh do not get me wrong! I am driving a semi (very hard work) for two reasons...

1) Politics run

2) to goto college and Uni and get a doctoral.

My Doctoral thesis will be on monopolies. I contend if it has a space or time aspect it is a monopoly. The chair you are sitting on is a monopoly since you must move before someone else can occupy that space. Your reading this post is a monopoly since I am taking your time.

Those simple monopolies (trolls aside) do you little harm. It is the far larger monopolies that do harm. I have identified five monopolies I am going to study (current ones) though I won't name them for political reasons (no need for a very powerful enemy right now).

I also publically voiced that AT&T should not be allowed to merge with T-Mobile on Anti-Trust issues. This is a formal political position as well.

I intend to try to draw up guidelines for identifying a harmful monopoly versus a neutral monopoly (there being no true helpful monopolies in my theory... except Marriage and Family).

I also intend to identify in my Doctoral Thesis methods for making harmful monopolies neutral, or how to break them up.

Trust me that I understand fully to well the power of monopolies. This line of thought has been going on for two years now... and will likely take ten more.

> ~Wornstrum~ wrote:

> Yes, so when you start to look at the nation and its history, how do you start to compare if a ruler is evil or not? I mean I too can name many things I would feel are evil, but since it is a sovereign nation it is not up to me to decide whether it is evil or not. I am not part of an independant impartial identity able to pass judgement, and I feel there would be few people, if any on earth, that would be capable of being completely impartial. Both you and I are using bias that we have developed through education, media, opinions. So we need to look at the people in North Korea, which do not consider their leader to be evil (due to brainwashing, which I still maintain exists in every society in the world).

First of all, I'm in partial agreement with Justinian, in that looking at any ruler as necessarily "good" or "evil" is probably a terrible idea, because the very notion is such a can of worms... and considering you've already started with the pre-supposition that no outside force can judge Kim Jong Il... considering propaganda does exist both ways, either you create a system in which evil does not exist because the evil are judged by the people they brainwash, or in which, in your own worldview, "evil" is a word without meaning, at which point you've just wasted all our time with this meaningless debate...

And on this brainwashing argument... okay, I'll agree that brainwashing does exist in every society, to a point.  That being said, there is one difference.  In western societies, conditioning does exist to train people in some level of patriotism, for example (pledge of allegiance at the beginning of the day).  However, as we grow older, we have the right to challenge that brainwashing.  If a piece of propaganda is hogwash, and we grow to try and understand the world, in doing so realize that item in question is a piece of propaganda which is hogwash, we have the legal right to reject that item as hogwash.  That legal right does not exist in North Korea.

That's the difference, and the reason you can't compare "brainwashing" in most societies with that of North Korea... because we have a right to reject the story, which is going to be critically important in actually identifying what is propaganda and what is the truth (it's easy to say everyone is subject to brainwashing if you don't actually take an effort to identify the propaganda, and just generalize... the moment you identify the propaganda, though, the propaganda has no power over you... freedom of speech is the effort to identify that propaganda).

> "The human rights record of North Korea is extremely hard to fully assess due to the secretive and closed nature of the country."

So we see 2 different types of North Koreans, those who love their, now former, leader, and those who are escaped refugees. Those who escape have every right to refer to him as evil, but I still think comparing him to the worst villians the world has seen is quite harsh considering his rights abuses are more about control than killing (you can't control a poulation if you kill everyone). People like Hilter are considered evil by the people he ventured out to massacre, and as such affects the international community.

Well, this is an interesting can of worms...

Okay, Wormstrum... what is allowed for the purpose of attempting to retain power?  Stalin literally killed 12 million of his own people in order to ensure the population were loyal.  In fact, the very argument which you use to justify North Korea would justify the Holocaust, as Hitler's whole story relied on the assumption that the Jewish population was subvertly controlling Germany.  Anyone remember the Somali warlord crisis with UN food aid?  Sounds similar to this.  If your own worldview means I can literally starve the population outside my most loyal fans without having any moral repercussions... you justify just about the worst dictators that have ever walked the planet, including the very people you point out to be the worst...

> Do not get me wrong, I do not agree with his actions, nor do I consider him to be a saint. My point is, he either needs to be judged by completely impartial group from a North Korean point of view. I also am hoping for peace to be maintained (oh how I am hoping, I don't need panic phone calls from my mum "Are you ok? I heard there is a civil war in North Korea")

I like how you do that...

1: I think he needs to be judged by an impartial group from a North Korean point of view.
2: Admitting that the North Korean government has brainwashed its people

If you admit to #2, then your entire argument is functionally bankrupt because an "impartial group" from a North Korean point of view wouldn't exist.  You're just using words that sound nice, but have no equivalent in real life.  Hell... jury selection should tell you this story!  Do you realize how much of a pain in the ass it was for lawyers to concoct an "impartial jury" in any number of high-profile cases, such as the Michael Jackson or OJ Simpson trials?  And you're trying to find an "impartial jury" in a nation... to judge its leader... yeah, this is just ridiculous...

> "Four non-parties to the treaty are known or believed to possess nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan and North Korea have openly tested and declared that they possess nuclear weapons, while Israel has had a policy of opacity regarding its own nuclear weapons program. North Korea acceded to the treaty in 1985, but never came into compliance, and announced its withdrawal in 2003."

As for the NPT, I do not think they are breaking any treaties by their possession, nor with their trading with Syria. Also if North Korea possessing nuclear weapons is evil, shouldnt the US also fall under the same scrutiny as North Korea for their possession? Lets have a look at the uses of nuclear weapons during war time...only the US has ever attacked with nuclear weapons. Cold War, places like Turkey housed nuclear weapons aimed straight at the Kremlin (rather aggressive position, not that the USSR was not aggressive also) but placing nuclear weapons near the US in Cuba was considered an act of war. As far as the threat of nuclear weapons, I feel more of a threat of their uses from the US than North Korea (and lets just say I am within striking distance of North Korean missiles). The whole "it's evil" is solely because other nuclear weapon holders do not wish North Korea to have them...which doesn't sit well with me.

1: The IAEA disagrees with you on your assessment of North Korea's legal status in the NPT.  http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/iaeadprk/dprk.pdf

As for Syria, yes, that's definitely a violation.  Pillar 3 of the NPT forbids transfer of nuclear technology unless it can be demonstrated that the technology is only for peaceful purposes.  Neither Syria nor North Korea allowed inspections or even made the facility known until after Israel bombed it.  So yes... they violated the treaty.

2: I never said the possession of nuclear weapons was evil.  Look back at my wording.  I specifically said the violation of the NPT was the problem, specifically because it created international security concerns.  Syria being the exact example of what kind of problems are created... when a nation is willing to transfer nuclear technology to increase the number of nuclear states from 9 to 10, 12, 15, etc., each nation holding the weapons is a new variable in retaining political stability with nuclear weapons... so even if each nation is run by rational individuals (and I do think Kim Jong Il was a rational individual in that he was motivated by real-world pragmatic concerns), added members to the "nuclear club" mean added potential for stolen nuclear weapons (especially among new proliferators), added potential for a particular region's conflicts to escalate, and added potential for accidental nuclear wars (the US and USSR literally almost started World War 3 over a weather balloon during the 1980's... it's a real threat).  So that's the goal in this... there is a real pragmatic goal in ensuring nuclear weapons are in as small an amount of people's hands as possible... it's not built in racism or fear of any particular nation...

>>> [TI] arsbury wrote:

> Need your cash Zarf!

Fine... sent...<<

How despicable! You totally caved to that OWS bullshit.  It's YOUR money, just becasue he THINKS he needs it is no reason to give it to him!

North Korea is interesting, as say a comparator with Cuba. Both are poor socialist (communist) regimes. However the key difference is their response to the 'western threat' to their regimes. Cuba has essentially taken a pacifist approach, invested what it has in education and its people. Ultimately regime change has not happened and if sanctions were not in place it would probably be a middle-income country.
North Korea has over invested in its military - perhaps, more legitimately, worriedher sovereignty is threatened by South Korea. Over time this over-investement in the military has possibly removed the power from the 'dictator' to the generals. Had the Kims exercised some foresight they should have reined in the military a decade ago - Bush's rhetoric on axis of evil and war on terror aside, the Americans' attention diverted from Korea in 2001. Buoyed by a rising China and a UN firmly against regime change, N Korea could have stuck (rather than twisted) in the nuclear and military game - and taken the opportunity to invest in the populace. Jong-un's position would then be far more stable and so would the region.

"Unchecked Capitalism is undesirable to live under, as are Totalitarianism and Communism."
Somebody took IA's account!

In any case, we could offer Kimjongson Iran if you want a king so badly. Just remember to give him a fancy name. Chairman is too old fashion so you could name him shah. Else you could go for the cheapest option, democracy, and have a new ally in the region instead of an unstable enemy ruling a another crackpot nation.

@justinian:
I was reacting to what you said.

"First, Reza Pahlavi can easily be elevated to his rightful place on the Persian throne, so concerning ourselves with establishing a democracy would be unnecessary. Moreover, Iran's economy is perhaps suited to a painless transition to a constitutional monarchy. Second, Iran has a near homogenous Shia population. By contrast, the Iraqi invasion provoked violence in Baghdad's streets due to the combination of political instability and the historical domination of the Sunni minority over the Shia majority."
I was pointing out there is little different between the great social state and a medieval monarchy. Nobility is called communist party. The king is called chairman and wields absolute power. The power structure is one pyramid. A lot of corruption, the people starve.

I was also pointing out most democracies don't compete violently with another during the last decades. Of course you can name a few exceptions or argue about the fact there is no "real" democracy, but the point still stands. Most incidents happen when one of the players involved is not a democracy.