Tag: North Korea

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general freedom

Thank You, Anonymous Leaper

North Korea, escape, communism

I hope that the still-​anonymous North Korean refugee who jumped a three-​meter high, barbed-​wire fence a few weeks ago — details are just now emerging — has paused to thank himself for his daring and initiative.

Now is a good time to do it. Thanksgiving is an American holiday, but we’re happy to let others around the world borrow it for their own thanks-​giving purposes.

On November 3, a former 110-​pound, North Korean gymnast leapt over a ten-​foot fence in the demilitarized zone to reach South Korea.

The man has confirmed his story to the extent of proving his ability to leap tall barriers in a single bound in front of South Korean officials. He says he wants to defect.

I wish we knew more about him. But until I hear different, I’m going to assume that he is not a double agent. Just a guy who dislikes being oppressed and who wants a better life.

Every time a person leaps from totalitarianism to freedom, we should all be thankful. Here is someone who made it! This, despite pandemic-​incited lockdowns that have made it even harder to escape North Korea. His feat shows others stuck behind country-​wide prison walls that escape is still possible, even if few can do it the same way.

It also inspires those of us already on this side of the fence to keep working to preserve and expand the freedom, so often jeopardized, that we still enjoy.

Thank you, sir.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom international affairs

All Dogs Go to Heaven Early

dog, North Korea

In July, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un declared possessing pet dogs to be a “decadent trend” from the West.

Along with eating well and living without fear of one’s government.

Oh, not that last bit.

But, apparently — and there are many news stories, if not much exactitude or certainty — he did order all dogs confiscated. 

Why?

Well, reports vary. A search of DuckDuckGo will yield much speculation and a few sparse facts. 

A South Korean newspaper relayed a leak saying that Un called dog ownership “a ‘tainted’ trend by bourgeois ideology.”

How could dogs have been with us for tens of thousands of years, and may have been key to our species’ success, yet somehow now be “decadent” and “tainted” and “bourgeois”?

And, for that matter, a “trend.”

How many tens of thousands of years does it take to make a trend? On Twitter, it takes just a few minutes!

There is a lot of talk of a COVID-​19 famine (on top of the Kim Family Famine that has been trending for decades) and meat shortages. I’ve read reports that the dogs are to go to restaurants. And then there is the business about higher-​ups in the Hidden Kingdom’s un-​hidden but Un-​ridden hierarchy who have been taking advantage of a cultural loophole to display their status with expensive pet dogs from the West. 

Un prefers his displays of status, apparently, to be public executions and harsh and abrupt edicts … such as putting all dogs into execution chambers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom moral hazard responsibility

Kim Jong Un-civilized

North Korea, Kim Jong Un, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, China

The Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea isn’t.

That is, it isn’t democratic and it is not “the people’s” in any republican sense.

But it does exist … as the world’s most totalitarian dictatorship. A tyranny that would make the Pharaohs, Caesars, and Grand Poobahs of the ancient world wince in distaste.

Once dubbed The Land of the Morning Calm, North Korea is today the darkest place on Earth. Agitated, terrified — not calm.

In Pyongyang, the Seventh Worker’s Party Congress is going on, and Kim Jong Un, the nation’s tyrant, has laid out a blustery, challenging barrage of threats to the outside world, particularly South Korea and the United States, with 30,000 soldiers stationed on the peninsula.

Kim Jong Un has a new “five-​year plan,” and his foreign policy, though backed by nukes, doesn’t seem so much Stalinesque as Husseinish.

He threatens offensive action, raining down destruction against his enemies.

But he also says he’d only use nukes in defense. Plus, his capabilities are much doubted.

No wonder many analysts dismiss his talk as a cover to keep his people in line. And to worship him. The subject North Koreans are weak in the face of such monstrous tyranny, and the more Un “challenges” the world, the bigger and more impregnable he seems.

And yet, when one individual rides herd so cruelly on so many, there’s a certain … frangibility about the whole system.

I hope.

Like the late Saddam Hussein, Un’s braggadocio is a sign of weakness, likely designed to discourage more powerful nations — China, South Korea, and our country — from intervention.

And we shouldn’t intervene.

But neither should we make any more stupid deals to provide him oil.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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North Korea, Kim Jong Un, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, China

 

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