You insinuate that I hold an attitude toward North Koreans that you do not, and that my position is so weak it's impossible to provide legitimate justification for it, so concocted fiction, or changed the subject, or ...
- piffle -
The ancients knew it as "cause and affect". There is no falsification whatsoever involved on my part here.
It is the DEPRIVATION that causes the ADVERSITY, in this case stunted growth. You call my mentioning North Korea's low standard of living a "straw man". But that is what CAUSES their diminished growth.
If you have a vocabulary preference to offer as substitute for the word "midget" I welcome any proposal you care to offer, and am prepared to endorse the substitution, if viable.
But yours is a distraction.
- The Kim Jong dynasty inflicts severe hardship on North Koreans.
- These hardships have manifest consequences, severely detrimental to North Koreans. If there's an alternate shade of lipstick you'd like to slap on that pig please be my guest. It changes nothing.
I've never been to North Korea. Have you?
I'm basing my comments on the picture I've assembled from numerous puzzle pieces from a variety of sources.
Does it surprise you that the human brain needs nutrition just as the rest of the human body does?
Does it surprise you that if their physical growth is so stunted North Koreans average inches shorter than South Koreans (in many cases their own blood kin) that both their brains (the organic manifestation) and their minds (mental capability) are compromised to comparable degree?
Do you dispute this? Based on what? If chronic malnutrition has no affect, why does the U.N. and other humanitarian organizations have food programs to feed the poor? Because they don't know where the yacht store is?
China has self-interest too, just as the U.S. has. Those specific self-interests between China and the U.S. may differ. That doesn't mean they don't have them.
And having an impoverished totalitarian dictatorship directly on China's own border is not a panacea.
SURELY China prefers North Korea to South Korea. North Korea functions as a buffer, a barrier between the appealing, attractive West, an embarrassment to China's leadership.
China could benefit if its North Korea problem were mitigated, or eliminated. BUT !!
China's politburo understands, ending the Kim Jong regime in North Korea might cause a flood of refugees. You understand that they understand that, right?
But you prefer to criticize me for stating this fact.
I didn't state this unassailed fact to exceed your comfort level.
I included it to demonstrate but one of the complications of bringing Western prosperity to this strife-soaked region. "Blame the messenger"?
Really ?!
I'll let the truth speak for itself. How can inerrant fact be pejorative?
It's absolutely true we don't know everything.
But we certainly know enough. If North of the DMZ were paradise why have tens of thousands of North Koreans risked their lives to escape it?
"Usually", so the Korean War was merely an exception?
"Usually" because for most of history North Korea has lacked nuclear weapons, and the intercontinental delivery systems to threaten the E.U., NATO, & etc with them.
Therefore "usually" doesn't apply anymore.
And it is exceedingly dangerous to allow nuclear weapons into the hands of such a monster. MAD doesn't work against suicidal / genocidal adversaries.
straw man
n.
1. An argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated.
[From the making of sham human figures out of bundles of straw, as for use as scarecrows or practice targets .] |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
You're both right. It's not factually incorrect. It's "attention getting". That's not incidental. It was emphatically deliberate. If you'll pardon a seemingly Christian tangent on my part (I am not Christian) North Koreans are humans, and in the humanitarian sense they are our brothers. Republicans whose noses are glued to FOX NEWS channel do so by their own choice. Difficult for me to harbor much pity for them. They're big boys & girls. If they want to change the channel, I think they can figure out a way.
The North Koreans can't just "change the channel". Their tragic plight so severe it stunts their growth leaves them very few options. Only a fortunate if tiny minority has escaped to more civilized, more hospitable territory.
What a pity madmen aren't confined to North Korea alone.
www.wsj.com
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