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The difference freedom makes

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By David from Truth, Justice, and the American Way,cross-posted by MetaBlog

From the Daily Mail: a photo of North and South Korea with commentary from Donald Rumsfeld:

the_difference_is_freedom.thumbnail.jpg

"It says it all. There's the south, the same people as the north, the same resources north and south, and the big difference is in the south it’s a free political system and a free economic system.

“The people in the north are starving, their growth is stunted. It's a shame, a tragedy."

An aide added: “This oppressive regime is too busy trying to make war to make life comfortable for its people.”

Some people have asked me about the city in my blog's header. It's Hong Kong. I didn't pick the image at random - the shining skyline represents one of the newly-created engines driving the world forward. My inner optimist wonders about the progress that economic freedom can bring, while my pessimist wonders at how far New York City has sunk in the mire of statism to lose that honor to Communist China. The trends are not evident to everyone yet - but will it be as clear as North and South Korea in 20 or 30 years?

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/002037.html

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Here's an article by Christopher Hitchens, describing something of North Korea, from a trip he made there in 2000.

We should just starve them out and watch KJI crumble to nothing. If they are doing so poorly despite importing our appeasement food-exports, I can't imagine it would take long after the pipeline stopped flowing. Do you really think China would be able to move quickly enough to bail them out?

-bob

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I have to say that softwareNerd's linked article made me really sad.

The image is incredible. Are these people passively accepting control by their own military? Is there any sign that some of them would revolt, if given the opportunity?

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Do you really think China would be able to move quickly enough to bail them out?
China is waiting for Kim to die so they can set up their own little Tibet syle "protectorate" in North Korea. The Chinese are a very patient people.

The image is incredible. Are these people passively accepting control by their own military? Is there any sign that some of them would revolt, if given the opportunity?

If they revole they get sent to some awful places. Those who hate living there would be better off running away to China rather then trying to go up against their Army.

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On a side note, I like what happened to Hitchens, from Chomsky's lapdog to key neo-con in 5 years.

Really? I've only just started to read things by him in the past year (linking from generally right-wing blogs). I had no idea he had made such a conversion in his thinking. Fascinating.

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In some odd ways he still it.

Hitchens came to my university to speak about the Arab-Israeli conflict last year. While discussing the political situation in Palestine he kept bringing up how there were Palestinian Socialist parties that were being disenfranchised by the Palestinian voting system of "first past the post".

He is a good, if at times somewhat strange, man.

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Are these people passively accepting control by their own military? Is there any sign that some of them would revolt, if given the opportunity?

People in a slave state don't think like we do. These people will never revolt, except perhaps as a spontaneous and futile mob. Without having values to strive for, people will not act. The Founding Fathers began the revolution over much less than we are subject to.

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