#7 I propose ye olde thought experiment.
How would folks feel about 2 people starving? Not 2 million, just 2. If you know about it and can do something, how is this any different? Is it about the numbers -- or the people?
How about if they were not on the other side of the planet? What if they were in the neighborhood, say, Mexico? Any difference because of geography?
How about 2 homeless folks on the streets of any large city - your city? Any difference because they might be someone you once knew personally -- or easily could be?
The key is that Kim Jong Il created this debacle. Mugabe. Darfur. Slightly less insane, since less man-made, we have Ethiopia, et al. And an endless stream of et ceteras.
Do we save the North Koreans? Do we save the Mexicans? Do we save the street people in LA? If we feed them today, have they been saved? What about tomorrow? They'll be just as desperate then. Send more food aid?
Responsibility is a cause=>effect chain - traceable. Feelings of responsibility, likely born of the fact that we recognize we can do something - irrespective of any consideration of whether we should, are another thing entirely - a very quirky sombitch.
I reiterate a similar point I've made before:
When 6 people die everyday in some strife-torn locale - day in, day out - the human interest folks of the MSM pay a little lip service, but no more. But if 60 people die at once - whoa - our broadcast news anchors are on the scene the next night. Why is that suddenly newsworthy? It happened in Sarajevo - and to this day, I still don't "get" why.
Logic fails to explain it for me - so it's gotta be something else. Propaganda? Disinformation? Selective sympathy?
This is insane. To save the NorKies is to hand those who created this unnecessary tragedy the power to repeat as desired. A one-trick pony. I've seen it, already. Hasn't everyone here? How will paying to see it again change anything? Isn't change the real answer? And what will change this situation for the better? Isn't THAT action the one we should pursue - even if it means not saving Kim Jong Il's people from Kim Jong Il?
In the here and now... Sometimes it can be a lousy world, but that's demonstrably only true, given available advances, because lousy people are allowed to live in it. |
North Korea's ultimate goal is a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and it would have no use for nuclear weapons if the United States were friendly, Pyongyang's top delegate to inter-Korean talks said Wednesday. "The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was the last will of (the late North Korean) president Kim Il-Sung and that's our ultimate goal," North Korean chief delegate Kwon Ho-Ung was quoted as saying during the talks. "If the US becomes amicable towards North Korea, we will have no reason to have a single nuclear weapon," he was quoted as saying by South Korean spokesman Kim Chun-Shick. North Korea's founding father Kim Il-Sung died in 1994, two years after an inter-Korean accord on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula came into effect.