I wasn't implying that we should nuke North Korea. I was saying that just killing Kim Jong-Un wouldn't solve the problem.

No, we shouldn't just slaughter his supporters. 

Ah yes, because a poor farmer trying to make ends meet is really planning to kill us! Unless you're talking about the regime, and my response is that while it'd be nice to overthrow the horrible regime and free the people, I'd be very suspicious of the intentions of those who are doing it.

They're growing increasingly desperate and rash for a reason. One need only watch the interviews and accounts of defectors to see why. Here's a great recent set of interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyqUw0WYwoc

One thing mentioned by a man who, at oldest, is a very young looking 40 year old, is that when he was younger people believed the world outside of North Korea was a capitalistic hellhole, and that those who defected were motivated by starvation. That first generation of defectors, though, lead to word-of-mouth information spreading back to North Korea revealing that China and South Korea were paradises in comparison.

They claim that people in North Korea are not nearly as brainwashed as we're lead to believe, can all think for themselves, and now all know that they're actually trapped inside the very hellhole they thought they were protected from. One mentioned that the thing they crave most is information about the outside world, and that korean pop music and soap operas are increasingly popular. Finally, defectors are now no longer motivated by starvation (they say outright starvation is no longer a threat), but instead defect in search of a better life.

Basically, the past 20 years have produced a population that simply cannot be contained long term within the system the Kim's have established, and there is widespread discontent with the situation. That, coupled with the US President actually being someone just as rash and not taking his shit as Kim Jong Un himself and China getting fed up with the regime as well, has the regime trying just about everything they can think of to regain some leverage.

There's already been coup/assassination attempts as well. Kim Jong Un's reign and the North Korean regime may not fall immediately, but they are certainly untenable and will become ever more so as time goes on. It would seem K-Pop and Plastic Water Bottles will do to North Korea what the Beatles and blue jeans did to the Soviet Union lol

Does it ever bother you that political movements which subscribe to some brand of your political philosophy so frequently result in brutal dictatorships?

It doesn't bother me because it's "some brand" of my political philosophy, it bothers me because they're brutal dictatorships. But I don't see where this is going, because there have been numerous brutal dictatorships allied with the United States, so does it bother you?

That does bother me, yes. International politics will always be a messy business, and the US has certainly performed some moral arithmetic throughout the years when balancing national agendas with morality (or frequently lack thereof). As far as international politics are concerned, there has never been a time in "civilized" human history where it was possible to simply play it nice and not associate with people you disagree with.

That's quite different than endorsing a political philosophy that encourages revolution which with rare exception results almost immediately in brutal dictatorships. Heck, even without a full revolution Chavez was able to end a democracy and ruin a national economy in just over a decade.

There's certainly nothing inherently "wrong" (as far as morality is concerned) in Marx's work, but it's been pretty well demonstrated by now that human nature in general renders its application almost impossible. Perhaps we can revisit it should we ever achieve unlimited, free, accessible energy, but for the time being it's just a great idea.

Anyway, I was just curious if you ever contemplate such things given how loudly you voice your support for such political philosophies and how ruthlessly you criticize everyone else. It just seems like there's a rational disconnect there.

This must be one of those blue moons or something. I actually agree with ya on something.

Yeah, Japan doesn't control the whole Sea of Japan, that's just the common name for it. As a matter of fact, both Koreas object to the name:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Japan_naming_dispute

I'll respond to this later when I'm more in a mood of doing so. As of now, this post is just a placeholder.