The question is what happens after he passes. It's speculated that government might not fall to one of his sons, as none of them have ever really been groomed for the job. The fear is that the military might take over.

there's another fear here in South Korea though. The fear that tensions might one day be resolved and Korea will reunite, resulting in South Korea's money flowing north and North Korea's poor fleeing south. Of course I'm not suggesting South Koreans would rather that North Korea rots in dictatorship hell, but it's not hard to foresee a repeat of the East/West Germany unification.

and it will be far worse than East/West Germany

^^ Yup

Apparently you don't get where Akuma is coming from.

Akuma is a far left Liberal. This means American is the bad guys, and all of our enemies are just misunderstood.

It will be interesting when Liberals control all of Washington. Who will they now blame?

From what I have observed from Akuma, I would not make the assertion that he is a far-left liberal. He simply understands that there are reasons other nations oppose us...reasons other than the US being a nation of freedom and liberty. I understand such nuance in assessing the situation will make unflinching patriots (such as you) uncomfortable. It is, however, an assessment steeped in reality if we accept the fact that we cause some of our problems.

Even if they did, why is it our problem?  Who appointed us as the world police?

You always complain about the government being a nanny state and taking wealth from the rich and giving it to the poor, so why should the government be a nanny to other countries and take my money and spend it to protect them?  Isn't that infringing upon my rights as a citizen?

Of course realmafoo wouldn't actually respond to my post...

lol, when have I shied away from a post?

Yes, when the government spends money not to protect you, it infringes on your rights. Glad we both agree. I am very much against the War in Iraq. We never should have gone in. I am not for the US policing the world. Never have been.

But we are, by far, the most powerful country in the world and we don't expand. When in history has a country not used there power to get bigger? Never.

We spend billions developing and deploying smart weapons. Weapons that can take out a building and leave everything around it intact. We do this because countries we are at war with like to put military targets next to school children and hospitals. When they do that WE do what we can not to destroy them, yet we are the evil ones. No other county in the world would give a shit. They would just bomb the hell out of the area. 

When we do attack unprovoked (a bad thing), we end up leaving the place better then we entered it. We are trying to do that in Iraq, but some want us to just leave. Fuck the people there. That doesn't sound very compassionate coming from the party that's supposed to be all about compassion.

But what in this thread is about us spending money? It's about removing North Korea from out terrorist list. You say it like they are not longer a country of evil. To you, that title seems to belong to us exclusively.

Yes, we cause some of our problems. To some people, we cause all of our problems. To them, the rest of the world is generally good, and we screw it all up.

That's so far from the truth it's ridiculous.

And many other times as well :D