Not to say they're a perfect country but to pretend that anyone in the West can critique them when their material conditions are dictated by the actions of the West is just comical.

If you aren't a materialist, what are you even doing? As if history happens in the realm of pure thought.....

[–] Sekoia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The material conditions forcing North Korea to make work camps

Bugger off, tankie

[–] TrashcanMarxist@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Something something worlds largest prison population?

Again, it's not like North Korea is some shining example or anything, but to pretend that the west has the moral high ground here is laughable.

Again, listen to Blowback Season 3, recognize that their country was basically bombed to the stone age Curtis le may style and then maybe reevaluate, just a little, the chauvinist attitude.

DPRK is not a great country but it's not as if they were ever given a chance either.

[–] Sekoia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, the US prison system is absolutely abhorrent and counterethical to all the principles it's supposed to hold.

First, the US is basically the only western country like that:tm:, second, more than one thing can be bad. "'North Korea is a great country' is a dumb position", the only (implied) assertion I made about it in my original comment, is still true, even if they got dealt a shit hand (which, so did most of the east after WW2; South Korea was in a pretty similar state (it was actually worse than NK shortly after the Korean war), yet they're doing... much better than NK at least).

Being "basically bombed to the stone age" doesn't mean a dictatorship is inevitable, nor that their government is suddenly blameless; being victimized doesn't mean you can victimize others.

Genuinely, if you take "the west" as a whole and compare it to North Korea... yeah, I do think they have a high ground. No, I'm not saying the west is perfect, far from it. No, I'm not saying communism is automatically bad, I'm totally cool with communists.

Basically my base position is "a functional democracy is the governance system that works the best". Most western states are much closer to that than North Korea (yes, I know what the Electoral College is and why it's bad), so I do think their political system is better.

[–] RedMarsRepublic@vlemmy.net 2 points 1 year ago

All of the so called 'functional democracies' of the West are abysmal, China has 94% government satisfaction where I doubt there's one western country over 50% (and the US is at 24%)