Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post

North Koreans are very sweet and gentle, idealistic and proud. And they are smart. Educated people there follow world events. After the Korean war, not a building was left standing in the major cities in North Korea. The US used every (now illegal) weapon under the sun against them. A whole generation grew up as orphans and the 50+ generation when I was there in 1990, ca, was full of cripples. Never seen anything like it.

For me, visiting North Korea was a turning point. I didn't want to go there, nobody cared about it at the time. It was just another socialist country, and they were very low on the cool destinations lists at the time. But my dad couldn't leave my brother and me alone in his flat in a certain other East Asian country where he was working. We were on summer hols from school and our mum was very sick. So we went along and spent almost 3 weeks there.

At the time, it was unlike any other place. I ended up really respecting the people there and what they were trying to achieve. They were taking after the USSR a lot, but they took their ideology seriously, real believers.

Obviously their human rights records leaves a lot to be desired and I think it's right to put strong pressure on them internationally to remedy that. But that is just a fraction of what the country is about. They are a country with a vision. Idealists beyond anything you ever saw.
There is no doubt it's demonized more than any other country. And the picture painted in media about NK is simply not true.

I have not visited Saudi Arabia or sub-Saharan Africa. Only seen it on TV and read about it.
But if the choice was between living in Saudi, sub-Saharan Africa or North Korea, I'd easily pick North Korea for several reasons. Also, North Korea is opening up and the living standards are going up considerably.
I know I will be attacked now, and trolled for presenting an alternative view on this, and perhaps for being heartless or stupid("North Korea has prison camps! You were fooled by propaganda!") But the US has the largest part of its population in prison internationally, and Russia still has labour camps to this day. Personally I prefer the Northern European prison system, but it's not an option for all countries.
So let him whose country is free of sin throw the first stone, huh?
NK is just a big nazi concentration camp. They still have that ideology that goes from Mao's cultural revolution in china, but north-koreans had added to it their juche-songun ideas. There was nothing like that in the USSR.

What about russian labor camps, ppl usually prefer to go there then to stay in prison cells. And I don't think the US system of private prisons is ever better then any labor camps.

North europain prison system is good (but the problem is that in europe is amazing level of mass media censorship so i'm afraid we don't know much about it). But the best prisons are in japan and singapore i think.


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