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We have North and South Korea when the communist revolution succeeded in the north but not the South. In the U.S., West Virginia split off from Virginia when mo

by rsj_hn 5y ago

We have North and South Korea when the communist revolution succeeded in the north but not the South. In the U.S., West Virginia split off from Virginia when most of Virginia joined the confederacy but a part didn't. Civil Wars, partial rebellions, partial revolutions, are one the mechanisms of state formation.

pessimizer 5y ago
We have North and South Korea because of a US invasion, the massacre of tens of thousands of people in the South with any sort of left/social-liberal sympathies, and a fully fascist government propped up by the US that lasted until the 80s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilminism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilminism It's nothing to respect. The US is something to respect, because it's got a lot more economic and military power than poor backwards NK. Through the US, South Korea became a country. That's the mechanism of state formation. China doesn't bow to the US, so it's an entirely different dynamic. I say entirely different but the creation of Taiwan was a forceful takeover of an inhabited island by a retreating army who ruled with an iron fist. It was under martial law for 40 years. The nicest thing I hear people say about Taiwan is that it's 1) not China, and 2) not that oppressive anymore. The idea that China would suddenly respect that is weird. Plenty of people in Taiwan support unification. It also isn't like people who also wish to deal with China don't deal with Taiwan as if it were a country, they just don't call it one. It's like when they tried to call gay marriage "civil unions" in order to maintain the letter of homophobic policies while abandoning the substance.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > We have North and South Korea because of a US invasion No, this is demonstrably false. Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910. After the war, Korea was partitioned -- much like Europe -- with North Korea occupied by the Soviet Union and South Korea occupied by the US along the 38th parallel in 1945. Except the nature of the respective military presence was very different. The Soviet Union and China brought in large quanties of military equipment and troops, while actively supporting communist guerrillas in the South (but there were never more than ~5000 such guerillas). North Korea invaded the South on June 25, 1950 with ~200K troops and 75K PLA troops of Korean ethnicity, whereas the US had 2-300 troops in all of South Korea. The North attacked with 280 tanks furnished by the Soviet Union, whereas South Korea had no tanks, as the US refused to provide them with any prior to 1950. The North had 110 attack bombers, and 150 Yak fighter planes provided by the USSR. The US did not give any aircraft to the South, and there were only 22 aircraft in the South. The US had basically a token military presence in South Korea as it was not interested in either invading the North or building military bases in the South. You can read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Prelude_to_war_(1950) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Prelude_to_war_(195... To call this a "US invasion" is absurd. Moreover, somehow trying to make this about the boogeyman of "fighting fascism" or even "civil unions" is bizarre -- what is the state of civil unions in North Korea or China? What is the state of freedom of expression? Or freedom of religion? If you are going to be using words like "fascist", then they are much better applied to North Korea or China than to South Korea or Taiwan. Please don't spread this type of disinfo on public forums.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    >To call this a "US invasion" is absurd A US invasion to prop up the Rhee government that massacred leftists is the only reason there isn't a unified Korea under North Korean rule. You can argue that's a good thing, but trying to claim the US did not invade is absurd. And on the fascist bogeyman parts, any improvement in those areas happened in South Korea and Taiwan rather recently, in the past thirty years or so.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      The treatment of communist guerillas by the South Korean government was substantially more humane (and far less bloody) than the treatment of civil society by the military junta ruling North Korea up to and including the leadership of Kim Tu-bong, who was himself dissapeared by Kim Il Sung in 1949. The problem here is that the hard-left stalinist policies that were widespread in the 30s-50s (and imitated by Mao) required a whole-scale attack on civil society: * forced collectivization of agriculture * attacks on schools, press, and bringing all instutions under the control of the party functionaries * execution of monks, priests and missionaries and destruction of all religious organizations * seizure of all private property. Enforcing something like that requires a very bloody attack on the entire civil society: "Concentration camps came into being in North Korea in the wake of the country's liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II. Those persons considered "adversary class forces", such as landholders, Japanese collaborators, religious devotees and the families of people who migrated to the South, were rounded up and detained in large facilities. Additional camps were later established in the late 1950s and 60s in order to incarcerate the political victims of power struggles along with their families as well as overseas Koreans who migrated to the North. Later, the number of camps saw a marked increase with the cementing of the Kim Il Sung dictatorship and the Kim Jong-il succession." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concentration_and_internment_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concentration_and_inte... You can argue that Stalinist dictorships destroying civil society are a good thing, but trying to claim that the US "invaded" South Korea with 300 troops is absurd. > any improvement in those areas happened in South Korea and Taiwan rather recently, in the past thirty years or so. There was no period of time in which North Korea was more free or respectful of human nature than the South, as evidenced by people continuing to flee to the South from the North, which is why the North had to build walls to keep people in. It is because the government of the South did not launch a wholescale attack on human nature and provided more freedom than the North that it could evolve in directions that promoted greater individual liberty over time, whereas the North remained mired with famines, collectivization insanity, and repression.
- int_19h 5y ago
  Korean War was a military operation authorized by UN. Calling it a "US invasion" is rather a stretch, especially considering that it was the North's invasion of the South that triggered the war.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    It was a US invasion. It was only authorized by the UN because Russia boycotted the UN due to it's refusal to accept China's new government. The war was started by North Korea, but the US definitely invaded North Korea in the war and preceded to burn down every town in the entire country.
- type0 5y ago
  > It was under martial law for 40 years. The nicest thing I hear people say about Taiwan is that it's The nicest thing I can say about Taiwan an White Terror is that it gave us this horror game called Detention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_(video_game) Now it's even made it into a movie https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/detention-movie-review-2021 https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/detention-movie-review-20...

by rsj_hn 5y ago

pessimizer 5y ago

We have North and South Korea because of a US invasion, the massacre of tens of thousands of people in the South with any sort of left/social-liberal sympathies, and a fully fascist government propped up by the US that lasted until the 80s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilminism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilminism It's nothing to respect. The US is something to respect, because it's got a lot more economic and military power than poor backwards NK. Through the US, South Korea became a country. That's the mechanism of state formation. China doesn't bow to the US, so it's an entirely different dynamic. I say entirely different but the creation of Taiwan was a forceful takeover of an inhabited island by a retreating army who ruled with an iron fist. It was under martial law for 40 years. The nicest thing I hear people say about Taiwan is that it's 1) not China, and 2) not that oppressive anymore. The idea that China would suddenly respect that is weird. Plenty of people in Taiwan support unification. It also isn't like people who also wish to deal with China don't deal with Taiwan as if it were a country, they just don't call it one. It's like when they tried to call gay marriage "civil unions" in order to maintain the letter of homophobic policies while abandoning the substance.

rsj_hn 5y ago
> We have North and South Korea because of a US invasion No, this is demonstrably false. Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910. After the war, Korea was partitioned -- much like Europe -- with North Korea occupied by the Soviet Union and South Korea occupied by the US along the 38th parallel in 1945. Except the nature of the respective military presence was very different. The Soviet Union and China brought in large quanties of military equipment and troops, while actively supporting communist guerrillas in the South (but there were never more than ~5000 such guerillas). North Korea invaded the South on June 25, 1950 with ~200K troops and 75K PLA troops of Korean ethnicity, whereas the US had 2-300 troops in all of South Korea. The North attacked with 280 tanks furnished by the Soviet Union, whereas South Korea had no tanks, as the US refused to provide them with any prior to 1950. The North had 110 attack bombers, and 150 Yak fighter planes provided by the USSR. The US did not give any aircraft to the South, and there were only 22 aircraft in the South. The US had basically a token military presence in South Korea as it was not interested in either invading the North or building military bases in the South. You can read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Prelude_to_war_(1950) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Prelude_to_war_(195... To call this a "US invasion" is absurd. Moreover, somehow trying to make this about the boogeyman of "fighting fascism" or even "civil unions" is bizarre -- what is the state of civil unions in North Korea or China? What is the state of freedom of expression? Or freedom of religion? If you are going to be using words like "fascist", then they are much better applied to North Korea or China than to South Korea or Taiwan. Please don't spread this type of disinfo on public forums.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  >To call this a "US invasion" is absurd A US invasion to prop up the Rhee government that massacred leftists is the only reason there isn't a unified Korea under North Korean rule. You can argue that's a good thing, but trying to claim the US did not invade is absurd. And on the fascist bogeyman parts, any improvement in those areas happened in South Korea and Taiwan rather recently, in the past thirty years or so.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    The treatment of communist guerillas by the South Korean government was substantially more humane (and far less bloody) than the treatment of civil society by the military junta ruling North Korea up to and including the leadership of Kim Tu-bong, who was himself dissapeared by Kim Il Sung in 1949. The problem here is that the hard-left stalinist policies that were widespread in the 30s-50s (and imitated by Mao) required a whole-scale attack on civil society: * forced collectivization of agriculture * attacks on schools, press, and bringing all instutions under the control of the party functionaries * execution of monks, priests and missionaries and destruction of all religious organizations * seizure of all private property. Enforcing something like that requires a very bloody attack on the entire civil society: "Concentration camps came into being in North Korea in the wake of the country's liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II. Those persons considered "adversary class forces", such as landholders, Japanese collaborators, religious devotees and the families of people who migrated to the South, were rounded up and detained in large facilities. Additional camps were later established in the late 1950s and 60s in order to incarcerate the political victims of power struggles along with their families as well as overseas Koreans who migrated to the North. Later, the number of camps saw a marked increase with the cementing of the Kim Il Sung dictatorship and the Kim Jong-il succession." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concentration_and_internment_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concentration_and_inte... You can argue that Stalinist dictorships destroying civil society are a good thing, but trying to claim that the US "invaded" South Korea with 300 troops is absurd. > any improvement in those areas happened in South Korea and Taiwan rather recently, in the past thirty years or so. There was no period of time in which North Korea was more free or respectful of human nature than the South, as evidenced by people continuing to flee to the South from the North, which is why the North had to build walls to keep people in. It is because the government of the South did not launch a wholescale attack on human nature and provided more freedom than the North that it could evolve in directions that promoted greater individual liberty over time, whereas the North remained mired with famines, collectivization insanity, and repression.
int_19h 5y ago
Korean War was a military operation authorized by UN. Calling it a "US invasion" is rather a stretch, especially considering that it was the North's invasion of the South that triggered the war.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  It was a US invasion. It was only authorized by the UN because Russia boycotted the UN due to it's refusal to accept China's new government. The war was started by North Korea, but the US definitely invaded North Korea in the war and preceded to burn down every town in the entire country.
type0 5y ago
> It was under martial law for 40 years. The nicest thing I hear people say about Taiwan is that it's The nicest thing I can say about Taiwan an White Terror is that it gave us this horror game called Detention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_(video_game) Now it's even made it into a movie https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/detention-movie-review-2021 https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/detention-movie-review-20...