Socialism in all its forms, communism, national socialism, democratic socialism, call it what you will, it always ends up in wealth and privilege for the ruling class and brutal repression of everyone else. History has always shown this to be the case, time and again, from the early days of Marxism in the nascent Soviet Union to places like North Korea today.
One of the keys to keeping the people repressed is to keep them ignorant. This, too, takes various forms: Government-controlled propaganda couched as countering "misinformation" or "hate speech," to punishing those who would dare to try to seek out forbidden information.
North Korea, that hermit kingdom, is a communist country inexplicably ruled by a hereditary monarchy. They are now taking that last item, punishment, to an extreme even for commies.
North Korea is carrying out arbitrary and brutally disproportionate punishments, including executions, against citizens caught watching South Korean television and other foreign media, an Amnesty International report released Wednesday says.
Based on interviews with 25 North Korean escapees, the report documents a system in which secret consumption of South Korean dramas and films is widespread but the consequences, ranging from public humiliation and years in labor camps to execution, vary depending on wealth and connections.
Did you catch that? Punishments vary depending on wealth and connections. In socialist systems, of course, the first derives from the second. Socialist systems invariably reward connections with wealth; it is what Ayn Rand called the "aristocracy of pull," and no more apt description was ever applied to these brutally repressive governments.
"These testimonies show how North Korea is enforcing dystopian laws that mean watching a South Korean TV show can cost you your life -- unless you can afford to pay," Sarah Brooks, deputy regional director of Amnesty International, said. "The authorities criminalize access to information in violation of international law, then allow officials to profit off those fearing punishment."
The report includes testimony from individuals who fled the isolated state between 2012 and 2020. Choi Suvin, 39, escaped in 2019 and said many North Koreans sell their homes to raise up to $10,000 to bribe officials and avoid harsh punishment.
What's really amazing here is that any North Koreans still actually own their own homes, or have anything to bribe an official with. The average personal income in North Korea amounts to $5 to $11 per month.
Meanwhile, dictator Kim Jong Un, that stunted little gargoyle with bad hair from a long line of stunted little gargoyles with bad hair who runs that country, is the only fat person in North Korea; the youngest Kim enjoys every luxury. This is always how it works.
"People are caught for the same act, but punishment depends entirely on money," she said.
Another escapee, Kim Joonsik, 28, was caught watching South Korean dramas three times before fleeing but received only warnings because his family had ties to officials. He said three of his sisters' high school friends were given years-long sentences in labor camps because their families could not afford bribes.
History, again, tells the tale: This is always how this develops.
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Socialism in all its forms always reduces to this: Brutal repression, forced ignorance, and punishment - unless one is connected or has some bribe money. Make no mistake: This is how things would be here if politicians like Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani got their way.
This is always how it works. Our main tool, at the moment, to oppose this? Our votes. Every vote, in every election. We are fighting against the kind of thing we are seeing in North Korea, the kind of things we saw in Cambodia, in Cuba, in Communist China, in the Soviet Union: Repression, pain, poverty, corruption, and despair.
It's happening in North Korea right now, people being tossed into gulags for watching a television drama. It will happen here unless we muster every vote, this November, and in every election to come.
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