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[Starver]

And then fire himself?

(Or maybe set fire to himself, through the infinite internal friction..?)

[smjjames]

Ouch, China gave quite the rhetorical backhand to Trump's tweets. Can't conduct diplomacy that way, yo!

[martinuzz]

Ouch, China gave quite the rhetorical backhand to Trump's tweets. Can't conduct diplomacy that way, yo!

Good to see at least China is still seeing clearly.

[Egan_BW]

"Making china take away NK's nukes" is on par with "Making mexico pay for the wall".

[Greiger]

Yea as much as we hear the story about how buddy buddy china and NK are I don't think NK is going to care how much china asks nicely for them to stop being nucking futz. 

NK believes that having nukes is going to be the only thing that keeps them from being invaded by someone tired of their shit, and to be perfectly honest they may be right.  A large chunk of what other countries are getting tired of is their nuclear program admittedly, but that is hardly the only thing they could potentially get invaded over.

NK seems to be the guy at the party that's all like "Well I already got drunk and pissed in the dishwasher for everyone to see, I might as well start waving my homemade blunderbuss around so that none of the wanna be cops at the party with glocks feel safe escorting me off the premises."

[Ghills]

And I get really tired of talk about the left engaging in violence.  The only reason the right's violence isn't gossiped about the same way is because it's been normalized for most of USA history.  Maybe controversial, but it's not news.  Often carried out by institutions, not mobs.

What right wing institutions? The KKK?

Nationalist / skinhead gangs, of which the KKK is pretty visible but not that prominent. The police (often a significant overlap with nationalist or racist organizations). NRA. A lot of the right-wing nonprofit 'think tanks' tacitly condone violence and funnel money or attention to groups who are open hate groups.  If a group is talking about preserving 'American cultural heritage' in the South or rural areas, they're very likely part of the problem.

Then there's the low-level unorganized violence that happens to homosexuals, minorities and women in rural or deeply conservative areas. In southern rural areas it's often supported by local law enforcement tacitly looking the other way because they're in the same clubs and churches as the perpetrators. In more urban areas, things escalate to actual corruption and racial targeting by the cops (ex: Ferguson, Baltimore).

In significant chunks of the US, news that a gay or minority person got beat up enough to be hospitalized or killed is just business as usual.  A shocked, shocked! news article gets published in a local paper and everyone loses interest. Ditto for a woman getting violently raped or beaten by her boyfriend. Date rape is only barely starting to be acknowledged as a potential problem and not nasty sluts getting what they deserve for getting drunk.  Violence is just a normal part of life, and no one thinks anything of it or talks about it.

[Trekkin]

NK believes that having nukes is going to be the only thing that keeps them from being invaded by someone tired of their shit, and to be perfectly honest they may be right.

In a purely military sense, perhaps, in conjunction with the artillery batteries they've dug into the mountains and pointed at Seoul.

However, I would argue that their greatest endogenous defense against invasion is the people. Any state that elects to invade North Korea is going to inherit a humanitarian crisis in the form of twenty-five million people suffering from chronic malnutrition and medieval levels of access to health care. The infrastructure to feed, clothe, treat, and house them to anything that Western observers would call a reasonable standard is just not there -- and that's not even touching on how long it would take to educate them into being able to work in a modern economy.

Even if that were doable (and it's a billion-dollar, multi-decade proposition), that assumes that the people would not resist despite being conditioned to do so and that whichever state was doing the invading could successfully navigate the loss of the buffer between South Korea and China amidst a welter of military vehicles scurrying across the country building things.

Simultaneously solving the many crises that will succeed the current regime is theoretically possible, even unilaterally, but it does not seem likely to be politically preferable to allowing them to continue, at least in the near term.

[Lord Shonus]

NK believes that having nukes is going to be the only thing that keeps them from being invaded by someone tired of their shit, and to be perfectly honest they may be right.

In a purely military sense, perhaps, in conjunction with the artillery batteries they've dug into the mountains and pointed at Seoul.

However, I would argue that their greatest endogenous defense against invasion is the people. Any state that elects to invade North Korea is going to inherit a humanitarian crisis in the form of twenty-five million people suffering from chronic malnutrition and medieval levels of access to health care. The infrastructure to feed, clothe, treat, and house them to anything that Western observers would call a reasonable standard is just not there -- and that's not even touching on how long it would take to educate them into being able to work in a modern economy.

Even if that were doable (and it's a billion-dollar, multi-decade proposition), that assumes that the people would not resist despite being conditioned to do so and that whichever state was doing the invading could successfully navigate the loss of the buffer between South Korea and China amidst a welter of military vehicles scurrying across the country building things.

Simultaneously solving the many crises that will succeed the current regime is theoretically possible, even unilaterally, but it does not seem likely to be politically preferable to allowing them to continue, at least in the near term.

I read somewhere that the current US/ROK "plan" for dealing with North Korean civilians in the event of reunification is to consider anybody over 35 or so to be "unsalvagable" and provide them with makework while educating the younger generation.

[Neonivek]

Date rape is only barely starting to be acknowledged as a potential problem and not nasty sluts getting what they deserve for getting drunk.

I am pretty sure this narrative doesn't fly. The reason that it hasn't been "acknowledged" is because it is a lot more nuanced then it is on the surface. Dating culture includes the consumption of alcohol and that is an accepted aspect of it. So when people hear of a woman who went to a bar, gets bought a drink, meets a guy, keeps drinking, and discovers that she slept with him... The immediate response a normal person has isn't that something fishy went on. It is entirely up to the person who sees the situation to believe that either the man intentionally liquored her up to sleep with her... OR if the woman knew what she was getting into and is only now having second thoughts. They are not required to take either person's side (Though I wish society wouldn't harass either party. Hence why I believe in the media blackout proposal)

The acknowledgement you are referring to is more outright hysteria to the point where men actually have started to go to bars in pairs or other witnesses BECAUSE of this hysteria. Or outright hoops created that men have to go through to receive affirmation (No means no, maybe means no, yes ALSO means no. You need to ask a woman at minimum two times and she must enthusiastically say yes twice)... Or the whole "Teach men not to rape"

Since even before now people were quite aware of things like Date Rape.

 

Violence is just a normal part of life, and no one thinks anything of it or talks about it.

That isn't accurate either. People are in fact OVERLY concerned about violence (How many riots have there been in the last year as protest against violence?). There are three main sources of this "No one talks about it"
-1) People are beaten down by the enormity of the problem and the glacial resolution of it.
-2) The definition of violence has been watered down as an attempt to get people interested in ANYTHING!
-3) People aren't in the frontier and often have no affect over it.

As for an ordinary part of life... Yeah, mostly because it is. It is an ordinary part of life that one should expect happens even in the greatest societies because outside a technological solution there is no way to stop violence entirely. If everyone got really angry every time it happened they would be dysfunctional. That is why people constantly tell people that the murder rates are going down. Not as a way to accept the murders that occur, but that a measured response is required.

---

There is a difference between a moderate response and outright hysteria.

[SalmonGod]

And I get really tired of talk about the left engaging in violence.  The only reason the right's violence isn't gossiped about the same way is because it's been normalized for most of USA history.  Maybe controversial, but it's not news.  Often carried out by institutions, not mobs.

What right wing institutions? The KKK?

Funny you mention the KKK.  I live in Indiana.  The KKK WAS LITERALLY OUR GOVERNMENT in this state for much of its history.

Joe Arpaio was mentioned just a little ways up on the same page.  Are you aware of the kind of shit he's known for, while acting as the head of law enforcement over an entire county for 23 years?

But no... it's the left that's violent, because someone got hit with a bike lock.

[smjjames]

And I get really tired of talk about the left engaging in violence.  The only reason the right's violence isn't gossiped about the same way is because it's been normalized for most of USA history.  Maybe controversial, but it's not news.  Often carried out by institutions, not mobs.

What right wing institutions? The KKK?

Funny you mention the KKK.  I live in Indiana.  The KKK WAS LITERALLY OUR GOVERNMENT in this state for much of its history.

Joe Arpaio was mentioned just a little ways up on the same page.  Are you aware of the kind of shit he's known for, while acting as the head of law enforcement over an entire county for 23 years?

But no... it's the left that's violent, because someone got hit with a bike lock.

The Right aren't saints either. No group or political spectrum has a monopoly on violent things. Just because some people on the Right are violent doesn't mean that ALL of the Right are violent, same goes for the Left wing.

[Frumple]

... in any case, in other news we appear to have a FBI director again. Christopher Wray, it seems. Can't recall much about him save something with christie, at th'mo', but I guess it's maybe better than not having one.

[Neonivek]

... in any case, in other news we appear to have a FBI director again. Christopher Wray, it seems. Can't recall much about him save something with christie, at th'mo', but I guess it's maybe better than not having one.

So, is this one calling off the investigation or neutering it? Because that is specifically what the new director is likely hired for.

[Frumple]

Hell if I know. He testified to the confirmation hearing critters that he'd push back or resign if pressured to drop the investigation, but what that's worth is anyone's guess until it's tested (or caught).

[smjjames]

... in any case, in other news we appear to have a FBI director again. Christopher Wray, it seems. Can't recall much about him save something with christie, at th'mo', but I guess it's maybe better than not having one.

So, is this one calling off the investigation or neutering it? Because that is specifically what the new director is likely hired for.

We probably won't really know. He did promise to keep the FBI independent and seems like a legit guy with integrity. The problem is that he's been tainted by the circumstances.