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Comment by talaketu | Hacker News Reader

> You can try to blame the regime; but really, this is the life that the generation in control during the Korean war chose

You are contradicting yourself.

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How so? The regime that is in place today is a result of all of the decisions that all the actors made before them, particularly during the events leading up to and during the Korean War. The primary actors dictating eventual outcomes were the North Koreans themselves. Their myriad choices led to the prison society they live in today.

Even a cursory Google search shows how false your assumptions are. There were many external factors which regular North Korean citizens had no control over. Most accounts of the 'origin' of North Korea involve to some degree the proxy war between USSR and USA in the aftermath of the Japanese invasion in Asia. I doubt very much that "regular" North Koreans had any say in how some foreign governments decided to divide up and control their land. Follow that up with a great deal of propaganda, and you have a massively uninformed (or misinformed) citizenry controlled by the state.

Sure, there were external forces at play. There always are. That doesn't negate the fact that they made their own decisions on where to take their society and those decisions were poor ones. As a counter example, I'd say that those who fled or chose to fight the Communist forces made good decisions, at least at a societal level.

Let's put it this way. If the Koreans who fought for Communism in the Korean War could see the situation today. If they could see the thriving success of South Korea vs the tyrannical poverty of North Korea.

Do you think they would change their decisions made during the war? Do you think they'd fight against Communism? I think a lot of them would. They had a chance to do something. They had a chance to battle their leaders and those external forces before the door shut on their ability to do much of anything. Now it's mostly too late. A system has been set up that takes all choice from them.

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