[I]f Kim Il Sung had won the war, Korea today would not look like North Korea. I think it would still be a much less free and prosperous place than t… - Brian Reynolds Myers

While I too may be wrong about North Korea’s intentions, I’m neither lying nor guessing. Granted, it’s not easy figuring out what any country wants. America? Damned if I know anymore. The beginning of political wisdom is the recognition that no government’s discourse can be trusted. That goes also for the regime our softliners consider uniquely guileless. And the beginning of I.R. wisdom is the realization that foreign-service officials lie especially often. I had to laugh when I first heard of a news magazine called The Diplomat; it’s like calling a porn magazine The Prude.

[A] common chant during the candlelight demonstrations here last year was “The people are above the constitution,” a statement most Americans would have a problem with. The very proposal of a North-South confederation runs counter to the South Korean constitution, which does not recognize the dictatorship in the North at all.

[S]tart by reading Pareto; elites routinely do things that in retrospect look politically suicidal.