Uncle Roh Wants Your Help

The South Korean government has launched a new crusade against false information about Korea:

The Korea Overseas Information Service has announced another contest in which Internet users who report erroneous information about Korea that appears on foreign Web sites are eligible to win prizes.

The errors may be wide ranging, such as factual errors about the nation’s history and culture. The competition will kick off next month and continue through Dec. 10.

Allow me to be the first to offer my services by pointing out some of the anti-Korean slander that’s running rampant here in these United States today. First, a lot of Americans have heard that there are so many America-hating thugs in South Korea that it’s not safe for our soldiers to walk the streets.

I’ve even heard some suggest that the Korean government tolerates open discrimination against American soldiers, which simply couldn’t be true, given that South Koreans appreciate that those soldiers are the guarantors of their peace and prosperity.

And what are those soldiers there to defend? According to a few vicious rumors, the crushing of dissent. Rumor has it that pro-North Korean radicals have the run of the streets as they act as Kim Jong-Il’s enforcers in the South. I’ve heard that South Korea even uses its own cops to beat peaceful protestors against the concentration camps in North Korea, and that it bans movies and books that might offend Kim Jong-Il.

How do I know these things to be false? It’s very simple: Reductio ad absurdum. How could a country whose president is a human rights lawyer tolerate blatant discrimination, let thugs control the public discourse, and strangle free speech and expression?

I eagerly await the assistance of South Korea’s young digital patriots. Surely these slanders have unjustly sullied South Korea’s image as well.