“Chutzpah” in Korean = “막무가내”

North Korea, which is ironically quite fond of accusing South Korea of the “suppression” of its puppets in South Korea, is demanding that South Korea prosecute the activists who’ve resumed showering its countryside with anti-Kim Jong Il leaflets:

The chief delegate to inter-Korean military talks was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency that “South Korean organizations, swept by anti-communism, caused a disturbance by flying tens of thousands of leaflets from Paju, Gyeonggi Province on Jan. 1. “South Korean authorities have to immediately take steps against those conservative groups and punish the main culprits,” he said.

The Chosun Ilbo has some even better quotes:

He said, “The ‘people’s coalition for sending leaflets to the North,’ a federation of far right conservative groups, created another round of commotion by sending hundreds of thousands of propaganda leaflets to our side from the Imjingak Pavilion” in Paju, Gyeonggi Province on Jan. 1 in an “anticommunist frenzy.”

The North “will never tolerate the slightest acts undermining our leadership’s absolute authority and the socialist fatherland’s dignity, no matter how precious and urgent the improvement of North-South Korean relations is,” the message said. The North “must take a serious look at the provocative leaflet dissemination… instigated by South Korean authorities, which are leading inter-Korean relations to a confrontation behind our back while calling for dialogue and improvement of ties to our face,” it added.

President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008. Discuss among yourselves.

And of course, we know that Roh Moo Hyun was willing to do their bidding. During his term as President, North Korean puppets ran wild in the South and intimidated their opponents with violence — and even got government subsidies while they did it — while opponents of North Korea’s dictatorship were harassed and beaten up by state and non-state actors, who were almost never arrested or prosecuted for the actions.

I happen to agree that the South shouldn’t prosecute imbiciles like Shin Hae Chul especially when the marketplace of ideas could address this sort of stupidity so much more effectively with shame, satire, and ridicule. Sadly, people without (a) a sense that government should be restrained, (b) strong logical reasoning skills, or (c) a sense of humor tend to resort to petty despotism in the form of “human rights” commissions, “truth and reconciliation” commissions, national security laws, and anti-blasphemy laws. And if that can happen in supposedly libertine places like Canada, it’s a significant threat to free societies everywhere.

The North Korean Freedom Coalition supports the balloon launches. If you’d like to f^ ©k with Kim Jong Il’s blood pressure a little, you can contribute to them here. I would like to offer this humble suggestion: with the value of a Choco Pie approaching ten dollars on the black market in North Korea, I would propose carpet-bombing North Korea with them. Just imagine the headlines, and I don’t doubt that the Orion people would love to have their product enshrined in Korea’s history as an instrument of unification. It could be the most stunningly effective, legitimately subversive, and liberating guerrilla marketing campaign in human history. Hell, not even the soldiers ordered to gather them could resist eating one … and who could eat just one ChocoPie?