Kim Yo Jong, Brutus and all the Honorable Men

In 2014 the United Nations Commission of Inquiry reported on human rights in North Korea.  Amnesty International echoed the U.N. findings in its declarations about North Korea.  The abstract of these in-depth studies shows systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations committed by the government including murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortion, other sexual violence, and constituted crimes against humanity. 

According to CNN: “Kim Jong Un’s sister is stealing the show at the Winter Olympics” and CNN is an honorable news outlet.

On March 23, 2015 the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning human rights abuses in North Korea.  It’s findings stated that the government curtails all basic human rights, including freedom of expression, assembly, and association, and freedom to practice religion. It prohibits any organized political opposition, independent media, free trade unions, and independent civil society organizations. Arbitrary arrest, torture in custody, forced labor, and public executions maintain an environment of fear and control.

According to the Washington Post: “Kim Yo Jong is the Ivanka Trump of North Korea as she captivates people in the South at the Olympics.”  and the Washington Post is an honorable newspaper.

 North Koreans caught trying to reach South Korea are treated as enemies of the state and sent to political prison camps.  The government practices collective punishment for alleged anti-state offenses, enslaving hundreds of thousands of citizens, including children, in prison camps. Detainees face deplorable conditions, sexual coercion and abuse, beatings and torture by guards, and forced labor in dangerous and sometimes deadly conditions.

Yahoo calls Kim Yo Jong North Korea’s “political princess.” and Yahoo is an honorable outlet.

North Korean’s accused of serious political offenses are sent to political prison camps, known as kwanliso, operated by North Korea’s National Security Agency. These camps are characterized by systematic abuses, meager rations that imperil health and can lead to starvation, virtually no medical care, lack of proper housing and clothes, regular mistreatment including sexual assault and torture by guards, and public executions. Political prisoners face backbreaking forced labor, including in logging, mining, and agricultural.

The BBC describes “Kim Jong-un’s sister as ‘Sweet but with a tomboy streak'” and the BBC is an honorable broadcaster.

Crimes against the state include selling items produced in China, watching South Korean videos, failure to pay bribes, and shirking work at state-owned factories.  A significant number of North Koreans are required to work without pay at state-owned jobs (this is called slavery).  The United Nations estimates that there are 80,000-120,000 people (men women and children) imprisoned for political reasons in North Korea.  

The New York Times writes: “Her quietly friendly approach while in South Korea — photographers repeatedly captured her smiling — seemed to endear her to some observers,” and the Times is an honorable institution.

North Korean students are forced to work for free on farms twice a year, for one month at a time, during plowing and seeding time, and again at harvest time.  Students (aged between 10 and 16) must work every day to generate funds to pay government officials, maintain the school, and make a profit.  All North Korean families also have to send one family member for at least two hours per day, six days a week, to support local government construction or public beautification projects, like building structures, fixing roads, collecting raw materials like crushed stone, or cleaning public areas.

CNN commented: “If diplomatic dance were an event at the Winter Olympics, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister would be favored to win gold.” and CNN is an honorable reporter of the news.

If the media and the left are so eaten with blind hatred for our current administration, so intent on denying anything and everything “Trump” that they must lionize the factotum of the most repressive and inhumane dictator of our time, then they have no credibility with me.  They have not only lost my respect, they have lost their right to my respect.  But who am I to criticize.  After all, they are all honorable men. 

Recognize the Devil when you see her.  It will help you keep the faith.  

For those of you who remember your high school Shakespeare, here is Marc Antony’s funeral oration for Julius Caesar—a man assassinated by those who were sure they were his betters.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men–

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.
Julius Caesar  Act III Scene 2