Fantastic article, Calin. Not only was the piece short&sweet, it flowed intelligently like blood letting in a NK reform school. We would hope that the evolution of democracy from theism of the Egyptians would be passed us. As an American, I can't sit on our gov't's Democratic laurels. Instead of stopping our government's growth in its tracks like North Korea and usher in the 2nd Hermit Kingdom, we have devolved democracy into mob-o-cracy with the help of the internet and fake news. The reason Jefferson created a representative government by "intelligent" men rather than let the hicks vote, was to avoid exactly what is happening to our news and source of truth. The lowest common denominator rules our Oval Office now. He is a reflection of our divided country slipping toward Mobocracy.

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Instead of evolving Democracy upward in a hierarchy-free governance systems (.https://fee.org/articles/the-evolution-of-governance-in-9), we have let the people speak loudly. Like Advertisers and Children, we can't get the unruly cat in the bag. And you know in high school, who hits the hardest and loudest in a classroom of well-behaved children. The CoViD-19 pandemic is a reflection that we still cherish our borders and fear our neighbors 2500 years after the birth of democracy.

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I applaud Kim Il-Sung for the spirit of his dictatorship to preserve his culture from White Colonialism & Consumerism, but I've wouldn't turn off WiFi and kill generations of families for an innocent crime if I was dictator 1 day. I hope. Power is so sexy like the after-life.

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At least, after the death of Kim Jong-il, the constitution was amended in 2012, declaring him Eternal General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission. (Taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_leaders_of_North_Korea)stages/