Talk:North Korea/Archive 4

message: Please add.
:Im not sure if in modern terms we still talk about "dictatorships", over the past years it has becomed an insultive term to describe a goverment that oposed another country. One thing to be noted is that perhaps this is the first hereditary communist goverment in history.
::Totally agree with you; North Korea is only a communist single-party state, and not a dictatorship. Wikipedia itself states that a dictator is "an absolutist or autocratic ruler that governs outside the constitutionally normal rule of law through a continuous state of exception", and as far as I know Kim Jong-Il is neither offending North Korea's socialist constitution nor laws with his government. And nevertheless: is North Korea on a state of exception? obviously not. --Nkcs 02:57, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Those are completely different complaints, whether or not "we still talk about dictatorships" (this is absurd, I don't know anyone who doesn't know what that word means or who refuses to use it), and whether or not North Korea is a dictatorship. If it's not technically considered one, it's only because the great leader hands down what the law will be, and the legislature rubber stamps it. "Hereditary communist goverment?" --70.142.40.34 22:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: North Korea's government is based on a personality-cult surrounding Kim Jong-Il (and his father before him), who is portrayed in godlike terms to the people which certainly allows it to classify as a dictatorship, to say the least.  --The Way 07:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It's a dictatorship by definition in contemporary meaning.. basically it means they aren't accountable to anyone.. and if you're insulted by the term that's because you run one and have been found wanting - welcome to wikipedia Mr Jong-Il
North Korea IS a dictatorship whether you like it or not. If any country in the entire world is a dictatorship, North Korea is. Why? Because Kim Jong Il is answerable to no one, and his word is all that is needed to make or break any given individual. Just because you happen to like a country doesn't mean it's not a dictatorship.
You're making an utterly unsupported claim, just because the DPRK's enemies refer to it as a dictatorship does not mean it is one in any more meaningful way than other states.  Wikipedia requires a neutral point of view and to call something a 'dictatorship' is to attack it from a specific political angle, against the government of the DPRK.  Kim Jong Il is not "answerable to no one", he is just one of several of the top leaders, his actual legal authority is less than that of most western leaders as he has no ability to preside over the Supreme People's Assembly, the DPRK's top elected legislative body, and he has no ability to conduct foriegn affairs on behalf of the DPRK, that is the responsibility of the Assembly President Kim Yong Nam (no relation).  The American point of view has always been to personify governments as if they're run by a single person when, like all large institutions, they are in fact run by many many people who have multiple power bases and internal politics every bit as complicated as in the West, to assume this is not the case is pure american-centric bais.  NoJoyInMudville 21:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Note: Removed tinyurl links so that the page is editable again... --Reuben 00:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Dictatorship?

message: Any suggestions as to what statements in particular need to be sourced in the Government section? Might make tracking down citations easier... crazyeddie 07:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What needs to be citied in the Government section?

message: While the article definitly needs some cleaning, I don't see any major NPOV concerns at present. Does anybody have any particular NPOV issues they want to point out, or can we replace the NPOV notices with cleanup ones? crazyeddie 20:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No objections here. At the very least two aren't needed.--Planetary 05:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV -> Cleanup?