North Korea Issue

North Korea: an International Laughing Stock or a Moral Calamity?

By: 991192092

English 102

Just last year a popular satirical news host, Bill Maher, made the joke "I want Kim Jong Un to test a missile because it’s always a spectacular disaster. He’s the only Asian in the world that doesn’t test well." (Maher) most will laugh at this joke or find it mildly humorous; however there seems to be something fundamentally wrong with laughing at such a joke. February 12, 2013 is the day the North Korean, or DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea), regime tested their most recent nuclear device, an underground miniaturized 7.8-kiloton device that created a 5.1 magnitude earthquake. This was the DPRK’S third test of this kind in seven years. The amount of money that would go into researching and developing a device of that magnitude is estimated to have been in the billions of dollars (US). This may seem like it would be commonplace, for a country such as the United States where government spending is rampant and there is a highly advanced and nuclear capable military. However, we are talking about North Korea, a country who constantly needs international food aid, yet they spend billions of dollars on their nuclear program even though they can’t feed their own people. What has always intrigued me about this topic is why the west, and specifically Americans have turned North Korea into a laughing stock in popular culture, while their nation starves. Why is it that when it comes to humor our developed civilizations so full of themselves and make fun of people that are less fortunate than them. We laugh and laugh, but do we really understand what is wrong with this in terms of morality, what is really happening, and if not why do we simply brush it off? This is my central inquiry and the focus will be placed on a seemingly relevant modern day example of this, North Korea. To begin I will turn to previous examples of this type of humor displayed, and how it may not...