Kinja reply list

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Adrastra, patron saint of snarkEllie Shechet
3/16/16 10:37am
On one hand, I feel sorry for him. But on the other, I don’t.
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  Paranoid Android (sometimes says dumb things)Adrastra, patron saint of snark
  3/16/16 10:39am
  
  GIF
  
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  Gwyneth P. is a reincarnated chicken nuggetAdrastra, patron saint of snark
  3/16/16 10:45am
  Do you think he did? I am spectulating reaL hard about this? like is this the perfect crime?
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Masshole JamesEllie Shechet
3/16/16 10:38am
It’s pure hubris for Americans to keep going to countries like North Korea and Iran. They have to know what will happen to them but the attitude seems to be “I’m an American, I can go wherever I like and do whatever I like”. And about the U.S. secretly negotiating with North Korea, I guess we do negotiate with terrorists as long as they’re not Muslim.
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  Gwyneth P. is a reincarnated chicken nuggetMasshole James
  3/16/16 10:43am
  He did it for Jesus tho. I think.
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  GELLA - LLAPMasshole James
  3/16/16 10:44am
  you can’t really negotiate on a normal terms with North Korea, brainwashed commies
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Nefret EmersonEllie Shechet
3/16/16 10:39am
Man, I feel for this kid. Yes what he did was completely idiotic (assuming he actually did it, I don’t exactly think the North Korean government is above coercing a confession) but he is really quite young and it’s entirely possible he won’t survive 15 years forced labor.
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  chipmunkfaceNefret Emerson
  3/16/16 10:49am
  I agree. All this “What an idiot. He had it coming.” attitude in the comments? Jeez, you guys.
  
  Maybe some of you never did dumb shit when you were 21, but I sure did. Harmless dumb shit that doesn’t hurt anyone? Does it deserve 15 years of hard labor (which has a solid potential of killing him and/or traumatizing him for life)?
  
  No, dude. No, it does not.
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  DrWhoSoccerStarchipmunkface
  3/16/16 10:54am
  We all did dumb shit when we were 21, but we didn’t go to North Korea to do it.
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LindaEllie Shechet
3/16/16 10:34am
He’s just basically being held hostage by North Korea. I doubt he even touched a banner let alone stole one. And he looked like he was drugged when the took him into the court room this morning.
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  Nefret EmersonLinda
  3/16/16 10:46am
  Yeah, I’m a little disheartened by some of the replies I’ve seen to this story, both here and elsewhere. It’s entirely possible he’s being framed, and even if he did do what they’re accusing him of, no one was hurt and ultimately this is not something that he should potentially lose his life for (North Korean prison camps are no joke).
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  TriplicateLinda
  3/16/16 10:47am
  +1, he’s a pawn. NK is being hit with another wave of sanctions, China is growing more and more ambivalent about being their economic and political protector on the world stage, and they’re moving from “Complete pariah state” to “Somehow even more completely a pariah state to levels previously unimagined.”
  
  The gambit is to trade this kid for concessions. It will work. NK has used these same tactics before. This guy is less a prisoner and more a hostage.
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DaisyLadyEllie Shechet
3/16/16 10:38am
Now I’m not saying he’s lying but, like why would anyone pay him to steal a sign? Am I underestimating the power of the banner? Seems like they would have more than one sign so if you take one they’d, I don’t know, put up another one. Like if the sign goes missing an entire rebellion would commence. “The sign is gone! Let’s fight! Because it wasn’t the guns, or the threat of prison and toruture that was keeping us down. It was that sign!” Like what?
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  BusPassTrollop curls up and diesDaisyLady
  3/16/16 10:42am
  No one is paying him to steal a sign. He’s being forced to say these things by North Korea.
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  Your Name HereDaisyLady
  3/16/16 10:42am
  The past reports I’ve read about this are that he was drunk and out partying until shortly before the group was to leave.
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DragonsDaughterEllie Shechet
3/16/16 11:10am
I’m sorry, and I do hope he gets out before 15 years, but this is a solid case of play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Why the fuck would you want to visit North Korea, let alone steal from them? You’d be safer sticking your dick in a hornets nest.
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  reboundstudentDragonsDaughter
  3/16/16 11:38am
  1) It’s not a open-and-shut matter that he even stole the sign. It is highly possible N. Korea is using him as a pawn to lower sanctions. 2) Perhaps he visited N. Korea in the hopes of making connections with one of the most isolated societies on the planet, who very rarely see foreigners; perhaps he was of the opinion that you can’t criticize a culture until you’ve experienced it.
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  DragonsDaughterreboundstudent
  3/16/16 12:05pm
  1) that’s an excellent point. I was harsh and I don’t mean to imply he by any means deserves this because he doesn’t. I’m going off the assumption he did steal the sign, but of course this is NK and that can be 100 % bullshit.
  
  2) Or, perhaps, just a theory because neither my point nor your second can be proven, he like many, many more people than they would like to admit, traveled to a place where human misery and suffering is spread out for all to see so that he as a first world tourists could feed a disturbed curiosity about what it’s like to live in a living hell where people are literally dying to get out from the safety of an air conditioned tour bus.
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HarvestMoonEllie Shechet
3/16/16 10:42am

...on church trips to North Korea.
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toscatiosiEllie Shechet
3/16/16 10:56am
The charges against him said he was encouraged to commit the “hostile act” by a member of an Ohio church, a secretive university organization and the C.I.A.

North Korea, living proof of what happens when paranoid nutjobs run a country.
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  Nom de pixeltoscatiosi
  3/16/16 12:26pm
  The CIA part is what gets me. I have no doubt the guy was goaded into it by his buddies back home, but I am pretty sure the CIA doesn't give a crap about some sign.
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reboundstudentEllie Shechet
3/16/16 11:57am
I’m a little concerned about how many comments seem to be along the lines of “Well he shouldn’t have gone to N. Korea in the first place.” The thought process behind that statement seems to be that if someplace is dangerous, there’s never, ever a legitimate reason to be there.

But what that means is that we are essentially reinforcing the N. Korean government’s own policy of hermit-living, which allows them to further entrench Western hatred into their own people. The less exposure common N. Korean people have to foreigners, the less they can see through the lies and the fear and the terror their own government is instilling in them (“Let us starve you because we’re protecting you from the scary US!”)

Tourism is also one of the only legitimate ways to bring money into N. Korea. It’s one of the few livelihoods N. Korean people have, and is *tightly* controlled. As a tourist, you can’t go anywhere without a minder-can’t speak to anyone without a guide. Tourism can actually be a great force for good... it’s one of the only ways we’ve gotten information out of the country, and one of the only ways Westerns can be seen and interact with normal citizens.

Now maybe this guy is a dude-bro who went strictly for the thrills. Maybe he’s secretly a Christian missionary (strictly banned from the country) who was trying to gather information to assist in smuggling out refugees. Maybe he was just someone who was curious about the culture, and thought it needed to be experienced first hand (not out of the ordinary. I’m a huge consumer of media on N. Korea, and I wouldn’t have believed some of the stories without video evidence; they are that outrageous.)

Setting aside the fact that people don’t seem even a little suspicious of the guy’s “crimes” (seriously, how did a white American slip away from his native tour guide long enough to do this? And how convenient it’s right after tightening sanctions!), it’s a little disconcerting that people assume only morons would ever want to have anything to do with N. Korea. This is a country without Internet, with limited radio and extreme propaganda; visiting the country is one of the only ways to interact with anyone outside the government. Have we just decided to abandon ever understanding or helping N. Korean’s citizens because of their government’s saber-rattling?
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  willleisurereboundstudent
  3/16/16 12:25pm
  A video producer from a video game website I frequent went to North Korea a few years ago. He’s into military history and spends his vacations going to other countries like Vietnam, for the educational experience.
  
  They had a podcast and he showed pictures (he was allowed to take) from his trip. It was fascinating. So much that I kind of wanted to do the same, except not really, ha.
  
  He mentioned the country is fucked, obviously, but the people were genuinely warm and pleasant.
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  moopidooreboundstudent
  3/16/16 3:52pm
  The guy decided to book his tour through a site that specialized on places “your mother would rather you not visit.” The State Department doesn’t discourage tourism to North Korea for fun. There are legitimate reasons to be in dangerous places, but tourism isn’t one of them. (And not all the money from tourism goes to the people. Most of it goes to the state that’s repressing the people.)
  
  Even if he wanted to do good—doing good takes consideration, education, and training. There’s a reason almost any volunteer program requires its volunteers to undertake training. The riskier the program, the more training they require. Just showing up can do a hell of a lot of damage—the way this kid did. He helped provide propaganda (and money) to a brutal regime and now the United States is going to have to do the same to get him back.
  
  The fact is, he shouldn’t have been there.
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SpringSprungEllie Shechet
3/16/16 10:35am
Dude. Change travel agents.
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