# Kim Jong-il Is Dead **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2011, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705 "2011-12-19T03:10:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/82 "2011-12-19T04:59:08Z")
Reunification would be an economic disaster for South Korea; the only thing worse would be an actual war. North Korea is no East Germany. It makes East Germany look like West Germany. East Germany was alot richer and freeer than East Korea is. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/83 "2011-12-19T04:59:12Z")
I refuse to believe a heart attack got him. In my mind, it will always be a pissed off triplet who was separated from his/her family. Will they play the song from Team America at the funeral? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/84 "2011-12-19T04:59:21Z")
This just in: Glorious Leader Kim Jong-Il is STILL dead… ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/85 "2011-12-19T05:02:38Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > The King is dead! Long live the King! > > But who is the new leader? I figure his hair can still serve in an interim capacity during the transition. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/86 "2011-12-19T05:06:28Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Reunification would be an economic disaster for South Korea; the only thing worse would be an actual war. North Korea is no East Germany. It makes East Germany look like West Germany. East Germany was alot richer and freeer than East Korea is. Reunification IMO justifies anything but war. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/87 "2011-12-19T05:17:52Z")
Score another victory for Obama! (just using wingnut logic here. If he died while Bush was in office, FOX would have given him credit. I’m sure they’ll give some credit for his death to Reagan). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/88 "2011-12-19T05:19:04Z")
Well, technically the war never ended. We’re just waiting to see if this’ll lead to somebody breaking the cease-fire in a way that can’t be ignored. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/89 "2011-12-19T05:21:06Z")
Hmmm…must post some suitably somber comment to sum up my complex emotions upon reading this news… _ahem_ Let the record reflect that I said…Ding Dong. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/90 "2011-12-19T05:21:54Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > That would be a good point if some of us didn’t actually remember 1982. Western analysts did not view Kim Jong Il’s succession as a foregone conclusion, and it was family ties that ensured it. … > > Honestly, I’ll be a lot more worried if control of the country goes to someone from the older generation. Not necessarily. A septuagenarian caretaker like [Chernenko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Chernenko) wouldn’t be improbable or awful. One would think that Kim Jong’s dumpling of a son would have difficulty consolidating power. At any rate Kremlinology has a terrible track record, so we should probably adopt an [uninformative prior](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninformative_prior#Uninformative_priors). ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/91 "2011-12-19T05:22:23Z")
Should we really be speaking Il of the dead? ::I thank you:: ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/92 "2011-12-19T05:23:44Z")
What’s next? I’m pretty sure it is spankings and oral sex. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/93 "2011-12-19T05:27:07Z")
1982? Don’t you mean 1992? ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/94 "2011-12-19T05:34:28Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Which political faction in North Korea supports reunification? Reunification (on North Korean terms, of course) was certainly the _official_ line: > [@Christopher Hitchens in February](#): > > Visiting North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial “minder” whom I’ll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort of denial mechanism and never seeming to lose interest in the gargantuan monuments to the world’s most hysterical and operatic leader-cult. One evening, as we tried to dine on some gristly bits of duck, he mentioned yet another reason why the day should not long be postponed when the whole peninsula was united under the beaming rule of the Dear Leader. The people of South Korea, he pointed out, were becoming mongrelized. They wedded foreigners—even black American soldiers, or so he’d heard to his evident disgust—and were losing their purity and distinction. Not for Mr. Chae the charm of the ethnic mosaic, but rather a rigid and unpolluted uniformity. – [A Nation of Racist Dwarfs: Kim Jong-il’s regime is even weirder and more despicable than you thought.](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/02/a_nation_of_racist_dwarfs.single.html) Of course [God only knows what’s really going on in North Korea](http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/8351/1207koreaelectricitygrikf0.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/95 "2011-12-19T05:36:13Z")
Fluiddruid, yeah, if there had been a ‘dripping with sarcasm’ font I would have used it. He was just part of the parcel. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/96 "2011-12-19T05:45:24Z")
Great Leader…Dear Leader…Dear Me… ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/97 "2011-12-19T05:47:59Z")
> [@fluiddruid](#): > > He certainly had influence and power personally. He wasn’t a puppet; he had a huge cult of personality. > > I’m hoping the best for North Koreans. The stories coming out have been so terrible and sad, and I hope that there’s now some change. I’m sure it will be painful for them either way but we know so little about the son – perhaps he won’t be like his father, or perhaps he won’t be able to take (or keep) power at all and there will be a change. I just wanted to say you don’t have to rely entirely on stories; you can see some of it for yourself in the excellent and bewildering documentary film that VICE made 3 years ago when they actually traveled to North Korea and filmed their visit. It’s in 3 parts and it’s one of the most fascinating and disturbing films I’ve ever seen. [You can see the first part here](http://www.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-3). I also have hope now that the plight of the people of this country will change for the better, and I would not be willing to bet against reconciliation happening in my lifetime. Sometimes, political events and movements happen extremely fast, like one stone being removed from a dam. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/98 "2011-12-19T05:51:25Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Of course [God only knows what’s really going on in North Korea](http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/8351/1207koreaelectricitygrikf0.jpg). Yep, only the eye of Sauron\* is bright in the darkness that is Mordor! \*(The Capital of North Korea in the night sky satellite photo) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/99 "2011-12-19T06:00:36Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > What’s next? I’m pretty sure it is spankings and oral sex. You keep saying that. First it was Obama being elected, you said time for spankings and oral sex, the TARP bailout, spankings and oral sex. Now Kim Jong Il dies… ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/100 "2011-12-19T06:04:04Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Funeral arrangements have been announced. Pyongyang, December 28. Road trip!!! ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705/101 "2011-12-19T06:20:26Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > 1982? Don’t you mean 1992? Oops. :smack: 1994 was when the elder piece of dung kicked off. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-jong-il-is-dead/606705.md?page=6)