Moon Jae-in: Progressive Diplomacy Without Shame

Look at the following images, from Moon Jae-in’s latest surprise get-together with Kim Jong Un, on May 25th:

And here are some images from the two leaders’ similar meeting a month ago:

And here are the two men and their wives clinking champagne glasses and pretending to enjoy some kitsch-for-peace performances:

All smiles, all unity, all friendship across borders, all “reconciliation.”

What could possibly be wrong with this “historic” imagery? Against all odds, there are still a few rational adults, in Korea and beyond, who are not prepared to release the doves and etch Moon’s name in the stars just yet.

So let us all take a deep breath, remove our Trump-colored glasses, and stop responding to talking points from Pyongyang, Beijing, and Moscow as though they were universal truths. Most of all, let us take a moment to consider what those ecstatic hugs and toasts from President Moon tell us about the man and his motives.

Consider this: Kim Jong Un is personally responsible for the deaths of more innocent Koreans than any other man alive.

He is starving his enslaved population to death in the name of preserving his utterly illegitimate, unjust, totalitarian rule.

He owns — yes, “owns” is the proper term for it — hordes of young women who are trained and used as sex slaves for his regime’s pleasure, and who are controlled by fear of death to themselves and their families. (These sex slaves, by the way, live directly under the propagandistic management of Kim’s charming sister, who wowed the international media at the recent Olympics by not being Mike Pence.)

During the years since he inherited power from his criminally insane father, Kim has killed several South Koreans and destroyed South Korean military assets through acts of aggression.

And yet now Moon Jae-in, a socialist and long-time advocate of former President Roh Moo-hyun’s “sunshine policy,” which was aimed at achieving Korean reunification through unilateral aid and friendliness toward the communist usurpers, is hugging the sex-slave-owning communist murderer, smiling with him, clinking champagne glasses with him, and talking all lovey-dovey with him about peace in our time.

Does he believe his own smiles, and trust his own peace-loving, rhetorical acquiescence to, and forgiveness of, the world’s foremost enemy and oppressor of Koreans?

Moon was recently elected President in the aftermath of the imprisonment and impeachment of Park Geun-hye. He is, partly due to the nationwide student protests against Park, and partly because of his progressivism — pro-abortion, raising the minimum wage, the usual leftist array of bribes — extremely popular with young voters. The message these recent images of their hero are sending to young Koreans is obvious and dangerous: There is no right and wrong, no good and evil, no historical truth, no national interest — there is only peace, peace at all costs, peace without any assurance of freedom.

Think what you will about the opportunities presented by this recent North Korean strategy of pursuing survival through leveraging its nuclear weapons. Believe what you like about the relative influence on Kim’s strategy of Donald Trump’s enormous button versus China’s ominous puppet strings.

But remember this: The man making all this possible — the man acting as facilitator, interpreter, and middle man throughout the entire process so far — is Moon Jae-in, a progressive apologist for North Korean repression, and an appeaser at heart. Moon has no qualms and no shame about hugging, smiling, and clinking champagne glasses for the cameras with the murderous tyrant of the communist starvation cult that has torn Moon’s own nation in two, and has systematically destroyed the lives of untold millions of his countrymen, past and present.

Is this a person you would trust as the point-man at the center of a diplomatic process in which the stakes were so high? Or is this merely the normal, inescapable face of diplomacy in this age of nuclear threats and a global progressive status quo?

In either case, this whole episode is yet another tangible argument for the wisdom of the Greek philosophers regarding politics: Anyone who cares about his soul and its health should stay as far away from the practical political life as possible. There is nothing but corruption, filth, and moral decay in that world for the higher spirit.