The kind of political joke pics you see on Facebook...

The Korean Peninsula is an excellent example of Communism's failures and the success of Free Enterprise. South Korea is prosperous enough to be a G20 country and a major player in the world economy. North Korea looks virtually deserted in this night time picture from orbit.

I wouldn't say that South Korea was a virtual Shangri-La. I lived there for nearly 14 months (August of 2010 to late September of 2011) in the Countryside, not too far from a city named Uijeongbu. The city seemed quite prosperous, like any modern city in a free country should. The rural areas outside of town (and South Korea has no suburbs as we Americans would understand them), were basically a time capsule of Korea's recent past. If you wanted to know what the country looked like when America fought a war there in the 1950's, all you had to do was leave of the cities. There's a VERY large gap between rich and poor there.

All that being said, I'd rather be poor in South Korea instead of ANY kind of status in North Korea. Rich or poor, in the South I'd at least still be a free man.

- Lord Publius