Dear Howard Baker, Jr.:
I read with concern your February 17 comments about Pyongyang as you departed your job as a U.S. diplomat in Tokyo. It seems that you have recently discovered the law of supply and demand and found yourself unduly shocked:
"'The thing I worry most about with the North Koreans, to tell you the truth, is not that they're going to bomb Tokyo, but rather that they have a demonstrated record of selling any military device they own,' Baker said this week in a news briefing marked by bluntness as he prepared to leave Japan on Thursday, ending three and a half years in the post. 'A regime such as the North Koreans', with that record, selling nuclear material to all comers, is a very serious issue.'"(1)
Apparently you did not realize in the midst of your serious responsibilities that we live under a system called C-A-P-I-T-A-L-I-S-M where buying and selling for profit is the rule. Perhaps you did not notice the many lectures the State Department and others have delivered to Korea and China about the merits of capitalism. If so, this would mean you were not paying attention on your job. I hope you will not fall into the clutches of the like of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, who believe that there must be a dictatorship over would-be entrepreneurs.
Your unfavorable comments about capitalism make me think that Maoists have infiltrated the U.S. government. Hopefully you were just drinking too much during State Department classes on the difference between capitalism and socialism and we can leave it at that. If I misunderstood you and your concern quoted in the papers was that Koreans would sell the nuclear weapons everywhere and U.S. companies would not be able to undercut them on price, then I apologize in advance. The quote in the New York Times from you did not explain what it was that concerned you.
True, a one percent independent chance of a serious nuclear exchange annually spells eventual doom for the species. The chances of surviving such a seemingly small risk after 100 years are only 36.6% as the communists pointed out,(2) but though it can be proved with mathematical certainty that doom awaits, we can rest assured that we lived a glorious freedom for entrepreneurs in the meantime! So suck it up, and never forget, live free and die!
Sincerely,
A concerned American for freedom
Note:
1. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/17/news/baker.html
2. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/faq/milit.html