Capitol Ideas/Seoul Searching

Bethell, Tom

very little can be done to relieve many of our public problems. Drug abuse is a timely example of how policy initiatives are flummoxed in this Era of Good Feelings. Gone are the days when the...

...An exceptionally efficient and courteous tour staff of much maligned "Moonies" did so much to make our trip a happy one...
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...Bo Hi Pak himself), and many others too diverse to mention...
...N, 40 Guernsey Street, Box 790, Stamford, CT 06904-0790 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1986 13...
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...Lee added the key datum, with-out seeming to grasp its significance, that Korea's U.S...
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...Can you imagine as we sit here," Beichman said one day at the Little Angels School in Seoul, where children were dazzlingly practicing Chopin and Bach on Steinways, "that thirty miles to the north is that madman Kim Il Sung...
...And the impression of a united phalanx was even stronger in Japan...
...Period...
...It has 9.5 million people, and this year Korea is growing at a ten-percent rate...
...First we went down into one of the three known tunnels the North Koreans have dug under the DMZ...
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...From Seoul we re-traced our steps to Tokyo, thence to Beijing (formerly Peking), then south to Manila with a stopover in Hong Kong, and finally to Taipei (capital of the Republic of China on Taiwan) be-fore returning to New York...
...There is no freedom of speech," he said, "civil rights have not been restored...
...And we shock the liberals who are wired to its battery of activists...
...The Soviet Buildup was very much the preoccupation of the hardliners...
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...shoes and were ushered into a heavily ^ Annual Subscription $18.00 furnished room with a long, low table, ^Annual Subscription $20.00 bonsai trees, Tyrolean clock (the gift of (Institutional/Organizational) Helmut Schmidt), and an antique-style, gold-handled telephone...
...finding facts as planned...
...The entire panorama of urban history comes alive, from antiquity to present...
...Ultimately the sources of the Asian resurgence remain a mystery in my view...
...And the university's president purred: "The message to convey is a little more complex than Secretary Ben-nett said...
...Note the honorable gentleman's unanimity with the conservative in opposing drugs...
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...Later we would visit the demilitarized zone between the two countries, which is only twenty-five miles from Seoul...
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...Hope," the Rev...
...That seemingly mild suggestion somehow evoked enormous alarm on campus...
...The unfortunate Bennett has been a frequent victim of liberal high-mindedness...
...It was steaming hot everywhere we went, but this did not prevent us from Tom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent...
...Berke-ley, William Rusher of National Re-view, not to mention the redoubtable Col...
...It was deep, chilly, and damp: we walked like miners 550 paces down a steep incline through dripping rocks...
...As we drove north of Seoul into the countryside Bartlett remarked that Korea looked more developed than a number of West European countries, for example, Greece, Spain, and Portugal...
...All the lights go on simultaneously in the evening, he said...
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...He was referring to the Communist dictator of North Korea...
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...Secretary Bennett has demonstrated that he does have the appetite to govern and even to brave the abuse of those who find comfort in the old bromides...
...The final half-century of conflict...
...We short-circuit the low voltage of the High Court...
...foreign aid, wise government planning, and the Koreans' penchant for mortgaging their homes to pay for higher education for the kids"a World Bank view of the world," as Bruce Bartlett said...
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...Gone are the days when the enlightened liberal spoke of drugs as a sacred American freedom...
...The capital of (South) Korea, Seoul turned out to be a huge, booming metropolis, where everyone seemed to be working at about double the American pace...
...This would be followed by slanderous broadcasts and denunciations, bearing the unmistakable imprint of the Great Leader of the People...
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...Jackson sang, is "the great antidote to dope," and he advocated still more drug education programs...
...Our group included different factions, among them supply-siders (Jude Wanniski of Polyconomics, Bruce Bartlett of the Heritage Foundation, Alvin Rabushka of the Hoover Institution), hardliners (Arnold Beichman of Hoover, James Gregor of U.C...
...Still, the dynamism of Korea came as a shock...
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...Life under occupation and its devastating effects...
...There's a big incentive not to work for others...
...Supply-siders believe that a nation whose domestic policies encourage economic growth will by the same token be strong enough to repel external assault...
...Atlas Of The North American Indian, by Carl Waldman...
...I'm not an educator, but I know how to kick out bums...
...SEOUL SEARCHING by Tom Bethell There were about forty of us on the tour of northeast Asia, arranged and paid for by the World Media Association...
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...Then we drove up to a lookout point, from which we could just discern the hills of North Korea through the heat haze...
...Now there is a policy suggestion for you...
...Kim Dae Jung seemed pleased by this observation...
...Charles Rangel, the very intellectual and liberal chairman of the House committee, replied that "to kick them out is an easy thing to do...
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...foreign aid had been -tw cut off following State Department pique at the military coup of 1961...
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...What we can and what we can never know about the Graeco-Roman world...
...The Workshop Of Democracy, by James MacGregor Burns...
...His wife brought us watermelon on side plates...
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...It seemed to me that Kim (favorite authors: Arnold Toynbee and J. K. Galbraith) represented the interests of frustrated intellectuals and was doing so in the name of workers and farmers...
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...He spoke frequently of despair, oppression, social injustice, and the absence of democracy...
...My impression was that moderate taxation is a necessary condition of rapid economic growth, but an in§ufficient explanation for it...
...Indeed, the fact that it has been able to do so strongly indicates that democracy is not a prerequisite for the establishment of the rule of law...
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...Voyages Of The Steamboat Yellow Stone, by Donald Jackson...
...Outside, beyond a (Institutional/Organizational) patch of garden a somehow Western NAME ADDRESS girl stood watching from a second floor window...
...History is on the side of the pessimists, but I found myself among the optimists and was roundly scolded by Beichman for my gullibility...
...Son Of The Morning Star: Custer And The Little Bighorn, by Evan S. Connell...
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...How the collapse of Rome's army led to its fall...
...He assured us that the Korean success story was attributable to the following: U.S...
...Note the righteous indignation...
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...There was no sign of life to the north, but unexpectedly we could hear the distant sound of music, a gargling mermaid from the distant peaks, -trying to lure unsuspecting South Koreans across the DMZ to the Communist fatherland...
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...I would use the unfashionable word "destiny...
...Today when Ronald Reagan and the conservative faithful call for rigor against drugs, which have become so prevalent in our schools, the liberals join in with all their legendary eloquence...
...That is, you can't have high tax rates and high growth rates at the same time—anywhere in the world...
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...A powerful testimony...
...Of course one had read all about the booming economies of the Pacific Rim...
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...Why The South Lost The Civil War, by Richard Beringer, Herman Hattauay, Archer Jones 6' William Still, Jr...
...The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, by Barbara W. Tuchman...
...In fairness to the dissident Kims, their economic agenda did not seem at all radical and one felt that if any of them does come to power in 1988, when the ruling autocrat, President Chun, has vowed to step down, the country's economic growth will continue undisturbed...
...Cities And People, by Mark Girouard...
...Eleanor of Aquitaine And The Four Kings, by Amy Kelly...
...You had the impression of a gigantic, unified middle class moving forward in unison, without the terrible divisiveness that is now so characteristic of American life...
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...No sooner were we through customs than Jude Wanniski was on the phone to Price Waterhouse, the accounting firm that keeps track of tax rates around the THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1986 11 globe...
...It was like being on a well-organized school trip for three weeks, with nothing to worry about and the bus waiting outside the hotel, ready to take us to our next briefing or banquet...
...Korea is a rising nation, and at such moments of destiny countries will take the right steps without necessarily understanding what they are doing or why...
...What separates Bennett from liberalsis that he is actually simplistic enough to have dreamed up a policy for dealing with drugs in our schools...
...We were on a "fact-finding tour," but Larry Moffitt suggested in Beijing that this might have to be changed to fat-finding...
...The mystery is how the country has managed to establish the security of private property in an authoritarian political climate...
...The March To The Sea And Beyond: Sherman's Troops In The Savannah And Carolinas Campaigns, by Joseph T. Glatthaar...
...It did him no good...
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...The extent of drug use in America is a national disaster," the Rev...
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...A•B•C Et Cetera: The Life And Times Of The Roman Alphabet, by A. Fl N. Humez• A walk through a select Latin vocabulary...
...Our guide, a young Korean conscript, explained to us that across the border were two "propaganda villages" with fake buildings and no inhabitants...
...foreign aid, socialism unleashed, privilege and poverty, indigenous Communism, military storm clouds on the horizon...
...The pure supply-side position is that people are basically the same everywhere and won't (in normal times) work hard if governments snatch too much from them...
...How governments have sabotaged themselves...
...Life and Fate: A Novel, by Vasily Grossman...
...Racial...
...Jesse Jackson notified Congress recently, whereupon he promptly fell on Secretary of Education William Bennett for advocating the expulsion and arrest of student users and pushers...
...Irving Kristol, the editor of the in-dispensable journal of social analysis, the Public Interest, observed over a decade ago that liberals had lost the appetite to govern, that is: to make difficult choices and to enforce them...
...In the distance, visible on a clear day, stood a giant statue of Kim II Sung, "the living god of North Korea...
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...It is as though the whole population understands at a subconscious level that this is their moment in history, and the tax code is the result not the cause of this state of affairs...
...Peking divided our group into optimists (supply-skiers), who believe that China will continue to liberalize, and pessimists (hardliners), who argue that Leninist parties never surrender power voluntarily...
...Fall Of The Roman Empire: The Military Explanation, by Arther FerriU...
...One evening a prominent Seoul businessman, Mr...
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...As he in-formed the House Select Committee on Narcotics, he would expel students caught using or merchanting drugs...
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...But since this is something that is difficult to observe directly on such a tour, I found myself worrying less about it than about the extraordinary economic growth that is taking place in this part of the world, which of course we could see with our own eyes...
...Kim Dae Jung ^ Two Year Subscription $34.00 sat at one end of the table, as serene ^ Two Year Subscription $38.00 as any Buddha...
...Arnold Beichman told him that he looked much younger than his 60 years—attributing this to the good effects of ginseng tea...
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...Door to door Washington to Seoul took 24 hours, with a change of planes in Tokyo...
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...Over a pre-luncheon orange juice we were introduced to a row of smartly suited Kims ("How do you do, my name is Mr...
...Our guide ("so solemn, soserious," said Marion Magid of Commentary) told us that sometimes when the siren's ululations ceased a loudspeaker would announce: "All right, drop your guns, come on over, we've got you covered...
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...We drove by bus to the misleadingly named Demilitarized Zone, which actually is militarized, with one million soldiers facing each other across the four-kilometer strip of heavily mined territory...
...Lee Kie-Hong, came to speak to us, and if he is at all typical he provided dramatic confirmation of this somnambulistic theory of policy-making...
...Bill the first three at $1.00 each and the fourth at the low Members' Price plus postage and packing...
...Adapted from RET's weekly Washing-ton Post column syndicated by King Features...
...You can guess it didn't take our group long to figure out the tax rates wherever we went...
...Tales of the first steamboat to venture up the Missouri...
...If you love history, you'll love the quality, savings and selection you enjoy as a member of the History Book Club...
...But, he added, there's a glorious loophole: a flat 16 percent tax rate on dividend and interest income, which puts Korea in the Hong Kong class...
...Andto increase our security they advocate a suit of armor apiece...
...Defectors say there are other tunnels, still undiscovered...
...Heavy crystal, miniature potted palms, liveried waiters, floral displays, and fine bone china formed the backdrop to his speech, which dealt with such grim matters as "trials and hardships and difficulties . . . In-justice . . . not one word in the press about . . . Freedom of the press is the foundation by which . . . dictatorial powers...
...The medical director of the University of Virginia's drug treatment facility en-visaged "the Gestapo in the dormitories...
...Kim," they all said), the leader of whom, Kim Young Sam, was banned in 1980 from all political activity but was now cheerfully ad-dressing us in front of TV lights...
...He had for each of us a package containing his Harvard-published work, Mass-Participatory Economy: A Democratic Alternative for Korea...
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...By contrast supply-siders are like doctors who recognize that suits of armor can do nothing for such internal disorders as cancer or influenza...
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...Ill), by Fernand Braudel...
...A ruler with great depth and strength of character...
...Where's the education, I mean, kicking them out is easy, I could do that...
...That is one of the reasons that he and his boss are today so popular with the electorate...
...Korea seemed at first to be an anomaly because its income tax rates look high on paper...
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...But note too how poor Bennett is depicted as an oaf for actually suggesting action against drug use...
...The rich, exciting and poignant heritage of our native Americans...
...Larry Moffitt was once again our good shepherd...
...Communism is not just an external threat that must be fended off with shields, but a potentially internal, "indigenous" growth that can devour a society from within...
...No more do we hear vegetarians and nudists extolling the harmless recreational assets of marijuana...
...Later we met another opposition faction—this time on the 36th-floor Belle Vue suite of the world-class Lotte Hotel...
...The Bible As History, 2nd Revised Ed., by Werner Keller...
...Our supply-siders also agreed that Korea's GNP must be higher than re-ported (about $2100 per capita...
...This summer he urged university presidents to send students a letter reading, "Welcome back to your studies in September, but no drugs on campus...
...The Holocaust: A History Of The Jews Of Europe During The Second World War, by Martin Gilbert...
...Then he came outside to be photographed with the group: a very genial man who may have spent too much time in exile in Cambridge, Massachusetts...
...It was the same in Taiwan...
...Now that they're kicked out, what do we do...
...Surely it would end drug use in schools, and the Secretary offered numerous examples where such a policy had been effective...
...Either the Club or I may cancel my membership any time thereafter, All Club purchases are at low Members' Prices, and a postage-and-packing fee is added to all shipments...
...The Hon...
...The Soviet Buildup we studied at military briefings en route: all very worrying because the Soviets always seem to come out ahead in these blackboard contests, involving (it seems) the transportation of strategic minerals and materiel down sea lanes past "chokepoints...
...Give your friend drove across Seoul to see Kim Dae a jolt.Then you'll both get a charge out of BENCHMARK, even if you're not lawyers...
...agreed that as real income grows in Korea, tax-payers will soon be bumping up against uncomfortable tax rates if the tax code is not rewritten...
...Troops must be in good health if they are to fight at all—"health" in this metaphor being a sound economy...
...We ate our watermelon, and put on our shoes...

Vol. 19 • October 1986 • No. 10


 
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