Bob points out that in the previous thread I omit the option of friendship in dealing with North Korea.

So which I ask this question: Can you be friends of Kim Il Jong and friends of the North Korean people at the same time?

If someone in your neighborhood locked his kids in the closet to starve them for weeks at a time, would you consider friendship as an option? I would say, in fact, that it is immoral to befriend someone of this level of character. That by befriending tyrants and torturers, you are alienating those who stand for human rights and justice.

Jesus taught to "Love thy enemy", which I've always thought was one of the dumber dictums in supposedly moral teaching.

Can someone explain to me how it's moral to love someone who oppresses others? Are you not tactitly endorsing their suffering? Ah, but you say, love the sinner, hate the sin. But this has always seemed like a practical impossibility. If you make the supposition that the sinner will stop sinning if you approach them with love, you might justify it. But how long would you give them?

If a man tortures his children, do you take action to stop him, if need be, or approach him with love and see how long it takes for him to stop the behavior? And what if he doesn't stop? Aren't you, all the while, enabling the torture?

Forgive me, but I am not ever going to love those despicable few who are sadistic and power-hungry, who order people to reeducation camps and have their children tortured in front of them. I think it is foolish and immoral to love a Hitler or a Pol Pot or a Saddam Hussein.

I do believe in evil, not in the biblical sense, but in my secular moral sense. And I think it is wrong to cozy up to evil, to placate it, and to enable it.

Love your enemies if you like, but I plan to continue to condemn mine.