It is the official South Korean policy to one day have a united Korea. Same goes for North Korea.

The disagreement is of course about how such united Korea would look like.

The population of South Korea currently massively prefers the South Korean government over that of North Korea. This is clear from the elections: you would see support for much more worker oriented parties otherwise.

I'm not accepting the status quo. I haven't even talked about what I would want for the region. This whole discussion was only about "legitimacy" of a state and understanding the status quo; doesn't mean I want it to stay like the status quo.

However, to form a balanced opinion of what should happen in the region, you first must get a balanced, realistic, fundamental understanding of the status quo. Not just "yeah this state is illegitimate because this this and this", without looking at the claims of legitimacy of the other side, which are in most cases also valid reasons for claiming legitimacy. That just comes down to "the ideologies/countries/opinions I prefer favor this country over the other, so I call this one illegitimate and this one legitimate".

Oh shit we are talking about c/linuxsucks

Couldn't even imagine that being a thing on Lemmy.

What's with you guys putting words in my mouth? I'm not saying might makes right. There is a big difference between being a "legitimate" state and actions being taken by a state being ethical (right).

I'm not parroting US propaganda. Did you read what I said? I said North Korea is a legitimate state. How is that US propaganda?

I don't benefit from picking a side. I believe sanctions against North Korea should be lifted. I'm in favor of a peaceful unification of the Korea's to resolve the war, like both of the Korea's want. That would be my official stance if I were in a position of power.

Yes, picking a side blindly based on ideological reasons instead of realistically looking at the situation and the power structures is stupid.

r/linuxsucks101 is the real deal, r/linuxsucks is kind of an ironic sub currently

What I said is that legitimacy is just a term used to disenfranchise rivaling states. States claim legitimacy, even though such a thing does not exist. Legitimacy was a thing from the nobles, when a child could be a legitimate heir or not.

The only real thing in existence is force. There are all kinds of reasons to claim legitimacy (all the factors I mentioned), but none of them decide legitimacy in essence, since legitimacy is not a thing.

ROK claimed legitimacy due to it being the state that had control in the region at first. But a reason to claim they were not legitimate was the fact the populace didn't support them. Both of these arguments are valid. None of them decide anything, because the world doesn't work that way. The only thing that matters is that ROK controlled the land at that time, the countries that recognized ROK supported them, but that the populace didn't support them at the time. Those are the facts that should be taken at face value. Of course its claims legitimacy. And of course DPRK challenged that legitimacy by arguing it did have the support of the people, however, it had to fight for control over the region, which was partly successful, and some countries recognized them. The facts were as they were, both claimed legitimacy, both had valid reasons to do so.

All the other countries or ideologies picked a side on the matter which was most beneficial to them and that is that. I just don't see the value as an individual to pick a side on the question of legitimacy. Looking at the measurable facts is much more useful.

Legitimacy is in my opinion just a concept that has been invented by a ruling power to disenfranchise a secessionist state. It stems from the feudalistic times when the legitimacy of a heir was crucial. Rivaling nobles both claiming to be the heir. That's where legitimacy originally came from.

This concept has persevered through time, somehow, even though nobles are a thing of the past. The only metric that can somewhat measure legitimacy is whether the citizens inside are in favor of the state as such, as they usually form the state. However, even this does not decide legitimacy. Even a dictator-state with a population that hates him can have legitimacy. Purely because that state exercises real power over a region and its legitimacy isn't contested by other states.

Let me take North Korea as an example. It started out as a people's revolution, at the time you would say that North Korea would be legitimate in that sense. South Korea has legitimacy as it was the state that controlled the region up until that revolution. If we lived in a perfect world, the revolution would have been completely succesful and the legimitacy would have fully transfered from ROK to DPRK. However, we dont. Both hold some form of legitimacy, ROK as the original ruling state, and DPRK as the people's preference at time of the revolution. Currently, ROK, too, has some legitimacy coming from its population, since it transfered from a dictatorship to a democracy, increasing its popularity among the population.

So my view is that both can be legitimate in different ways. Then it comes down to who de facto rules the land. Other countries recognize whoever they prefer geopolitically. But picking a side is inherently biased and ignores and discards the legitimacy of the rival state. Only people led by propaganda will pick a side.

Other factors include genocide, historical claims, ethnic differences, religious differences etc etc

That's also biased.

That's not how the legitimacy of a state works. A state doesn't become illegitimate because of war crimes.

Bias means being opinionated/having preconceptions on a topic. I never said it was disqualifying. I just pointed out that he had a lot of bias on a lot of these geopolitical issues in a humorous way.

Most (slightly knowledgeable) people are more nuanced than that, that's why it stood out.

Well-said

Not at all. People love making assumptions here.

I believe reality is very nuanced.

Okay, I'll give you that something being debatable does not make it subjective.