A black American soldier ran away from the United States Army last month and fled into North Korea to get away from “inhuman maltreatment” and “racial discrimination.” At least, that’s the official line from North Korea’s state media.

Pvt. Trevor King was on a civilian tour of the Joint Security Area between North and South Korea when he suddenly dashed into the North. Security forces immediately appeared, dragged him into a white van, and drove off.

The Pentagon says it can’t verify that Private King willingly ran into the North or that racial discrimination was the cause. It can’t be sure because it has had no contact with him and doesn’t know his current condition.

North Korea’s state media says King deliberately and illegally ran into their country because “he was disillusioned at the unequal American society.”

There is absolutely no reason to trust what comes out of North Korea. Just about everything the outside world receives is propaganda. Perhaps Private King was delusional enough to actually believe that North Korea was better than America. But that’s highly unlikely.

It is common knowledge that North Korea might just be the worst country in the world to live in.

The government controls all media in the country and doesn’t allow its citizens access to foreign news. North Koreans need special permission to own a computer. If they do, they can access only 25 websites. Dissenters are thrown in prison and forced into labor, beaten and regularly tortured. Just one person committing a “crime” results in punishment for three generations of the family. Even the ones who are “free” aren’t allowed to leave.

A third of the North’s children are starving and malnourished. That’s partly because the average North Korean worker makes $5 a month. That’s all they have to show from a six-day workweek and a seventh day of “voluntary” work.

There might not be a more oppressed and defeated people on Earth.

But that’s not how it started. First came liberation from Imperial Japan, the Russo-American division and then the civil war with South Korea. How did the Kim family attain so much power? How did North Korea come to be as we know it today?

Free stuff.

For the first few decades after the Korean War, the North actually had a higher standard of living than the South. Citizens told foreign journalists that their homes, food and clothes were gifts from “the Eternal President” Kim Il Sung. These gifts inured the people to the elimination of Kim’s political enemies.

Families received a monthly salary from the government. Health care was free; taxes were abolished in 1974. Marble white statues of Kim and his family were erected all over the country. Fantastical stories of Kim Jong Il’s birth were propagated as the people were primed for a dynasty.

In the ’90s, the reckoning began. Money ran out and borrowing ensued. The standard of living plummeted as the country almost completely isolated itself from the world. Food rationing began. There were some food riots in the beginning, but they were quickly and brutally quashed.

It was too late. The Kims had absolute power.

North Koreans still don’t pay taxes. Drug use is generally permitted; 30 percent of North Koreans use marijuana and methamphetamines liberally. Citizens still have free health care. Families still receive a monthly salary from the government.

“Free stuff” is the heartbeat of the quixotic desires belonging to those who rage against capitalism. Authoritarians know this. And that’s what North Korea’s founders used. But there is always a catch.

North Koreans don’t pay taxes, but they have to make compulsory donations to the supreme leader.

Drugs are unregulated, but they use marijuana to escape their nightmarish reality and crystal meth to suppress their hunger.

And although health care is free, hospitals are largely empty because they don’t have a workforce that knows how to use the equipment.

“I think so many people in America think that … somehow a dictatorship begins like North Korea,” says North Korean defector Yeonmi Park. “It didn’t begin there. It began with amazing promises of equity. They promised a socialist paradise to us. And with that promise, they took everything, one by one, from us.”

Liberal America wants free stuff. They want free health care, free university education, free housing, free money. Free everything is a human right, they say. The radical left echoes these cries and says anyone denying you free stuff is a thief, bigot and racist.

You deserve everything you want and you don’t have to pay for it.

But there is no such thing as a free trip to Hawaii. There is always a price to pay.

North Korea shows that the ultimate price of “free stuff” is your freedom.

When Barack Obama said that he wanted to “fundamentally transform” the United States, this is what he meant. It’s why he promoted Obamacare. It’s why his administration is fighting to cancel all student debt. It’s why it talks about taxing the rich, while bolstering the Internal Revenue Service and its ability to come after regular Americans.

They are appealing to the average American’s desire for free stuff. They are promising a socialist paradise. They really want to turn America into a Communist nightmare like North Korea. They want the power that Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has.

The media shows only what Kim wants; he has no political opponents; he lives in lavish wealth while his citizens, who are essentially forced to worship him, starve; he has a million-strong army that regular citizens are defenseless against. He has complete and unchecked power to do whatever he wants.

Obama’s goal of fundamental transformation is really about turning America into North Korea. This is the attack being leveled against America every single day. It is the reason why Donald Trump has been attacked, vilified and smeared with fictional crimes and misdeeds for the last eight years. It is the reason why even now, the Joebama administration is desperately throwing indictments at him every time their corruption is exposed.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s book America Under Attack is an exposition of the actions Obama and his followers have taken and are taking to complete this transformation of America. It’s an effort carried out by humans, but it is inspired by an evil spiritual force. Request Mr. Flurry’s book to learn more about what is going on and to arm yourself against this fundamental transformation.