Bring back the Pharaohs!

Nope. North Korea is a democracy! A very dictatorship-like democracy but still a democracy. They even have elections - but with Kim Jong Un being the only candidate.

If I have a Y chromosome but I don't have a dick, I'm still a man. I might not look like one but I still am. NK might look like a democracy on paper but in actuality it's a dictatorship. The choices are dictated, therefore they're not choices. Would you rather be shot in the eye or stabbed in the back of the head? Well that's not much of a choice is it?

I agree with what you’re saying except it’s more like “would you like ice in your water or water in your ice?”

NK citizens don't even get clean water and ice.

North Korea is a democracy. It is a very, very corrupt one, but still a democracy. It being nothing like a democracy doesn't change anything.

A better metaphor is a man who looks like a man, sounds like a man, and acts like a man, but is female. It looks, sounds, and appears to be a dictatorship, but it is still a democracy.

A tomato, which has none of the flavor characteristics of a fruit, but it kinda technically is, though most would never group it together with common fruits.

A tomato is a fruit. A vegetable is a seed while a fruit has seeds. Tomatoes have seeds.

But could it be an important component of a smoothie, fruit salad, ice cream, cake, scone, muffin, compote, or pie?

A vegetable is just the edible part of a plant. A fruit is the reproductive part of a plant regardless of its edibility.

In other words, a tomato is technically fruit, but not something that's traditionally considered to be a fruit or like a fruit.

But it is still a fruit just like North Korea is a democracy.

On paper

It's not a choice if both routes realize the same results.
Also if you don't get to choose which choices are available then it's not true choice.