South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection • Hacker News Board

Re: South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

#131

Post by gunapologist99 » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 9:09 PM UTC

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #106

mschuster91 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel sent a former prime minister to prison. Ukraine has had many an anti-corruption sweep ever since the Russians invaded. France denied le Pen electability due to misappropriating EU funds.

I'm fairly certain that in the cases you mentioned, the people doing the jailing / penalizing are also guilty of crimes and at the very least, violating public trust. Seems to me like more tit for tat politicking.

Prosecuting political opponents is convenient and very effective, especially if friendly parties control most of the media as well.

Re: South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

#132

Post by woodruffw » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

raptor99 wrote: post #130

woodruffw wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the thing that puts J6 in the "definitely an insurrection attempt" category is the fact that it happened while Congress was exercising its duty to formalize the electoral college vote. We don't have to reach for statistics about how many were armed or wearing costumes (a fact that seems immaterial in any case); the question is sufficiently answered by what they were attempting to stop.

Wearing costumes establishes costumes and illustrates the joviality of at least a portion of the attendees of the event. It would be odd to say that it is immaterial that you went to a concert or a restaurant or any place really, and lots of people were dressed as Vikings, or as SWAT, etc.

It's immaterial insofar as the US Capitol is not, in fact, a concert or restaurant.

(And similarly, it should be clear that an insurrection's nature doesn't depend on whether the crowd is jovial or not.)

Re: South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

#133

Post by frumplestlatz » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #122

frumplestlatz wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If we want to include additional details, perhaps add the ones that explain why she was shot (Violently breaking into an area being secured by capitol police that directly lead to the congresscritters) and not irrelevant ones like her status as a veteran.

I included it because I think it's a counter-balance to how framing and selective information disclosure has been used to shape perception; in many accountings, you either see "five deaths within 36 hours", or just "one death", but neither mentioning the only death that day was a civilian veteran that was among the rioters.

I assume that's because, in this context, a rioter dying is less shocking than a police officer, politician, or other civilian, and "veteran" is more likely to humanize or engender empathy. I'd guess that's also why you objected so strongly to its inclusion, and sought to reframe the perceptive field.

Re: South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

#134

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #120

frumplestlatz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Have you read or watched/listened to his entire speech? I genuinely do not believe any reasonable human being can look at just the speech in context - much less his statements surrounding it in the months leading up - and argue that he didn't get exactly what he wanted in good faith.

[deleted]

Re: South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

#135

Post by hnnp0329 » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 9:20 PM UTC

b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #52

skrtskrt wrote: post #49

Crazy how it was clearly orchestrated by his wife whose family has had dreams of forcing war with North Korea for some time, but he's the fall guy.

If you play quarterback, you take the blame when things go south even if the coach is the one scheming.

Silly nitpick but I think a better analogy would be the coach takes the blame for bad ownership decisions.

In my years watching sports coaches are almost always the first one to be made the fall guy and I've witnessed plenty of situations where I can't really say they're the one at fault. There are two simple reasons in my opinion. Teams invest WAY more money in players so they have to try to commit to them even if the player is potentially not good enough and owners are never going to go "wow I made some bad decisions I should sell the team". All of this is to say coaches are the cheapest and easiest ones to pin the problems on.

Re: South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

#136

Post by expedition32 » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

tyre wrote: post #46

One interesting firestorm that he started was over doctors. Yoon Suk Yeol did the basic math of “if our population isn’t having babies and people are getting older, how much medical capacity will we need?” The results—due to artificial caps on medical students (like the AMA does in the US)—mathed out to: “oh, shit.” He decided to raise the caps by a lot . The medical establishment freaked out, since that would lower…

Dutch politicians run into chaos every day yet none of them go nuts- everyone hating everyone is just another Thursday. If you can't handle that don't become a politician.

Re: South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

#137

Post by throwworhtthrow » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #122

frumplestlatz wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If we want to include additional details, perhaps add the ones that explain why she was shot (Violently breaking into an area being secured by capitol police that directly lead to the congresscritters) and not irrelevant ones like her status as a veteran.

After Renee Good was killed, I re-evaluated my opinion on Ashli Babbitt's killing and I have more sympathy for her now.

Re: South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

#138

Post by jalapenoj » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 9:32 PM UTC

OutOfHere wrote: post #45

jalapenoj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It depends whether the jailing and imprisonment is arbitrary or for cause. Any attempt of mounting an insurrection, however harebrained, 100% qualifies as valid reason for a lifetime sentence.

That’s silly criteria, the tyrant will find a cause. “Give me the man and I will give you the case against him." It’s just not a good idea to arrest your political rivals. Trump didn’t arrest Hillary Clinton.

Re: South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

#139

Post by cthalupa » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 9:33 PM UTC

throwworhtthrow wrote: post #137

cthalupa wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we want to include additional details, perhaps add the ones that explain why she was shot (Violently breaking into an area being secured by capitol police that directly lead to the congresscritters) and not irrelevant ones like her status as a veteran.

After Renee Good was killed, I re-evaluated my opinion on Ashli Babbitt's killing and I have more sympathy for her now.

I have some sympathy, but not nearly as much.

In one case, we have a person in their home town, caught up in a situation that was not of her own making.

Babbitt directly put herself in the situation of traveling to the capital, breaking in to it, ignoring direct and lawful orders from police officers, moving towards people that the police had every reason to believe were likely targets of violence, after once again physically breaking in to an area.

They're not really comparable situations, IMO. But I don't like people dying when it is avoidable.

Re: South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection

#140

Post by cthalupa » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 9:34 PM UTC

frumplestlatz wrote: post #133

cthalupa wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we want to include additional details, perhaps add the ones that explain why she was shot (Violently breaking into an area being secured by capitol police that directly lead to the congresscritters) and not irrelevant ones like her status as a veteran.

I included it because I think it's a counter-balance to how framing and selective information disclosure has been used to shape perception; in many accountings, you either see "five deaths within 36 hours", or just "one death", but neither mentioning the only death that day was a civilian veteran that was among the rioters. I assume that's because, in this context, a rioter dying is less shocking than a police office…

It is a transparent attempt to specifically engender empathy while also leaving out the relevant details about what she did to get shot.

If you were including the full details, I would say nothing. When you leave out the single most important pieces of context and instead talk of her veteran status, it is obvious what your intent is.