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

theguardian.com

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

#51
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…

Yep, and similar thing went in Philippines. The craziest part is that public in general sided with doctors, and against their president on that issue. Even though public would certainly benefit from having more doctors.

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

#52

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.

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

#53

This is how justice actually works. Meanwhile, the US is comparable to a banana republic where you can count on lying and injustice, also a mockery of real justice, being the things that work.

[flagged]

So "political opponents" are just untouchable entities then that exist completely outside the law?

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

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also illustrates what a real insurrection attempt looks like. [1] He declared martial law, suspended and prevented their Congress equivalent from meeting (and directed the military to enforce such), ordered the immediate arrest of numerous high level politicians with a goal of arresting hundreds, issued a declaration that all media and publications had to be approved before publication, ordered the power+water for…

How did they stop him?

Enough members of the National Assembly managed to bypass the military blockade, get into the building, and vote to reject martial law. (Some had to climb over the fence to get in.)

Here's a news article from that time: https://m.koreaherald.com/article/10012328

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

#55
post #51
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…

Yep, and similar thing went in Philippines. The craziest part is that public in general sided with doctors, and against their president on that issue. Even though public would certainly benefit from having more doctors.

The public does not act in its self interest; Bryan Caplan explained this clearly in "The Myth of the Rational Voter": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter

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

#56

Seeing consequences for insurrection (or anything, really) is mind-blowing to me (you can guess where I live)

It is mind blowing. I guess he didn't have enough allies in power? All the corrupt politicians around the world must be laughing at him right now.

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

#57

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.

Oh yeah, I mean by all means he should receive consequences.

But he's not the chaebol, he's just a tool for people walking away unscathed to try again at a more opportune time.

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

#58
post #3

This is the correct way to handle a former president who tries to mount an anti-democratic insurrection.

It also illustrates what a real insurrection attempt looks like. [1] He declared martial law, suspended and prevented their Congress equivalent from meeting (and directed the military to enforce such), ordered the immediate arrest of numerous high level politicians with a goal of arresting hundreds, issued a declaration that all media and publications had to be approved before publication, ordered the power+water for…

I’m not suggesting things are as bad as a full on insurrection. But it’s not a great leap of imagination to compare the two either.

> He declared martial law

Trump has sent federal troops into states that voted against him.

He’s also frequently talked about “the enemy from within” to describe American citizens.

And then there’s ICE…

> suspended and prevented their Congress equivalent from meeting

Trump has shut down the government twice already.

The press just like to blame Democrats despite the fact that it’s the Republicans who are refusing to negotiate.

> ordered the immediate arrest of numerous high level politicians with a goal of arresting hundreds,

To be fair, Trump hasn’t gone that far (yet). But he has fired lots of people from government roles that should have been non-partisan and filled them with his own loyal supporters. Even when those people are clearly not qualified to be doing their new found appointments.

He’s also freed lots of criminals because they either supported him, or paid him.

> issued a declaration that all media and publications had to be approved before publication

Trump has been removing press from the White House and replacing them with publications that support him.

> ordered the power+water for a news broadcaster be cut

Trump hasn’t done that either. But he has sent the FCC to shutdown shows he dislikes. And sued the others into compliance.

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

#59
post #27

It's pretty much certain this guy is going to commit suicide within 5 years, right?

It's more likely that he gets pardoned after a few years. President Park Geun-Hye only served less than 4 years of her combined 32-year prison sentence.

The reality is that presidents (in almost every system), like MPs, are representatives of some faction of entrenched interests somewhere or another, or they wouldn’t get to be president.

It’s the same for dictators, and well pretty much any singular leader.

The factions may fight back and forth, and counting coup by imprisoning the figurehead for one of them certainly has some attraction - but the pendulum swings, and nobody wants to end up really getting punished at the end of the day when it swings away from them.

That’s how you get murderous resistance instead of (relatively) sane transfers of power.

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

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also illustrates what a real insurrection attempt looks like. [1] He declared martial law, suspended and prevented their Congress equivalent from meeting (and directed the military to enforce such), ordered the immediate arrest of numerous high level politicians with a goal of arresting hundreds, issued a declaration that all media and publications had to be approved before publication, ordered the power+water for…

How did they stop him?

Some of the orders weren't carried out, others were carried out loosely so armed forces were occupying their Congress but they didn't actually stop members from being in the building and voting down the martial law. If we're doing the Trump comparison, an obvious difference is that Trump already knew the military wouldn't intervene to take sides on who got certified as the winner (they'd actually taken the unprecedented step of issuing a statement to that effect) and had reason to believe some of his supporters would give it a go...
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