South Korean ex president Yoon Suk Yeol jailed for life for leading insurrection
theguardian.com137 points by Geekette an hour ago
137 points by Geekette an hour ago
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 salaries, and went on strike. Doctors, residents, and medical students didn’t show up for months. He had to call in doctors from the army to fill in.
Was a hostile takeover and subversion the right response to frustration over political obstacles? No. But he ran into some very real and frustrating realities (or collective refusal to admit to them.)
Not sure he needed to table-flip into full autocrat, though.
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
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 a news broadcaster be cut, and much more.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_South_Korean_martial_law_...
Just to be clear, ordering a violent mob thousands strong to march on the capitol and "fight like hell" to interfere with the peaceful transition of power is also what a real insurrection attempt looks like.
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.
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
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...
One thing worth pointing out is that by the time Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on December 3, 2024, he was already one of the most unpopular presidents in South Korean history. After that his ratings declined even further. This makes for a much smoother enforcement of the law to make him accountable for his actions.
He'll eventually get pardoned like presideng Park and the Samsung crown prince, Lee Jae-yong. But he'll probably do 10 or 15 years anyway.
He's 65, so that might be long enough to be for life (based on life expectancy).
South Korea is a very young democracy with fresh memories of what it was like under dictatorships. The people very much understand the price it took to get to that point and is not complacent in stomping out wannabe autocrats.
Okay at the same time they had the daughter of one of those autocrats fairly recently as PM, who then resigned due to influence peddling by a religious advisor (and did crazy things like her daughter didn’t go to class yet got amazing grades because her teachers were made to do her work, which she posted about on social media.)
They’re very much not over those players.
Also the King stepping aside as the commoners come to for his brother. Lots of recent examples demonstrating that none of these unprecedented moments are untouchable if you actually are a people who believe in the rule of law.
It's not the King, it's the government, really. In any case, one of the reason, if not the main reason, is that the scandal has unfolded very publicly so that covering it up is not an option as it might have been otherwise or previously.
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.
Last sentence: “Every South Korean president who has served a prison sentence has ultimately been pardoned.”
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.
This is how you do it, America!
Continuing the proud trend of 50% of Presidents not properly completing all their terms in Korea.
Read to the end:
Every South Korean president who has served a prison sentence has ultimately been pardoned.Likewise fascinating seeing UK treat its royalty like regular people (Andrew arrested) while the US treats our oligarchs like royalty.
Royalty in name vs royalty in practice.
I mean Andrew is an extreme case. If he weren’t as out-of-favour I imagine nothing would have happened, and this has been _entirely_ forced by external information.
I assume that otherwise they would have less of an issue. It’s not like he married someone slight off-white, that would be real grounds for excommunication.
> If he weren’t as out-of-favour I imagine nothing would have happened
But the trickling of Epstein news is why he's out-of-favor, isn't it?
Andrew lost his title 'Prince' a while ago. At that point he wasn't a royalty in name anymore.
Took a long time though.
Everyone else thinking what I'm thinking?
I notice a reticence for people to speak plainly about things these days, because certain topics must be danced around at the edges in order for there to be any productive conversation.
Canada's PM Carney spoke recently about the Power of the Powerless essay and the shared lie, when the Green Grocer puts up the "Workers of the world unite" sign. And I kind of fear that shared reticence to speak plainly is causing an even larger inability to talk about the matter at hand than trying to approach it delicately around the edges to convince those who are so hard to communicate with.
It's been ~10 years. Everything has been hashed and rehashed to death. America knew exactly who he was on day 1. He came down the stairs calling Mexicans rapists.
It's because there has been a chilling effect because of the stochastic (and literal) terrorism of the state - YC's own Peter Theil uses Palantir services to pinpoint "domestic terrorists" (read: anyone who exercises their rights to protest or speaks dissent in real life or online) to ICE, who then extrajudicially disappear people.
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.
Depends on what you mean by justice. In the US, the law is now merely a tool used to give privileges to the in-group at the cost of the out-group. For the in-group it protects them from harm but never constrains their actions. For the out-group the law never protects them from harm, but constrains them.
In the US, federal prosecutions are ordered by the in-group via public social media posts, rather than by professionals dedicated to the law deciding if there's enough evidence to support a case. Currently, federal prosecutions will never be pursued against the in-group, no matter the evidence.
I'd like the US to return to it's prior stance on what the law means and how it can be used.
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So "political opponents" are just untouchable entities then that exist completely outside the law?
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.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(essay)
"In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should prioritize their conscience over compliance with unjust laws, asserting that passive submission to government authority enables injustice."
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One of the bedrocks of a startup economy is that the rule of law applies equally to the powerful and to the less powerful.
We wouldn't have Apple, Netflix, or so many other Bay Area giants without the equal application of law.
I applaud South Korea for pursuing this conviction and achieving a suitable penalty for the breakdown of law at the highest levels. It's quite admirable, as admirable as the UK charging the King's own brother with crimes this morning.
When law breaks down against the powerul, billionaires turn into oligarchs, and all those startups that would have created the next big creative disruption in the economy get squashed, and we all lose out. Inequality of power is a massive risk for any economy.
> One of the bedrocks of a startup economy is that the rule of law applies equally to the powerful and to the less powerful.
That has nothing to do with startup and economy. Equality in front of the law is one of the most basic property of any decent democracy.
It is even the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
Not to mention that these former startups are now the Navy, and they are almost all squarely on the side of the person who tried to overthrow democracy.
It has a lot to do with both! HN is largely interested in startup economies, so I focussed on that in my comment.
I would contend that a startup economy can not exist without decent democracy. It's not an either/or as you frame it.
I disagree: TikTok, Alibaba, Deepseek, WeChat...
Interesting, I had not considered these the products of a startup economy, but then I haven't investigated their origin deeply, and now will. Thanks!
>One of the bedrocks of a startup economy is that the rule of law applies equally to the powerful and to the less powerful.
Yes, as the saying goes, the law equally forbids and punishes the poor and the rich if they sleep in the park or under a bridge.
>We wouldn't have Apple, Netflix, or so many other Bay Area giants without the equal application of law.
US has nowhere near "equal application of law", and yet it has these companies.
In fact, if it did have "equal application of law", those companies would have dead, as they get away with things that, if a smaller company or private business did, they'd have the book thrown at them.
We wouldn't have Apple, Netflix, or so many other Bay Area giants without the equal application of law.
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.