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Yoon is quite politically toxic at the moment, I don't think he'll be pardoned any time soon. I also think that this would be a good moment for South Korea to reconsider its approach to corruption, especially since Yoon's actions represent a clear escalation in the history of corruption at the highest levels of government.

Yeah, I don't understand the comments praising Korea for this. A tradition of prosecuting political opponents and then pardoning all of them is a mockery of the rule of law, regardless of what they actually did.

> Two Korean presidents were sentenced to death and were pardoned in the 90s.

The important context is that these two presidents were Chun Doo-hwan and his successor Roh Tae-Woo, who led the military coup of December 12th (1979), seizing power, and then sending paratroopers to murder hundreds of civilians to quash public protest in the uprising of Gwangju (1980).

They weren't your garden variety corrupt politicians. They were mass murderers, and by 1995 when they were arrested, they and their military cabals were still posing a credible threat to Korea's democracy. Their arrest and subsequent death sentences, accompanied with a sweeping purge of their military cabal by president Kim Young-Sam, marked an important inflection point in Korea's decades-long struggle toward democracy: before that the threat of a military coup was a constant factor in politics. After that the threat was gone, and since then, the Korean military never even pretended they had any political ambitions.

So mock their later pardons if you want to, but you can't deny it marked an important and necessary step in Korea's history. It also shows sending your ex-presidents to prison only to pardon them later is still better than not bothering with it at all.

* Also, the "obvious reason" that American politics sent zero ex-presidents to prison is that Biden chickened out. So, there's that.

For more details on this, there's some really interesting documentaries on how the Chaebol system works.

In my personal opinion that's what the US is heading towards to right now, so might give you a hint on how to prevent it.

I can't believe I'm defending Yoon, but this was one issue where Yoon identified the correct problem, and all those doctors were clearly in the wrong. But because there are so few doctors, things like emergency rooms were always overfull, and doctors who worked there were always overworked, and when they said no there was nothing the rest of the country could do. So the doctors basically had the rest of the country by its balls, so to speak.

It will forever grate me that those assholes of Korean Medical Association could say "You see how hard we're working for all of you guys? That's why there should be no more doctors!" with a straight face and will never face any consequences for that.

(Of course, it didn't help Yoon that he attacked this problem with the finesse of a bulldozer, with disastrous consequences. But still.)

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.

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.

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.

Why is his favorability rating so high?

The King has made it very clear that he was entirely unhappy with Andrew's involvement for years, but had Andrew done the right thing and entirely disappeared from public life he might have retained a degree of protection.

He didn't and so he had everything stripped away which sent a very clear message to Government and the police that he was there for the taking.

It's striking that the specific offense, misconduct in a public office, is exactly what the supreme court recently decided a US president can never commit. In at least one concrete way our elected leaders are less accountable than their royalty.

It's not the King, it's the government, really. In any case, one of the reasons, 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.

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

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_...

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.

I would also say that this is the correct way to handle a former president that was elected as the result of a rigged election.

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.

For context, Yoon is the 5th south korean president to serve a prison sentence; and a 6th committed suicide while under investigation, which is 42% of all korean presidents.

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.

The last 10 years in Peru were a bit extreme in that category.

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.

Andrew lost his title 'Prince' a while ago. At that point he wasn't a royalty in name anymore.

Took a long time though.

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.

Yes seems like a good precedent for democracies globally

That it was a dodgy vindaloo that is causing these cramps?

Yes. I am surprised too

Aiming for the bushes?

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.

> 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...

>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 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.

Well Park Geun-hye is still alive.