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South Korean President Impeached
- gingerbread-man 10y agoWell done S.Korea. Any tips for US?
- 67726e 10y agoOh grow up already.
- dang 10y agoThe comment you're replying to was a bad one, but making the thread worse with a personal attack is exactly the wrong way to respond. Please don't do this on HN.
- Numberwang 10y agoEducate your electorate.
- zw123456 10y agoMajor flaw with democracy, 50% of electorate has below average IQ.
- winstonewert 10y agoActually, 50% of electorate has below median IQ.
- Judgmentality 10y agoSpecifically for the IQ, isn't the average designed to be the median? It's a normal distribution after all.
- acchow 10y agoCan't actually have a normal distribution that has a bound on one end...
- Judgmentality 10y agoThere's no reason an IQ couldn't be negative. Granted, I don't think the IQ test is properly calibrated for this and I don't think real world data perfectly fits the bell curve as designed, so it's kind of moot point.
- sqeaky 10y agoI don't like the Mode of your speech. I think you are Mean and this falls well below the Average expected on Hacker News.
- mc32 10y agoSo back to only educated people or people owning property again; are we proposing education testing before casting a vote? Besides, it's not like smart people don't have biases. That does not seem like an alternative most people -even educated or above median IQ would favor.
- piotrkaminski 10y ago> are we proposing education testing before casting a vote? I'm curious, have there been any known attempts to condition the right to vote on passing some kind of IQ, education, or rational thinking test? If so, how did they work out?
- dllthomas 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test#Voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test#Voting
- piotrkaminski 10y agoThanks, that's some useful history to know. Any data points from other countries?
- dllthomas 10y agoNot off the top of my head - IANAH :-P
- 0xcde4c3db 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenfranchisement_after_the_Reconstruction_Era#Educational_and_character_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenfranchisement_after_the_R...
- aligna 10y agoIf you think certain group of people participating in democracy is a problem, you're advocating for something other than a democracy.
- AnthonBerg 10y agoShould children vote?
- aligna 10y agoCrazy thought: would it really be that bad? If the votes end up being noise, it comes out in the wash. And we already have protections against compelling people to vote one way or another, so carrot-sticking children for votes would (continue to be) a serious crime. It might even grow our children into a less apathetic public.
- xaa 10y agoI agree, and not a crazy thought. The reasons for voting of the median adult in both parties -- described as charitably as possible -- are suboptimal. The fact that children might be slightly less informed doesn't excuse the disenfranchisement. If anything, children's relative lack of bias might offset their propensity to be less informed. Our laws and attitude towards "age discrimination" in this country are bizarre and flagrantly hypocritical. The ADEA forbids age discrimination, but only for those 40 or older. This would be analogous to forbidding racial discrimination, but only against some one particular race. Kind of takes away the moral high ground.
- true_religion 10y agoSo? Below average IQ doesn't mean that your opinions are valueless and shouldn't be taken into account. We all have to live with one another, and to make a system of government work with peaceful transitions of power, everyone must feel as if they have a voice. High IQ, high education, high wealth, and other social advantages can be leveraged into making side-channels in the political system (e.g. lobbying), or by shaping the discussion the general electorate sees (e.g. overton window) in order to direct it towards ones goals. Democracies have all been implemented with specific factors to make them viable in today's society, not some idealised society.
- zw123456 10y agoI was being a little flip of course, IQ is generally accepted to be a Gaussian distribution which is symmetrical, the mean and average are at 50 percentile so it is a little bit of a math joke that of course then, 50% of the people in a large enough sample will be below the 50 percentile.
- M_Grey 10y agoSince the 80's it's been quite the opposite. Whether by design or happy coincidence (for populists) education has been gutted.
- treme 10y ago1) Get a media figure* that commands the utmost respect of the population to report on corruption. 2) Get 2% of the population participating in a peaceful protest & demonstration to put pressure on congress. 3) ??? 4) profit!! *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohn_Suk-hee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohn_Suk-hee
- bitmapbrother 10y agoIt's too bad Hilary wasn't president. We could have had a double impeachment!
- castis 10y agoWhat offenses do you think she would she have committed while president that she would have been impeached for?
- gunnyguy121 10y agoliterally anything, assuming the congressional votes were the same and we ended up with a Republican house and senate. The would try to impeach her from day 1
- castis 10y agoI asked what they thought she would do, not what congress would have thrown at her.
- noobermin 10y agoReading the description of the political climate upthread, the majority in parliament in SK is opposition, split between two parties. Here, the R's have a majority in the House which impeaches, so our chances are unfortunately not that great.
- kijin 10y agoEven the two major opposition parties could not have pulled off a supermajority (67% required for the impeachment) on their own. It helped that the ruling party was split into two factions, one of which sided with the opposition at the last minute. Now we have four major parties, one minor party, and a bunch of independents who all hate one another. It's going to be fun! At least I hope this will bring some much-needed diversity to Korean politics. Two parties are boring and too easily devolve into an ideological staredown.
- noobermin 10y ago>Two parties are boring and too easily devolve into an ideological staredown. Hell, just look at the US[0]. [0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/purple-america-has-all-but-disappeared/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/purple-america-has-all-...
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- lacampbell 10y agoTry and elect a more impeachable president - like Clinton.
- jdoliner 10y agoThis is obviously a bit pedantic but technically she was already impeached. This article is about her being convicted in the impeachment trial. The post title also doesn't match with the article title which more correctly states that she's been ousted.
- pcurve 10y agoTechnically, she wasn't impeached. But the way impeachment process works in SK, once the process begins, you are no longer able to function as president. So 'effectively', she was already impeached. Obviously I'm the one being pedantic. lol.
- lifthrasiir 10y agoMore accurately speaking, in South Korea both the congress and the president is elected by direct nationwide voting, therefore it takes a separate process for the congress to fully impeach the president: the congress votes to impeach and the constitutional court decides whether to approve it. Therefore she has not been impeached, but merely has been suspended til the decision (Roh Moo-hyun [1] is currently a sole example to survive this process). This is quite different to how the impeachment works in USA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roh_Moo-hyun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roh_Moo-hyun
- dllthomas 10y agoImpeachment is the bringing of charges.
- true_religion 10y agoAs a legal processes, the definition and order or procedures vary wildly between different countries. Some countries for example charge you with a crime, but don't actually arrest you until they're bringing it to trial. Some countries don't have a prosecution, or a defence but a system where multiple government officials advocate for the truth. You can set up a legal system anyway you want, and define the terms however you like---it'll be legal and valid in your country.
- warcher 10y agoWhat's the minimum bar for convicting a sitting president again? ...asking for a friend.
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- vermontdevil 10y agoAt least her ending is not the same as her father.
- curuinor 10y agoDon't say that until she dies, KCIA could still assassinate her
- pcurve 10y agothat won't happen. But this could be traumatizing enough that she might end her own life.
- yongjik 10y agoKCIA is currently run by clowns who roll in the same bed as Park's people, so probably not. (One of the first thing the next president needs to do is to purge it of all the criminals who've meddled with domestic politics.) ...Unless someone has the craziest idea of killing her so that she could be a martyr. But I doubt they have someone who is that evil and that competent at the same time.
- bane 10y agoThis is huge. Early analysis is that this is a net positive for Korean democracy since the entire process, from protests to ouster was relatively peaceful and the people involved in the ouster tried to follow the rule of law as much as possible. It's exercised for the first time a part of the legal system that's never been explored in the country. At each stage of the very complex process, the government figured out what to do without too much fuss, even operating as a temporary parliamentary democracy. It wasn't too long ago that this could have gone very differently: seizure of power, military occupation, coups, violence and corruption. This is Korea's Nixon moment. edit There's some very serious discussion regarding criminal charges they may now be brought now that she's freed from Presidential immunity. edit2 For folks who want more background on what this is all about, "Ask a Korean" has done a magnificent job of writing the charges up. http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-ultimate-choi-soon-sil-gate.html http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-ultimate-choi-soo... http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-ultimate-choi-soon-sil-gate.html http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-ultimate-choi-soo...
- nether 10y agoMy cousin is a historian of Korea, and well, Korean herself. She says this president is like Korea's GWB. Shamelessly very right wing, a lot of gaffes related to speech and behavior. There are going to be a lot of happy people tonight.
- simpx 10y agosorry, but what's GWB stands for?
- adrianmonk 10y agoGeorge W. Bush
- Kieslowski 10y ago
- bmelton 10y ago
- jdoliner 10y ago> The nation now must hold a presidential election within 60 days, making it likely to fall on May 9. This is different from how it works in USG where Congress elects a new President themselves from within Congress. At least that's what my understanding is from googling around, no President has been convicted in an impeachment trial. Edit: As later comments have pointed out I'm wrong here, instead the normal line of succession applies.
- rjeli 10y agoWhat is USG?
- tptacek 10y agoNo, if the sitting President is impeached, succession proceeds as if the President had resigned, and the Vice President assumes the office.
- twblalock 10y agoThe US Congress does not choose a new president if the current president is removed. The normal line of succession applies: Vice President, then Speaker of the House, then President Pro Tem of the Senate, etc. This was clarified in the 25th amendment. No US president has been convicted in an impeachment trial, but when Nixon resigned, the normal rules of succession applied. Congress did appoint Gerald Ford as VP before Nixon resigned, but they were only able to do that because Nixon's previous VP had himself resigned, because he was a crook too. That is probably a source of confusion for a lot of people.
- jdoliner 10y ago
- h4nkoslo 10y agoThe South Korean presidential scandal is one of the odder bits of contemporary political history. Imagine an alternate-history US President Hillary Clinton being impeached over PizzaGate and it starts to get close. Besides the actual corruption mentioned in the article, there are credible reports swirling of a "8 Goddesses" cabal and various occult practices. http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-irrational-downfall-of-park-geun-hye.html http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-irrational-downfa... http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/29/499864915/swirling-scandal-involving-shamanistic-cult-threatens-s-korean-president http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/29/499864915/... http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/767405.html http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/76... https://medium.com/@thepenningtonlens/the-south-korean-puppet-president-77354276c186#.1lp10dmg9 https://medium.com/@thepenningtonlens/the-south-korean-puppe...
- hooo 10y agoHuh? PizzaGate was made up though.
- kijin 10y agoImagine that Americans elected Tom Cruise to the White House and it turns out that the Church of Scientology was pulling his strings. That would be an apt analogy.
- nether 10y agoThe 4chan summary is the best I've read: http://i.imgur.com/86Z3ea6l.jpg http://i.imgur.com/86Z3ea6l.jpg
- jdjebc82747 10y agoHow to get top comment on HN: condescendingly dictate the importance: SK pres impeached: "This is huge" Gmail add ons: "This is a really big deal"
- debaserab2 10y agoHuh? What about that comment was condescending? Do you not interpret this as a very important moment in South Korea's democracy?
- sdfgre435 10y agoI think he was saying that too many comments on HN begin with telling the readers how significant this thing is. It can come off as telling people how to feel about something rather than letting them interpret. But it really is the beginning of way too many top comments. I bet you'll see it everywhere now that you know to look. Your comment sounds like a BuzzFeed article, not actual analysis.
- colinplamondon 10y agoMan, that's the entire reason I read /r/worldnews. A ton of people compete to have the best recap on why something is relevant, and the best rises to the top. Like, the point of comments is people putting out their opinions. In the process some people post who are more informed, and others less. Give it a few hours, and you can skim the top comments, and get a damned decent read on a situation. If someone didn't want someone else to interpret an article, why'd they even bother reading comments?
- jdjebc82747 10y agoExecutive summaries (aka summaries without statements by uninformed / non-inside sources)? Statements of other facts or viewpoints that weren't considered? Laying out the logical argument as to why this has an impact on the future of SK versus just stating they think it's significant? Lots of reasons?
- sideproject 10y agoAs a Korean, I feel bittersweet for my mother country. It's embarrassing that this is happening, yet I feel relieved now that people of Korea can move forward - here's hoping for electing a more qualified president next.
- nercht12 10y agoDon't feel embarrassed. It's better that a country can actually fix its problems peacefully rather than outright denying it has a problem and trying to go on with business as usual. Peaceful resolution - for the better - is something to be proud of in a democracy.
- throwaway17854 10y agoYou should feel more proud than embarrassed that this is happening. Occasionally, an unqualified candidate will be elected. The ability to remove that person from power is much more important than the difficult problem of making sure the person is never elected in the first place. On the other hand, I do feel empathy for your feeling of embarrassment, as I am an American (yes I'm referring to the Trump election).
- system16 10y agoKoreans have absolutely nothing to feel embarrassed about. I - and I'm sure many others - have actually gained a huge amount of respect for SK over this as it confirms the strength of your democracy and justice system.
- kijin 10y agoAs a fellow Korean, please don't feel embarrassed. Unnecessary embarrassment at the sight of anything that could possibly cast a negative light on our country is one of the major causes of the trouble that we've been in. It makes us prone to hide our problems and pretend that everything is all right. It makes us blind to the shortcomings of our preferred political leaders. It makes us resent the few brave journalists and activists who dare to bring these problems to light. All of this hampers progress. The same misguided sense of pride and embarrassment is at the root of Japan's constant refusal to admit their war crimes. They feel embarrassed that they are grandchildren of war criminals. But if they keep thinking that way, they will never be free of embarrassment. The only way forward is to do admit that something bad happened and to take pride in your passion to fix it. I truly hope that all Asian cultures can learn this, including Koreans and Japanese.
- xufi 10y agoWhat happeend to her freind and the other Samsung CEO who was arrested ?
- poofyleek 10y agoThis is indeed huge. I left Korea right after Park Jung-hee was assassinated by one of his officers. Predictably, this was followed by a military coup and martial law. Park Jung-hee himself seized the reign by means of his own military coup against the previous president. His daughter, Park guen-hye, is now outed by the Supreme court, peacefully. In the old south Korea I remember, the same court had ruled in favor of the military regime to condemn Kim dae-jung to death sentence. Kim dae-jung later was elected president after the democratization of south Korea. I remember the heavily armed soldiers everywhere as I was leaving the country, after the assassination. That is my last memory of Korea. I have not been back since 1979. Perhaps now it is time for me to go back and visit. Congratulations to the Korean people.
- lifthrasiir 10y agoSome says the October "Restoration" [1] has been finally put down today. I hearily agree. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Restoration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Restoration
- bane 10y agoYou should definitely go back. I've been visiting Korea for 16 years, it's an amazing, dynamic country that seems to literally transform itself every few years. Even with only a couple years in between trips, I can hardly recognize it. It's not perfect, but no place is, but I have a strong sense that it's changing for the better.
- magic_beans 10y agoReally? All my girl friends who've been to Korea (even the Korean ones) can't stand it at all. I wonder if it's different for white American men vs minority (incl. Korean) American women.
- bane 10y agoYeah, absolutely. It's a fun, lively, very modern country with an astonishing amount to do, experience and see. Lots of friendly people who are eager to share their country and culture. There's some social pressures and responsibilities for people who live there that can make it difficult if you can't get into the groove of the place, lots of Koreans will complain about them in various ways -- but they are what they are. Admittedly, white foreigners (men and women) get treated fairly well. I've only ever had a couple of incidents where I didn't feel welcome as a foreigner. Non-white foreigners have various observations on their own treatment. Here's some examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRdhJEl5FTc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRdhJEl5FTc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KTPpgjdl4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KTPpgjdl4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxrW_PB8gI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxrW_PB8gI Same question to white people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9PscUvu_Dk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9PscUvu_Dk
- chompomonim 10y agoLet's hope Russia is next and USA is following ;)
- beedogs 10y agoHopefully a certain other President is next.
- gotofritz 10y agoThis is somehow connected to geopolitics in the area and the THAAD project, since the US government is worried the next administration may not be so in favour of it (left leaning parties tend towards disarmament, as crazy as that sound with an insane neighbour north of the border)
- hackerboos 10y agoAren't most missiles fired at Japan?
- clydethefrog 10y ago>as crazy as that sound with an insane neighbour north of the border Not every country sees international relations as a form of game theory, with mutual assured destruction as an important component. Korean reunification can be a preferable option instead of threatening the people that used to be part of your community, but had the bad luck to be at the wrong side of the ideological fight between the US and the USSR.
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- yongjik 10y ago> left leaning parties tend towards disarmament, ... That's what conservatives say, but doesn't match reality. Under the liberal president Roh Moo-Hyun, military budget increased by 8.8% per year on average. Under his conservative successor Lee Myung-Bak, 5.2% [1]. Roh also made an agreement with the US to finally take back wartime military command. It's an inconvenient secret that if war breaks out in Korea, South Korea's military command automatically transfers to the US. We don't have authority to command our own military. What kind of independent country does that? And then all the conservatives, including active and retired generals, blamed Roh for weakening our military. (According to them, having the authority to command our own military makes us less dependent on the US. But we can always trust the US: only a North Korean sympathizer would doubt that the US will be there to protect us. Therefore it's a communist plot. Or something like that.) Incidentally, these generals' argument prompted Roh to utter the now famous phrase, "부끄러운 줄 알아야지!" (Know your shame!) His successor Lee asked US to please take back the command. Wartime military command is still in the hands of the US. [1] http://ppss.kr/archives/9256 http://ppss.kr/archives/9256 (in Korean, sorry)
- nojvek 10y agoThis is indeed very huge. Does anyone see this happening with trump?