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Singapore sounds like a well-branded dictatorship from what I keep hearing, but Japan and South Korea have limited governments that aren’t even allowed to enfor
by strogonoff 6y ago
Singapore sounds like a well-branded dictatorship from what I keep hearing, but Japan and South Korea have limited governments that aren’t even allowed to enforce a full lockdown.
This is a commonly misreported point—earlier this year I saw The Guardian claim that the reason Japan, SK and China are better at dealing with COVID is because “police visibly enforced lockdown”; two of the three never did! Sure, in Korea at times non-essential domestic travel and public events were suppressed, certain venues (e.g. dance halls) were instructed to close and some cafes had to become takeout-only, but you can still move (even if strongly recommended to stay at home) and police presence was never visibly heightened.
Contrast with mainland China, where whole apartment buildings with people in them were quite non-figuratively sealed from outside.
What I hear from Koreans is that the police is a service, like a plumber: you have a problem, you call. They can’t enter your home, can’t invade your privacy and spot-check, etc. Law enforcement is so restricted by citizens’ own choice, as they had to deal with the opposite extreme recently enough that people still remember; they hold the government responsible and treasure the freedom they have.
- rasz 6y agoJust 6 years ago South Korea let 300 schoolchildren drown because they were paralyzed by fear of what their current dictator, lady president, might say if anyone showed a shred of initiative and independent decision making skills. Instead establishing a video link for high ranking government officials was more important than actual rescue mission. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-sinking-of-the-mv-sewol-and-the-confusion-of-disasters https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-sinking-of-the-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_MV_Sewol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_MV_Sewol
- strogonoff 6y agoPerhaps that’s part of the reason she got impeached? (Speaking of, the masses protesting by government buildings to make that happen showed people that could hardly be paralysed by a concern about what she might say.)
- rasz 6y agohttps://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/asia/south-koreas-troubling-history-of-jailing-ex-presidents/ https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/asia/south-ko... tldr its a shitshow
- strogonoff 6y agoJailing corrupt officials is? What’s your argument—that a president must be able to act illegally and then walk free?
- rasz 6y agoThe continued legacy of corruption and running the place like your own little kingdom by pretty much every single leader since forever. Clearly jailing (and subsequent pardons) dont work if nothing changed in last 60 years).
- strogonoff 6y agoThose are two orthogonal things though: 1) electing people who consistently act in good faith, and 2) noticing, acknowledging and prosecuting if elected authorities act in bad faith. (1) is a known hard problem in a democracy. The democracy in Korea is young as you have noted and there are cultural holdovers from previous times, so perhaps having (2) happen N times first is the only way forward—otherwise all they’d get is an illusion. Where (2) is not implemented, (1) is less likely to happen (no deterrent). If (2) is implemented and citizens learn to elect better and keep trying, (1) may happen at some point.
- lazylizard 6y agojust saying. about singapore. a majority actually like what the ruling party is doing on the whole. the ruling party changes its tune to feedback. often times its just slow. older voters might remember. issues from 2 elections ago. conditions have changed. maybe 2 elections ago a hot issue was too many foreign workers. maybe 2 elections later businesses are unhappy about the difficulty of employing foreign workers. my take is. its not so much a dictatorship, especially after lee kuan yew. but its pragmatic. whatever the majority wants, it will try to give. not so much a dictatorship. but actually populist???