SEOUL, Dec 4 (Reuters) - South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Wednesday he would move to lift a martial law declaration he had imposed just hours before, honoring a parliamentary vote against the measure. Yoon declared martial law on Tuesday to thwart “anti-state forces” among his opponents. But outraged lawmakers rejected the decree, as protesters gathered outside parliament in the country’s biggest political crisis in decades. Yoon’s surprise declaration, which he cast as aimed at his political foes, was unanimously voted down by 190 lawmakers in the parliament. Under South Korean law, the president must immediately lift martial law if parliament demands it by a majority vote. His own party urged him to lift the decree. The crisis in a country that has been a democracy since the 1980s, and is a U.S. ally and major Asian economy, caused international alarm.
I’m kind of blown away by this too. The sentiment here on Lemmy following the US presidential election was palpable by people in other countries, and how this might have ripple effects in Europe and beyond. I suppose it’s easy to underestimate the influence of US military, trade, and soft power abroad from within these borders. Still, the idea that politicians and leaders elsewhere would just freaking copy our homework, especially when we’re doing our best to fail the class, is mind-boggling.
Jefferson was quoted as recommending a re-write of the constitution every 19 years. So the fragility of all this stuff, and the need to keep with the times, was well-known by the founders at the very start. By that clock, we are decades overdue for some amendments. Then there’s the really famous quote:
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” - Thomas Jefferson
For the record, I appreciate how absolutely metal this quote is. At the same time, I greatly dislike it because it suggests that violence is the right choice right out of the gate. I prefer to take this advice as, eventually, violence is the only option remaining.
Honestly, I think part of the rot that is happening is precisely because the modern nation state model seems to be causing mass misery, resignation, and wealth concentration at a cartoonish scale.
I think Jefferson had a point in that admittedly metal quote that many miss in appreciating it.
In our pursuit of perpetual stability, mostly for the sake of large scale long distance commerce which has been elevated to the point that even incentivizing families and children has become a distant secondary priority, we’ve lost something that is absolutely essential for civilization to progress rather than stagnate and regress:
The renewal of societies that can only come from painful but necessary collapse of the old systems that no longer serve the interests of those that support them.
People can’t afford small homes NOW anymore. If this system remains stable does that mean, as wealth continues to concentrate, that most will be unable to afford so much as a sleep crate from Bezos’s grandchild after a 14 hour workday?
I argue that, painful for the generation(s) that bear it as it is, sometimes the score needs to be reset, or the misery will be perpetual and multigenerational.