View Comments to “SeoulPodcast #53: Venceremos”

1. Stafford Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 1:24 pm

   First!

2. Roboseyo Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 5:56 pm

   First! Oh shit!

3. Brian Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 7:32 pm

   nightmare-believer (also known as “nb”) had what was probably the comment of the month on my post about old people in Jeollanam-do:

   “I can think of nothing more depressing than to be a Korean for 100 years. They must have pissed off a wizard.”

4. Chae Says:
   May 5th, 2009 at 5:31 am

   I’m about 30 minutes into the podcast since I listen while commuting…

   Joe, please allow your panelists to finish their points before jumping in. They may be minor points, and points that you can expound on with more detail, but I’d like to hear each individual point from the person making the point.

   As for the death penalty, it’s something that’s very relevant to my chosen line of work. Your panelists may have hit on why the Korean public seems wary of the capital punishment. There’s a very palpable distrust of the highest level of the government in Korea. That and torture were tools used by the previous, more repressive regimes. I don’t think lack of fundamental Christianity or presence of Buddist tradition has anything to do with it. For one thing, Buddhist influence has been waning on the peninsula for decades, and even when Buddhism figured prominently in Korea, Koreans left the strict adherence to Buddhist precepts to monks. In fact, folk stories and historical accounts speak of people who upon attaining enlightenment retreated to monasteries to live as monks while the rest of the people lived in imperfect ways in an imperfect world. And monasteries still do good business with people who come and live as monks for a while to detox and decompress. It’s understood that the monks’ way is an ideal you cannot reach in a secular world. Monks know that too. That’s why the Buddhist monasteries are set apart away from the world, unlike cathedrals, synagogues and other places of worship in world’s other major religions.

   As for my view on the death penalty if anyone is interested… It’s a punishment that must be perfect in an imperfect system. Speaking only of the American system, the system mandates some measure of fault tolerance. Conviction rests on guilt beyond reasonable doubt, not beyond all doubt. And appeals, while automatic, have their own lesser burden of proof. If an appellate court can find any reason to sustain a verdict, they will. And while points of law are reviewed de novo, or without regard to the original ruling, other factual findings are given incredible deference and are not disturbed unless some abuse of discretion is found. So you can find a lot of errors, but to quote MacBeth, it can be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I am not against the death penalty, per se. It’s an ultimate punishment for an ultimate crime, and regardless of deterrent value, it needs to be an option as a punishment. But I’m just not convinced that we have the system in place that can justify the imposition of the ultimate punishment.

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