# Former South Korean Presidental Candidate stabbed **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 2, 2024, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496 "2024-01-02T14:11:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/1 "2024-01-02T14:11:37Z")
I know squat about politics in South Korea, but isn’t this type of violence pretty rare? Lone gunman (so to speak) or a symptom of something worse? > **[Lee Jae-myung: South Korea opposition leader stabbed in neck on visit to Busan](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67860330)** > > Lee Jae-myung was airlifted to hospital after a man posing as a supporter lunged at him with a knife. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/2 "2024-01-02T14:27:29Z")
One and a half years ago [Shinzo Abe was assasinated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Shinzo_Abe) by a lone gunman (literally), so it may be a statistical blip, or the beginning of a trend. Last I read Lee Jae-myung is likely to survive, let’s hope for the best. One of the reasons why this type of violence is pretty rare in East Asia is IMO that it is hard to come by guns. That is why in Japan the murderer built his own crude gun and why in this case there was a stabbing, not a shooting. This, I guess, is unlike to change much in the near future. ---
**Author:** ![Eric1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3bc359/32.png) [@Eric1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eric1)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/3 "2024-01-02T14:54:29Z")
That was sad to see. I’ll never understand people who assault politicians in general. One time I saw the congressional rep buying a trash can at The Home Depot here. He had no security with him and nobody recognized him or treated him any differently. Indifference is so normal I’m saying. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/4 "2024-01-02T15:20:38Z")
> [@Eric1](#): > > I’ll never understand people who assault politicians in genera anyone! People who spit on celebrities or abuse actors, or hurt politicians. Do you think that is going to win your cause? People are dicks. ---
**Author:** ![Mnemnosyne](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mnemnosyne/32/3347_2.png) [@Mnemnosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mnemnosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/5 "2024-01-02T16:02:37Z")
> [@Eric1](#): > > I’ll never understand people who assault politicians in general. Well at least assaulting politicians is better than assaulting random civilians or barely-related groups, organizations, places of business, etc. The politician may actually have been responsible for whatever the person assaulting them is upset about. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/6 "2024-01-02T16:24:07Z")
> [@Mnemnosyne](#): > > The politician may actually have been responsible for whatever the person assaulting them is upset about. In this case, probably not directly. A former Presidential candidate and leader of the opposition party in that position for only a little more than a year. So very limited ability to have actually done anything policy-wise. But still a long time politician with all the baggage that entails. I suppose I sympathize conceptually with the idea that politicians are at least more directly responsible for the day to day lives of people than random civilians, but ascribing a rational explanation to an inherently irrational act is still a mug’s game. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/7 "2024-01-02T16:27:58Z")
> [@Eric1](#): > > I’ll never understand people who assault politicians in general Neither do I, but not for the reasons you mention, what shocks me is the utter _uselessness_ of it, you hate a political ideology… so you give it a martyr? is the most idiotic thing you could do. ---
**Author:** ![Mnemnosyne](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mnemnosyne/32/3347_2.png) [@Mnemnosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mnemnosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/8 "2024-01-02T16:36:01Z")
Is it? Killing the right politician can result in good things. We have the obvious examples from history that people even talk about going back in time to kill, but also quite a few still-living people who the world may be better off without. If someone had assassinated Putin around the time he started maneuvering that position-swap in the Russian government that made it clear he had no intention of letting go of power, I suspect it would’ve had good effects. In general killing a politician is probably a pretty bad choice, but…not always. Though as **Great\_Antibob** says, in this case it certainly sounds irrational and not helpful at all. Unfortunately the people inclined to do this sort of thing are rarely also inclined to go after the right targets and be sufficiently competent to succeed. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/9 "2024-01-02T16:37:47Z")
I think there may be a few exceptions, but 99% of the time it’s counterproductive. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/10 "2024-01-02T16:56:53Z")
They say hindsight is 20/20. I doubt it’s even that good. Perhaps it is possible to argue that assassinating the ‘right’ person will produce good results down the road, but I can’t be convinced that a random knife-wielding civilian has the knowledge or foresight to make those calls. Even considering history, people will argue both sides about most people. There are exceedingly few cases where we could say the world would have been inarguably better had somebody been offed early. Killing Putin about that point? It certainly would have changed things but it’s hard to know if it would have been an overall improvement. It just leaves a vacuum for somebody else to fill when he already did a lot of the heavy lifting of centralizing authority around his office. It’s not like Russia would have been some paradise of a liberal democracy but for one man. In this case, it was senseless violence in just about every way. Stabbing an opposition politician who had no track record of national success, potentially corrupt as he might have been, does nothing to alter policy, corruption, or anything else. It just made him a potential martyr. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/11 "2024-01-02T20:37:11Z")
> [@Mnemnosyne](#): > > In general killing a politician is probably a pretty bad choice, but…not always. You could probably say that about killing people in general. > [@Mnemnosyne](#): > > Though as **Great\_Antibob** says, in this case it certainly sounds irrational and not helpful at all. Unfortunately the people inclined to do this sort of thing are rarely also inclined to go after the right targets and be sufficiently competent to succeed. Yeah, historically these attacks are usually perpetrated by someone with mental health problems. Usually you’re not dealing with a person who has made a rational decision that there will be more harm than good in eliminating a person in power. Rather, they are suffering from an illness that leads them to committing an act that a mentally healthy person would not do. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2024, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/12 "2024-01-03T11:14:53Z")
We’ve had three appalling cases in the UK in recent years, with apparently extremist political motivation (though obviously someone taking their cause that far could well be said to be unbalanced). The perpetrators were all duly locked away, with no benefit to their cause or anybody. Incomprehensible to the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/13 "2024-01-25T12:02:18Z")
Another South Korean politician was attacked, this time with a “rock-like object.” I hope she’s all right. > **[A South Korean lawmaker is injured in an attack, weeks after another was stabbed](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korean-lawmaker-injured-attack-rock-rcna135606)** > > The attack, which comes weeks after a man stabbed opposition lawmaker Lee Jae-myung in the neck, raises further concerns about the country’s intensely polarized politics. ---
**Author:** ![Eric1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3bc359/32.png) [@Eric1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eric1)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-south-korean-presidental-candidate-stabbed/995496/14 "2024-01-25T15:01:13Z")
Bae Hyunjin. Since she’s apparently a confidante of their president, that is a bad attack.