Watching the June 3 Local-Election Count, I Hope the “Insurrection Party” Collapses
Today I turned on the broadcast to watch the June 3 local-election count together. I started a little late, but while the numbers came in I wanted to discuss where Korean democracy now stands and why the experience of martial law and insurrection requires us to keep questioning. I did not hide the position even in the title: I hope the insurrection party collapses in this election.
Some may find it strange to say this on a channel called Barobul, or Buddhism Seen Directly. Yet Buddhism should be living wisdom that releases people from the delusion and suffering in which they presently live. If it speaks only of private peace while ignoring current politics, society, and the violence of power, it is not Buddhism alive in this time.
The broadcast preserved my excitement and disappointment at every changing number. I moved among the races for Busan mayor, South Gyeongsang governor, Daegu mayor, Seoul, and Incheon, wondering how far regional habits had shifted. Waiting for the count became a place to discuss democracy and social liberation.
If Buddhism ignores present politics and the violence of power, it cannot call itself living wisdom that releases people from delusion.
We Cannot Entrust Judgment of the Insurrection Entirely to the Courts
A viewer asked whether the insurrection would ultimately be a matter for the courts. I answered that a judge is neither the possessor of objective truth nor a god. The moment we place one judge’s judgment above that of the entire public and demand unconditional obedience, we turn judicial authority into another religion.
This does not mean legal procedure is unnecessary. A proper investigation and trial of Yoon Suk Yeol may realistically have to come first, with wider responsibility pursued afterward. Investigative personnel and time are limited. But procedure is no reason for citizens to stop questioning or surrender all judgment to people in robes.
We have repeatedly seen judges and prosecutors protect the power and interests of their own institution. A ruling is material to examine, not truth descended from heaven. If even an insurrection against the state is treated as something on which the public must wait silently for judges, we must ask who is actually sovereign in a democracy.
A Political Force That Joined or Defended Martial Law Has Lost Its Reason to Exist
I was not calling for judgment merely because the People Power Party made poor policy. The core was that martial law and insurrection threatened its own citizens with armed force, risked war for a leader’s political delusion and personal purpose, and sought to remove opponents through military power, while the party failed to stop and then defended it.
After such an event, a party that carries on under its banner, fields candidates, and asks for votes as if nothing happened has lost its reason to exist. Not only individual politicians but the political culture that supports them out of regional habit must change. Without accountability, a future government will face the same temptation.
That is why I did not view this as a routine evaluation of local administration. The first major election after martial law showed how much state violence Korean citizens would tolerate. At least in this election, forces responsible for insurrection had to pay an unmistakable political price.
When a force that turned weapons on its own citizens is not held accountable, democracy invites the same danger again.
Trust Neither Politicians nor Intellectuals—Nor Me
The conversation turned to commentator Jung Kyu-jae. I did not say I trusted him as a person. He may have made foolish claims before and may be wrong again. But if his particular statement that the party responsible for martial law must reflect was right, then that statement should be acknowledged as right.
I do not believe Yoo Si-min, Moon Jae-in, Lee Jae-myung, or Cho Kuk. I call what they say and do right when it is right and wrong when it is wrong. If we select a person first and then accept everything that person says, political fandom differs little from religious faith.
I do not trust myself either. I can speak with confidence now and still be wrong. I therefore do not ask viewers to believe me. Compare words with actions, grounds with results, rather than asking who spoke. Barobul’s recurring demand—“Do not believe; question”—applies just as fully to politics.
Voting Democratic Was a Second-Best Choice, Not a Blank Check
In this election I voted mostly for Democratic candidates in the local races. That did not mean the Democratic Party was doing everything well or deserved complete trust. It was a second-best choice under conditions in which the political forces responsible for insurrection first had to be judged.
On the proportional ballot I voted for a small party. A small-party constituency vote is likely to be wasted, while proportional voting can reveal one’s view more directly. Even when concentrating votes on the Democrats, citizens must make clear that this strength is not a permanent delegation.
There is no contradiction in saying the People Power Party should be judged by history and disappear while criticizing Democratic nominations and policy. That is precisely democratic conduct. If punishing the greater wrongdoing on one side prevents us from seeing wrongdoing on the other, we put a new political dog collar on ourselves.
My Democratic vote was not total trust but a second-best choice to judge the forces responsible for insurrection first.
Busan, Daegu, Gyeongsang—and Jeolla—Must Examine Regional Habit
Living in Busan, I fiercely criticized the regionalism of Busan, Daegu, and Gyeongsang. After martial law and insurrection, voting for the same color as always demands an explanation of what was actually judged. I also connected the slow pace of change to the yearly flight of younger residents toward the capital region and the increasing share of older residents.
Yet Jeolla’s overwhelmingly blue results do not mean every citizen there is awake while half of Busan is foolish. Historical regional sentiment and the inertia of doing what one has always done remain in Jeolla as well. Whether the color is red or blue, voting by habit without examining the person presents the same problem.
I spoke of long political conversations that eventually changed my parents’ voting. People can change. Regionalism is not the fixed essence of a region’s people; it arises from information, history, generational composition, and repeated choices. We should criticize it, but also continue sharing information that breaks the inertia.
“Supernatural Knowledge in the Spinal Cord” Exposed the State of Institutional Buddhism
While searching for an election stream I saw a Buddhist Broadcasting thumbnail claiming that supernatural knowledge and a past life were hidden in the spine and spinal cord. I burst into profanity. During an election bound up with national democracy, media carrying the name of Buddhism were still selling superstition.
Packaging past lives or supernatural knowledge in the spinal cord as Buddhism does not release people from delusion; it implants a new delusion. A speaker gains no immunity because he is a monk, and a broadcaster gains no authority because it calls itself Buddhist. If the claim is fraudulent, it should be called fraud.
This was not an unrelated interruption. Refusing blind trust in judges and politicians is the same problem as refusing blind trust in monks and scriptures. When a name, robe, institution, or broadcaster becomes authority, questions stop. Social liberation and criticism of religious superstition share the same root.
The name judge, the robe of a monk, and the sign of a Buddhist broadcaster do not exempt anyone from questions.
YouTube Broke the Leash of Information Once Monopolized by a Few Media Companies
After switching the count to MBC, I spoke at length about YouTube’s transformation of Korean media. Newspapers such as Chosun and Dong-A and the television networks once decided what citizens could see. They treated that power as their own, although many were dogs on collars pulled by the state, capital, advertising, and political forces.
With YouTube, individuals can say what they believe must be said and immediately upload material about a candidate or event. When I want more information about a candidate, I need not wait for a broadcaster to edit tomorrow’s news; I can find footage, documents, and rebuttals at once. Individuals who consistently provide useful information can attract audiences of hundreds of thousands.
This does not mean YouTube is always neutral or correct. Individuals can become servants of capital, advertising, or political power, and platforms can be influenced. Still, an overseas platform that a Korean government or media company could not easily leash provided Korean citizens with an unexpected condition of informational freedom.
During the December 3 Martial Law Crisis, Live Communication Was a Democratic Lifeline
During the December 3 crisis, Lee Jae-myung’s phone showed him crossing the National Assembly wall in real time. Citizens could immediately learn what people were doing, where military and police forces stood, and what was happening inside the Assembly. Without citizen broadcasting, information might have been confined to a few screens controlled by power.
Uncontrolled journalism and freedom of expression are not democratic decorations. Power’s lies about state violence cannot last when authorities cannot control all media and citizens can compare reports and respond immediately. Looking at political pressure on American broadcasters, I also argued that corporate media alone cannot guarantee freedom.
Sitting alone in a room and thinking does not automatically break delusion. New information must enter, we must hear a great deal, and competing accounts must be compared. YouTube and networks do not make judgment automatically correct, but they provide unprecedented speed and volume of material with which judgment can be revised.
Delusion does not break through solitary thought alone. Critical thinking begins when information enters and accounts can be compared.
If Martial Law Had Succeeded, Half a Century of History Could Have Vanished
After returning from a brief break, I read a viewer’s comment and imagined a successful coup. It would not have ended with the sacrifice of a few democratic activists. If a military government achieved its aims, arrested opponents, and severed information networks, Korean history could have been pushed back half a century into another dark age.
I recalled going live and cursing as soon as I heard the news of martial law. The channel had few subscribers and little reach then, and I wished my voice could have reached more people. Yet regardless of the size of one’s audience, an intolerable act must be named immediately.
Holding those responsible accountable in this election was therefore not merely a repetition of old anger. It was preventive action establishing that a government which deploys armed force will lose political life. Forgetting and moving on casually invites back a danger capable of destroying decades.
Personal Liberation Extends into the Social Liberation of Awake Citizens
The personal liberation I discuss so often means escape from one’s own delusions. Study is recognizing the frame over one’s eyes, understanding oneself as a frog in a well, and continually observing the flow of mind and thought. A Buddha is not someone finished after opening the eyes once, but someone who keeps trying to understand.
In that sense an awake citizen is a Buddha. When I see how I have been conditioned, wake a neighbor who has closed his eyes, and exchange information and questions, the level of the country rises with us. The level of the people is the level of democracy, and democracy’s quality is connected with public happiness.
Personal liberation is not enough. We must ask why so many people die by suicide, why a force that attempted martial law still wins votes, and why some regions remain the same color. Education, economics, media, and politics that condition individuals must also escape delusion. This is what I mean by social liberation.
The truly democratic citizen is a Buddha who sees conditioning and helps others wake.
See the Contradiction between National Power, Suicide, and Low Birthrates
South Korea has a population of only about fifty million yet belongs among the world’s leading economies and national powers. If the country is already strong enough, its people should be comparably happy. Why, then, are suicide rates high and young people abandoning marriage and childbirth? More national income does not automatically produce public well-being.
I also criticized treating the birthrate as a mere number or personal preference. Before blaming people who do not marry or have children, look at housing, labor, education, care, and fear of the future. Dismissing population decline as harmless prevents us from examining the conditions that create those choices.
I recalled sharply criticizing Yoo Si-min for recommending arguments that seemed to make light of population decline. The fact that Yoo has been right about other issues does not make this position right. Whoever speaks, an argument that has not deeply examined the conditions of the problem should be challenged.
The Decline of Ordinations Warns Both the Jogye Order and Korean Society
I referred to a survey from several years earlier saying that more than eighty percent of Jogye monks were over fifty. If only a few dozen new people ordain each year, the age distribution will simply rise. Unless the present pattern changes, I believe the Jogye Order is walking toward natural extinction.
Blaming young people for lacking a religious mind hides the issue. Ask why the order offers younger generations neither meaningful questions nor community, and why it broadcasts superstition about past lives while failing to answer present suffering and social problems.
Korea’s low birthrate carries a similar warning. People do not refuse marriage or ordination merely because they are weak; institutions and culture shape those choices. The dependent-origination perspective—look at the network that produced the outcome before scolding the individual—is needed in both religion and society.
Do not blame only those who leave; examine the religious and social conditions that make departure reasonable.
Local Elections Function as Judgments of Parties and the National Government
Returning to the count, I asked how much voters truly know about every local candidate. Few people have researched what each council candidate previously did and what detailed policies each proposes. Most judge candidates together through the president, government, party, and the way each side responded to a major crisis.
That is why the local-election result inevitably becomes in part an evaluation of the Lee Jae-myung government and Democratic Party. This is not only voter laziness. The information burden is enormous, and the electoral system itself teaches voters to depend on party labels.
Even if direct candidate elections remain, votes for party policy should be translated more accurately into seats. If ten percent of the public supports a position represented by a small party, that vote should not disappear but become actual political power in proportion.
The Two-Party System and Satellite Parties Turn Citizens’ Votes into Waste
I argued for a much larger proportional share. Voters should judge what a party advocates and has passed, and seats should follow its share of votes. Only then does a ballot for a small party cease to be a wasted vote.
I fiercely condemned the earlier reform attempt in which both major parties created satellite parties and wrecked the system. The People Power Party was not alone; the Democrats also used the loophole rather than surrender their advantage. A law meant to represent diverse opinion collapsed under coordinated self-interest.
The Justice Party bears responsibility for choices that led to its disappearance, but one minor party’s failure does not justify erasing minority opinions. The system should allow multiple parties to form coalitions, negotiate, and bring different occupations, generations, and classes into the Assembly.
If one person in a hundred chooses a view, even that one percent of political power should not disappear.
The Assembly Has Become a Profession for the Rich, Local Notables, and Legal Elites
Becoming a legislator currently requires vast money, time, organization, and media exposure. Candidates are therefore disproportionately wealthy, local notables, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and already-powerful older people. Poor workers, teachers, young people, and ordinary citizens can barely reach the starting line.
The Democratic Party is not free of this structure. Candidates promise to be servants of the people and then act as they please once elected, while prosecutors and judges rage when their institutional privilege is challenged. An elitist belief that the public is inferior spreads across politics and law.
The system is called democracy while reflecting the opinions of only a narrow class. When the rich buy glossy advertising and organizations while the poor cannot afford a single decent notice, the election resembles a contest of capital more than democracy.
Factory Schooling That Suppresses Questions Produces Obedient Citizens
Why do schools so rarely teach students to criticize their own thoughts and question authority? I argued that schooling was long designed less to develop whole persons than to manufacture workers who arrive at factories on time and obey instructions.
It teaches obedience through fabrications such as presenting “Even an unjust law is law” as Socrates’s lesson. But a judge who acts wrongly should lose the robe, a prosecutor who abuses power should be removed, and police or soldiers should refuse a president’s illegal order. Questions come before authority.
States and educational systems prefer to say, “Do as you are told; this is right; this is the answer,” because citizens who practice criticism, questioning, and freedom from authority will not be docile. As AI and information networks disrupt education, memorization and obedience should give way to the practice of inquiry and judgment.
We should educate citizens who refuse wrongful orders from judges, prosecutors, presidents, and commanders.
The Pyeongtaek By-Election Exposed Arrogance in Democratic Nominations
Watching Kim Yong-nam and Cho Kuk compete in the Pyeongtaek-eul by-election, my anger grew. If the Democrats had considered Kim’s record and statements, I said, they should have removed him before nomination. Regional habit seemed to put him ahead simply because many voters automatically chose the blue label.
I compared it directly to voters in Busan or Daegu automatically choosing red. If the Democratic Party did not take citizens for granted—believing they would vote for any party candidate—it could not easily make such a nomination. If legal problems later cost the winner his seat, the nominating party should bear responsibility.
Many voters choose the Democrats because of their historical role against the People Power Party. The party must not treat those votes as property; it owes those voters stronger candidates. One can vote Democratic to punish the insurrection party and curse a bad Democratic nomination at the same time.
I Do Not Accept the Investigation and Judgment of Cho Kuk Merely on Authority
A viewer asked whether I wanted to excuse Cho Kuk’s past crime. I rejected the premise. A judge’s label of criminality and an actual shameful crime that harms society are not the same question. If the judgment was itself political and unjust, a written ruling cannot determine the essence of a person.
In my view prosecutors searched Cho, his family, and everyone around them on an extraordinary scale and still sent him to prison over a certificate issue. I take very seriously allegations that prosecutors selected targets such as Cho and Lee Jae-myung and contaminated or manipulated evidence. Prosecutors who use public authority for political ends should themselves face responsibility.
This is not faith in Cho as a person. It follows from examining the breadth and method of investigation, continuity and possible contamination of evidence, and comparison with other cases. If questions become forbidden because judges and prosecutors have announced a conclusion, judicial power can manufacture political enemies as criminals.
A judge writing the word crime and an actual crime that harms society are not the same question.
Daejang-dong and PF Require Looking at the Flow of Money, Not One Politician’s Moral Essence
I viewed the Daejang-dong case as one in which people embedded in a corrupt structure reversed responsibility and imposed it on Lee Jae-myung. My claim was that the city kept control of a development and secured a public return despite pressure to hand the profit to private companies, and that this was then framed as the worst offense.
Project financing, or PF, makes me curse because development and new-town projects entangle financiers, builders, lawyers, media, and politicians in enormous profit. Daejang-dong should not be isolated; compare how much other PF projects returned to the public and who received the rest.
If a project with a large public return was turned into the greatest scandal, the investigation became a power struggle rather than fact-finding. As in the Cho case, ask not merely who was called a criminal but who gained the money, which authority moved for whom, and how the evidence was produced.
Citizens Should Vote Directly on Major Questions
Present technology makes it possible to ask citizens directly about contested policy such as nuclear development or a grave decision such as presidential impeachment. Nearly everyone has a phone, and authentication and voting systems can be built, yet democracy is still treated as complete after electing representatives every few years.
The reason legislators do not enthusiastically create referendums and direct democracy is plain. If citizens make major decisions themselves, legislative power and usefulness decline. I saw the destruction of proportional reform and creation of satellite parties as the same defense of privilege.
Direct voting does not guarantee a correct result. The public can be wrong and conditioned by region and media. But public will is at least directly expressed, citizens bear responsibility, and the structure encourages them to seek more information for the next decision. Visible public fallibility is more democratic than monopolized representative power.
Direct democracy is not faith that the people are always right; it is the principle that their will must enter actual decisions.
Replace Multi-Year Blank Checks with the Power of Recall
Presidents and legislators promise one course during elections, then move in the opposite direction after victory, while citizens are told to wait for the next election. They commit misconduct, lie, finish their terms, and seek nomination again. This is the everyday frustration of representative democracy.
Citizens should be able to remove a judge who acts wrongly, a prosecutor who abuses authority, and a legislator, president, or prime minister who betrays office. Alongside referendums on important questions, recall and direct supervision of representatives should always be available.
Subscribing to and sharing a person who offers sound information on YouTube is already one form of pressure. Networks should move beyond measuring opinion into policymaking, recall, and citizen participation. That is how proxy democracy can move closer to actual democracy.
Remove Money from Campaigns and Let Everyone Speak under Equal Conditions
The advantage purchased by campaign spending must be dismantled. Give every candidate the same online platform, time, and format, and let each explain policies and history directly. What was difficult in the past is technically possible now.
An election in which one candidate floods the public with glossy advertisements while another disappears for lack of money is a contest of capital. Buying broadcast access and organization is not the same as representing citizens. Workers, teachers, young people, and unemployed people should all be able to run and face equal scrutiny.
Disclose each candidate’s claims, record, assets, and conflicts of interest in a fair form for public comparison. Reducing the price of visibility and placing policy first would open the Assembly, now monopolized by local notables and legal elites, to people with different lives.
An election where spending buys visibility is an election of capitalism, not democracy.
A Legislator Should Be a Transparent Public Servant, Not a Career for Money and Power
If legislative office is truly public service, why do candidates spend hundreds of millions of won and fight desperately for nomination? With profanity, I asked whether the real objective was money and power. We must dismantle the contradiction of calling it service while allowing only the rich to compete.
Provide ample research budgets, staff, and legitimate activity expenses, but keep personal pay near an ordinary salary. Every won of spending, personal property, hidden ownership, and surrounding interest should be transparently disclosed for anyone to inspect.
Block private profit while preserving the honor and responsibility of representing citizens. If policy direction, record, and willingness to serve are assessed under equal conditions, ordinary citizens can enter the Assembly. The campaign promise to become the people’s “dog” should be made an institution rather than a slogan.
Replace Policy Handed Down from Above with Decisions Rising from Below
As the broadcast closed, I identified top-down policymaking as another fundamental democratic failure. Experts, officials, and politicians design policy above and deliver it to citizens. Channels by which suffering and demands rise from below and change direction remain weak.
A person without a home feels crushed on hearing that someone became hundreds of millions of won richer merely by buying a house. An ordinary worker must save for decades to accumulate a billion won, while unearned property income overwhelms wages. In such a society, how persuasive can the advice to work faithfully remain?
Housing, labor, education, and care should begin with the speech of those who live the problem and rise upward. Whether ten or thirty percent of citizens share a view, it should influence policy in proportion. A society that pretends to listen and then offers excuses for ignoring them is difficult to call democratic.
Real democracy is a society where citizens’ suffering and demands rise from below and determine policy.
In the Age of YouTube and AI, Each Citizen’s Judgment Matters More
Information networks and artificial intelligence help us reach more material and compare arguments quickly. The form of this livestream—watching candidates and the count while viewers question immediately and the speaker revises his memory—shows one possibility of new democracy.
Tools do not automatically turn citizens into Buddhas. Falsehood and manipulation can spread faster as well. As direct democracy expands, each person’s ability to reach actual information, examine personal conditioning, and judge becomes still more important.
Here Buddhist study and democratic study meet again. We need people who encounter diverse information, surrender judgment to no authority, admit when they do not know, and change when their thought proves wrong. Liberation is not escape from society; it becomes the strength to judge more responsibly as a citizen.
Democracy Is Not Completed by One Election
The count moved too slowly for us to know the final result during the broadcast. I had spent time with viewers waiting and fully stated my view of Korean elections and democracy. At the end I still did not conceal the phrase that I hoped the insurrection party would collapse completely.
Yet the collapse of one party will not automatically create a new society. After holding the insurrection forces accountable, citizens must question Democratic nominations, the two-party system, legal elites and media, money-driven elections, and policy delivered from above. Democracy stops again if the winning party receives a blank check.
Trust neither judges, prosecutors, media, politicians, nor monks. Do not believe Yoo Si-min, Moon Jae-in, Lee Jae-myung, Cho Kuk—or the person speaking here. Compare word and action, inspect the grounds, and judge again when wrong. Korea’s path toward a new society begins in the repeated questions of awake citizens.
Democracy is not the event of electing someone once; it is the continuing process of refusing to turn anyone into an object of faith.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.