President for a Day!
Whether we like them or not, politicians are a necessary part of a democratic society. They are charged with representing the views of citizens, deliberating important social issues, and making laws to govern our collective lives. Some of them are hardworking, honest and sincere, while others may not be so much. (In fact, some of them can be manipulative and malicious, concerned only with accumulativing and/or preserving their power.) For good, honest politicians, the job can be difficult, demanding, and often thankless. Who would want to do such a job? Well, for this week, it is you.
Students: Imagine you are the President of Korea for a day. What law would you choose to enact and why? What punishment would you give to anyone who broke the law?
(Note: You may enact a serious law with serious punishment. Conversely, you may enact a funny law with interesting punishment.)
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a law to (do what?)________________.
English Language Pages 
If I were the president of Korea, I would make a ‘Black mirror’ law. It couldn’t clear to some people who didn’t see ‘Black mirror’. ‘Black mirror’ is an English drama which narrated punishment. In that movie, Criminal is punished by ‘Justice Park’. Justice Park is consisted of citizens and same background of crime occurrence area. First, citizens make session of punishment and they tried to act same as crime occurred. In the park, criminal becomes victim who he or she murdered. After the day is over show host tell everything about what criminal did and why criminal has to be punished. After that criminal’s memory is deleted and another punishment day is begun. So the criminal punished everyday with same situation even criminal didn’t aware. The first reason I made this law is repetition of the crime. In Korea every 64% of criminals tried to repeat same crime. Especially sexual crime repetition is highest in Korea. Plus I want to execute this law for sexual criminal and murderer. Because those kinds of crime cannot be exchanged with any others. Second, I think prison is not enough to punish criminal. Criminals have to know much about their faults. In prison they didn’t much care about their money or life. Because prisoners do all the things what prisoners can consist their life. Last citizen can see the punishment is doing well. Because Citizens are been participants in Justice Park. Therefore If I were the president of Korea, I would make a ‘Black mirror’ law to punish criminals
The prison system can be likened to a tube. At one end prisoners go in; at the other end, many of them come out. While I agree that people who commit crimes – especially heinous ones such as rape and murder – should face serious punishment, many of them will be re-introduced to society and it is in society’s best interest to make sure the criminals do not reoffend. Treating criminals too harshly may actually increase the rate of recidivism. Although it might seem unappealing to many citizens, treating criminals humanely (see the Norwegian model, which has the lowest rate of recidivism in Europe) is the best way to reduce the number of criminals who reoffend after being in prison. The other way, I suppose, would be to never let out anyone who was convicted of a crime and sent to prison, but that doesn’t seem morally right (IMO) or practically possible.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a Fair Snack law. This law is that Korean snack companies have to fill up their products with “pure” contents. The purpose of the law is to give a emotional benefit to consumers by providing fully filled snacks. One of the most important reason is ambiguity. The companies tend to pack up invisibly so that buyers can hardly know how many contents are in the pack so long as they do not open it. For example, people feel betrayed whenever they buy a Korean box packing snack because it seems to contain lots of contents! Another reason why the law should be made is financial. The price of Korean snacks is too expensive for the amounts of snacks. The companies always explain the reason why they had no choice but to raise prices because of the ingredient costs, but it seems not to be convincing. For these reasons, if the companies broke the law, they must discount the price in accordance with the percent of nitrogen in the snack pack. In box package case, if the number of cookies are not filled up the box, the company must reduce the box size and pay a penalty on it.
I partly agree with your law. But theres one question that we should think about it. In these days Korea snaks are in hot issue. Since the america snacks are imported, it is compared with korea snakcs. But there should be reasons that Korea snack company put a lot of space. For example, the contains of the antiseptic. It could be the reason because korea company puts a lot of nitrogen since they need to be freshed. So I want some more information about that. I’m not arguing with you but there should be some information for your supporting ideas.
I disagree with you, because people eat snacks quickly, so it is not necessary to fill nitrogen to sterilize snacks in there. Also, boxes of the snacks are enough to preserve contents from bacteria.
Have you ever been to a world snack store? If you visit thete, you can find a lot of imported snacks. In my view, all these snacks is filled up with contents. It seems that there is no nitrozen in the snacks. But compared to this fact, we can easily find half-filled korean snacks because of the half of nitrozen. Is it just because of the reason of the anticeptic? I am not sure.
I think it is a great idea. I heard three university students had gone cross the Han river in September to use a boat which made only snack packs. This performance showed about exaggerated packaging. I also thought it need some laws to block company’s evil deed.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a high-powered death penalty law. This law only applies to really serious crimes which ruin one’s life such as sexual assault and murder. There are several reasons why this law is enacted. First reason is reducing a serious crime rates. Nowadays, the law is too weak to punishment the offenders. Because of this, many offenders commit a crime very easily and do not think about their crime seriously. If the result of their crime is death, offenders would be scared to do a crime. Another reason is arousing people to do not commit a crime with any situations. In Korea, if drunken people commit the sexual assault and murder, their sentences are reduced. For this reason, many offenders use this rule in bad way. Therefore, by enacting this law, any felony offenders must be having death penalty in any situations. In conclusion, if this law is enacted, Korea would be more peaceful nation compare to before.
This law is necessary. Korean government gives offenders too weak penalty. We need something powerful law to reduce all kinds of crime. Offenders lose their individual right after they commit the crime so we don’t have to care their individual right.
My old college roommate is a judge who has to deal with various practical legal problems daily. There are many mistakes made from police improperly collecting and handling evidence, unreliable witness testimony, sleepy jurors, poor defense counsel, overzealous prosecutors, politicians/judges with self-interested political motives, citizens who base judgment on emotion and not rationality, etc. It would be terrible to execute an innocent person. In fact, it is known in some cases that individuals were innocent (discovered after the fact), but executed. I appreciate the need for stronger sentences, but capital punishment doesn’t seem to be the right way to justice, only to satisfy the public’s desire for vengeance and bloodlust. Here are two suggestions to improve the justice system: 1) more female judges, which would help with harsher punishments for sex related crimes, 2) an age restriction for judges, which would require them to have several years of experience as a lawyer before becoming a judge. This would help them gain more real world experience.
To my understanding, most scientific studies in the West on the death penalty reveal that the death penalty is not a deterrent to murder. The majority of murderers either commit murder as a crime of passion, in which case they do not consider the repercussions at the time of the murder, or they are sociopathic and as such, do not consider that laws and punishment affect them anyways. In most Western countries, it typically costs more to execute a convicted murderer – because of the lengthy and costly legal process – than to house one in prison for life.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a ‘For mom’ law to protect mother’s right and help their infant care. Two days ago, I watched a show called 비정상 회담. The topic was about mother’s right. In Korea, lots of mothers always agonize how they raise their children much wiser over working together because many companies don’t like women’s maternity leave. In addition, some of companies even demand pregnant women to discharge by themselves. I thought it is unfair and it can be fixed urgently. Thus, if I were the President of Korea, I will make the law and give much money for mothers who give birth to babies than now. I’ll support the first child rearing expenses, that is about three-hundred fifty thousand won monthly until children enter a elementary school. Next, I will also give some money about four hundred thousand won for educating their kids from elementary to high school. In conclusion, it is a pleased imagination but I want to solve this problem in reality very quickly for respecting women’s right.
Interesting. I agree that mothers should receive paid maternity leave. In Canada, a female can take 17 weeks before the baby is born, and a parent (father and/or mother) can take up to 37 weeks to care for a newborn baby. In addition, as a taxpayer, I do not mind paying a little extra tax to help families raise a child. However, as a single, childless taxpayer, why should I have to pay more tax to subsidize other people’s children? If people can’t afford to raise children, maybe they should not have them. But as I said, I am willing to share some of my money to help raise other people’s children for the benefit of society. But there comes a point when people should take that responsibility for themselves.
I totally agree with your opinion, I also think that mothers should receive paid maternity leave. In Korea, mother can request maternity leave for 3 months after childbirth, and also for one year if the child under 8 years of age, however almost every mother walking on eggshells to request. So the welfare system should be improved, and also I hope to pay extra tax to help families to raise their children.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a law ‘Choosing teacher’ in high school to reinforce education. Koreans regard education as a manner of leading bright future, so Koreans consider education as a highest importance. That’s why they spend time and money on private education considerably. But It causes problem that it makes education gap according to economic capacity. Now government is trying, making law for reducing private education. For example private institute should finish the class until 10 pm otherwise they should pay a fine or quit the institute. But this law is a superficial solution. It can’t solve the education problem fundamentally. The fundamental solution is improving public education’s quality by enhancing public teacher’s ability. Therefore ‘Choosing teacher’ law that high school students have right to choose teacher is necessary to improve public education. (The reason that the target is high school student is they have passion on education and ability to perceive the situation rather than middle or elementary school student.) One of the reasons that public education has no improvement is public teacher’s indolence so this law is helpful to solve this problem by making teacher to enhance their teaching ability and class’s quality. Every month teachers are evaluated by number of students who take his/her class and taking test for checking their knowledge and ability to teach. Also the school is evaluated every year by improvement of student. If they show low grade in this evaluation, teachers should move to another school or quit the school. On the contrary teacher who get high grade can move to school they want or get some bonus.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a law to appoint the Wangtta for this week in each class in school. Nowadays, Although there are many kind of policies to prevent ostracism of group in class, there are little excellent result. In fact, It is impossible to prevent the Wangtta because people in some group have a desire of display. So we have to daunt each individual person in group to make that group passive. If all of people get laid in same situation, There will be no ostracism of group in class anymore.
My punishment for a rebel who acts against my policy is to beat down his attitude score about school life which is necessary to enter the university. It is cool law, isn’t it?
I think your idea has some merit. One way to teach children empathy is to let them know how another person feels, particularly when they feel bad. If children experience ostracism themselves, they may be less likely to ostracize others. By the way, some research shows that technology may be reducing empathy in children. When we are young, we learn empathy by reading another person’s face because faces give clues to our feelings. Smartphones and such keep children’s attention diverted from another child’s face during interaction, so they may not appreciate when they hurt another feelings. Anyways, attempts to reduce ostracism would be beneficial.
It’s extraordinary law! I believe it would work in some way. However, on these days, there are many Wangttas in college or general society too. So I think there should be punishment not only for high school or middle school students but also for other people.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a law “rest time” law. This law treats about every University in Korea must allow to the students one week of rest after midterms. Like everyone knows Korea has one of the most competitive educational systems in the world. As a result of the competitive pressure, before and during the exams period the students doesn’t sleep well and doesn’t eat well too. That’s why after midterms students should rest properly without the pressure of attend classes. If the universities broke the law, they must to pay a free trip to all the students who are enrolled in the educational institution.
Sounds luxurious. Is the rest time available for professors, too?
It is tempting that students who finish their tests in university are allowed to rest about one week, because when they have a test, there is great pressure in their mind. But every student who is not a university student also feels that pressure. Therefore, how about every school gives student rest time when tests are finished?
Your opinion is fresh, but I think it is not good for students because long break time makes students more lethargic than they attend their classes. It can be a side effect about student’s daily routine.
I absolutely agree with your opinion. It will be perfect if your law starts right now and we will be able to enjoy one week of rest just after we finish our mid-term exam on next week. Sounds perfect!
It’s really cool. Nowadays, especially Korea university students have no time to rest. Because of their assignments, studying and having a ready for employments. I think the period of university is only time for university students to think and decide about their life. For this reason, ‘rest time’ law is useful for them to get a few time.
I wish it would become real, but I heard that there is minimum learning time law. So it seems to me that if you want to enact your law, the first thing you should do is reduce the minimum learning time. If you won’t, then our vacation will start at least one week later ;(
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a law to find talent of children. In Korea, common people are uniformly educated by school. In other words, they all learn Korean, math, English, social studies, science and so on, regardless of their talent. Therefore, it is very difficult that Korea finds an outstanding individual who has unique ability, because uniform education makes only uniform person. A well example which shows negative effect of education in Korea is that there is no scientist who wins Nobel Prize. This is because Korea adopts one-sided education rather than creative. Accordingly, Korea must adopt creative education which respects children’s talent in order to improve an educational standard and produce talented person ultimately. The enforcement of this law is acted by the following method. First, parents must help their children be checked by designated test and complete obligatory activity to find their talent. But, if parents cannot find their children’s talent despite their effort, Korea is delegated the parents’ task. Finally, the children will find their talent and they are allocated in the area where they can show their ability effectively. Thus, the children are able to do job which they like and be global talented person who improves national power of Korea.
I partly agree with you. I guess it’s important for children to find their talent earlier and allow them to go on their own path. But at the same time, they should have their chance to associate with friends whose interests are different.
I agree with you. Korean education system can cause the systemized children with the systemized knowledges. These days, Children must learn subjects they do not want, and teachers usually ignore the minor subjects such as music, arts, and P.E. Most of teachers tends not to figure out what talents their students have. If one has a terrific ability to sing a song, the teacher should motivate him/her to keep improving the talent.
If I were the president of Korea, I would enact a law to reduce rights of members of Congress because as people know, members of Congress have too much rights since they can make laws that are favorable to them. For example, they made a law of pension for themsleves, which means they can get pension until they die if they have been members of Congress just a day. Also, they raise their own wages over and over again just for themselves. If some Congressman break this law, that is, if he abuse his right to earn some profit for only himself, he will have to go through a trial. And if he turned out to be guilty, he will have to leave the Congress forever and cannot come back again.
To add, the National Assembly, the place for peaceful debate and legislation, has turned into the place for immoderate argument and fighting since lots of members of Congress are arguing for their own profit, not for citizens of Korea.
I agree with you. As you said, members of Congress only use their power to benefit themselves even if they are elected by citizens. I think this culture should be completely rooted out for citizens. You found the serious falut with the National Assembly well on the assumption that you were the President of Korea,
I agree with you, too. I’ve been always thinking about this kind of law. Members of Congress have too much power, rights and benefits compared with what they are actually doing.
If I were the president of korea, I would make a ‘new education’ law. In my opinion, korea’s education law has many problem. All of curriculum has been zero in on a university entrance examination since elementary school. So many students lived passive life for study. This unusual a social phenomenon is relation with korea developing economy. In past, korea was awfully poor. Therefore, older generation aim to goal-directed and outcome principle for survive. This culture applied to education. But the stream of times was changed. Now we must live inventive and spontaneous life. So I will change education law what students can live spontaneous life. I will enable to students not only study but also various experience. I will make curriculum like a work research, sports, voluntary service, technology and learning. And I won’t enact a punishment. Because It will better changing the acknowage of social science rather than punishment. This law will be make to students’ happy and spontaneous life.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a law to make public corrupt government officials and take severe disciplinary action to them. First and fore most reason is that on these days, as appears by the tragedy of Sewol Ferry, there are so many accidents which happen because of the corruption of the government. It is assumed that there are still more Gwanfia- which means spy in the government- and if they are not thrown out, same problem will arise again. Another reason is that the checks between government agencies become weak. The separation of legal, administrative, and judicial powers was made to foster clear political environment by checking each other, but the checks become weak and it leads to serious problems. So the purpose of the separation of the power needed to be reconstructed. Finally, the last reason is that the corrupted government officials must feel embarrassment. They don’t feel ashamed because only few of them think it is serious problem. If someone violates this law, the person’s name and face will reveal in all kinds of media, for example news, magazines, TV and internet ads, with containing this kind of message “CORRUPTED!” Also make seizure of property by the gravity of the offense and dismissed and make sure never to come back to government officials. In sum, I hope that we can have government officers with cleanest integrity by enacting this law.
If you discovered that your friend were cheating on a test, would you report him/her? I suspect the majority of students would not because loyalty to the relationship is usually prioritized over betrayal to society. There already exists laws to deal with corruption amongst government workers, but the enforcement of the laws is weak. Corruption is common because of the close relationships between government workers and industry and the lax enforcement of laws. (Note: Historically, corruption was a way to get things done in Korea, particularly during the ‘Miracle on the Han’; there was not really a distinction between gifts and bribes. This legacy is still deeply rooted in government.)
Moreover, capitalism eliminates moral values and rewards greed (i.e. greed, even excessive greed, is a virtue, not a vice). This is unfortunate because it also leads to a deterioration in leadership. Unless the justice system places more emphasis on punishing corruption, starting with the people at the top, not much will change.
I agree with you. So if that law became enacted, it should be start from the top, and then spread to the bottom. If it’s not like that, the law means nothing. In fact, at first I just wanted to throw out all the government officers and then hire some of the non-corrupted ones and recruit new officials. However, if it’s like that, there is no one to enforce the law, so I thought I should change my way.
Few years ago, there was a big issue that chairman of NOKIA paid a penalty for 126,000 euro because of speeding. It is called Daily Fines System which differentiate degree of penalty by violator’s income. If I were a president of Korea, I would enact this law. It may vary effects of punishment if violator pay their penalty by their degree of income. Someone who are very rich can take penalty lightly, and even don’t mind of their charge. But It is really harsh punishment if they charge for their penalty. In other words, every law should be fair to every people, but an equal penalty charge is not fair to every people. To do so, It should be necessary to investigate people’s property. As a result it can be really useful to find hidden asset either.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a law to eradicate legislators’ corruption and decrease the salary of politicians. Even though few news articles about corruption of the government and Ministry are publicized, most of people may be recognizing that there are so many politicians who rake in the money by unfair methods such as tax evasion. One of the critical reasons why it is hard to see social improvement of Korea, I believe, is because of these rotten politicians. Therefore, I would pass the law of strictly restraining bribery, and punish people who violate the law by demanding 10 years’ imprisonment. Only such a strong law and penalty would help the nation to politically develop.
If i were the president of korea i would enact a law to pratice half-tuition for university students. Whenever election time come all candidates for president promise to cut expesive tuition for university. But they have never kept their pledge except the seoul mayor. They always excuse that it is very difficult to practice because of cost. But when we think about the cost that is wasted on insignificant policies like four river refurbishment project or pension for politicians it is also possible policy. University students are future of korea. They are deserved to have education without less burden. Private university tuitions in korea are so expensive that undergraduates get budens to clear off their huge debt after graduate. It is so harsh reality for students and nation should guarantee right to learn without budens. Consequently ensuring an opportunities for education is important for youngs who is future of korea I strongly believe half-tuition policy must be enacted.
I agree with your opinion. Practicing Half-tuition for university students is necessary to us. Comparing with other countries where are in OECD, Korea’s tuition is expensive,so it’s in high ranking. your opinion is representing students well.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a law to improve welfare of our citizen, so the government of Korea will be truthful. These days, One of the bigest issues in Korea is about the incresing price of cigarette. In the price of cigarette, there is tax. People who disagree about increasing price say why politicians try to earn more tax from things that commoners usually spend. What are politicians going to do with the tax from cigarette? Not to make people to doubt about what government do, I think it is necessary to make people have belief of government by making good welfare law.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact rigorous laws on sex offenders. I have thought Korea’s laws on sex crimes are too weak to let the criminals know their faults and warn many other potential criminals. No matter what kind of crimes, if they are ‘sex crimes’, the criminals should be imprisoned at least more than 50 years. Following Article 297 of the Criminal Code in Korea, rapists are asked for imprisonment for a limited term for at least more than 3 years. How can this weak law be enacted and performed? Victims of sex crimes live with terrible memories during their lifetime. The sex offenders should be punished firmly because they infringed on the victim’s human rights to live their life happily. In short, they don’t have the rights to be respected and live as human beings any more. Some people say sex offenders are also ones who have human rights, but I don’t think so. Sex offenders first didn’t respect the victims’ basic rights and committed terrible crimes. It is the same as they give up their rights to be respected as human beings. Moreover, if I were the President of Korea, I would make all the sex offenders get chemical castration. I want to root out all possibilities of recurrence of sex crimes by the previous criminals and warn the potential criminals with this rigorous law. I would also post the identities of all sexual offenders. Clearly, enacting strong laws on sex crimes is urgent and imperative in Korea.
If i were the president of Korea I would enact a law to punishment crimes of rape, murder. Korea have low punishment for them right now because they take care of criminal’s rights than vitim’s right. We always see crimes on news and suprised at their low punishment. Korea is advanced drink culture, so in law they usually generous about drunken crime. It have to fix it for vitims. Therefore, if i were the president of Korea, I will intensify crimes’ punishment such as castration, death penalty, life imprisonment. If Korea keep their low punishment, the society will have contamination of crimes.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a law to reinforce safety regulations. These days, it is not difficult to find news about safety accidents, and those accidents are usually occurred because of the carelessness of people themselves. So we are in need of laws that could help arouse self-consciousness of safety up. Firstly, related laws and regime should be renewed. Right now in Korea, there are no specific safety regulations in buildings, city structures, shipping etc. which can provide causes of safety accidents. For example, in the case of ventilation fan accident in Pan Kyo, it is occurred not only because of the people’s carelessness, but also discontented regulations of the structure itself. Fortunately, after the accident, it seems that politicians are willing to register the related laws. Secondly, the general recognition of citizens also should be changed. To accomplish this, education is the most important way. Provision against emergencies such as periodical education and training should be in execution.
I agree with your opinion. In this year, many accidents occured in Korea, and I also think, it was caused by the carelessness of people. Although this law not exist, it will get better if we should have emergencies education and train it.
If I were the President of Korea, I would enact a law to talent education. In Korea, we should study the same goal that have friends. When we were high school students, we had the same goal, ‘We must go famous university!’ However, it has not yet been finished. When we are university students, most students will have goals ‘We must go famous company!’ Why are we the same purpose? Since we were child, we were educated by our parents and teachers, and they said ‘You must study for your future.’ For example, when you wanted to learn music, your parents will oppose your action, suppressing you. Also, when you enter university and learn music that has in your mind for a long time, you will have no time to learn music because you have to prepare for entering big enterprise. Therefore, from the middle school, we have to have talent education, considering children’s talent and the things that children want to learn. I think, if we have to grow in children’ talent from various fields of talent, they will have no stress and have a variety of dreams in their mind.