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This looks impressive, and something we (America) should copy. Man, I can't help wishing that if we had to have a dictator why couldn't it be someone (mostly)

This looks impressive, and something we (America) should copy. Man, I can't help wishing that if we had to have a dictator why couldn't it be someone (mostly) reasonable like Lee Kwan Yew.

decafninja 5y ago
I feel dictators/autocrats come in two flavors. The first genuinely feel they know what is best for the country and how to best govern it. They might still enrich themselves and their cronies in the process of course. The second are primarily out to enrich themselves and their cronies. The country exists to support this selfish goal. Of course this is not black and white, but rather a spectrum but various historical figures seem to strongly lean to one side or the other.
- dontreact 5y ago
  And history repeatedly shows that even if you get a dictator of the first kind, it’s an unstable equilibrium of a system that eventually leads to a dictator of the second kind.
  - AnAfrican 5y ago
    And that can happen with the same person !
  - javajosh 5y ago
    Yes, but it's not always true - see cousin comment. There are examples of actually good dictators in history - but my back of the envelope estimate is that its like 1 in 20.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    Which Lee Kuan Yew was well aware of, and set up a constitution that makes it easy to peacefully remove a government. The only reason the PAP is still in power is because Singaporeans don't want to get rid of them.
    - sagaro 5y ago
      Gerrymandering is a popular tactics used by PAP in Singapore, to ensure they stay in power. In most democracies the Govt., Supreme Court and the Election Commission are independent of each other. Thereby elections are run fairly. But in Singapore, the election commission and supreme court is run by the govt. in power. This makes it easier for the party in power to sustain it's reign.
      - AussieWog93 5y ago
        I'm not saying they don't give themselves unfair advantages in the election, but that's a very different thing to, say, Mugabe's Zimbabwe or Putin's Russia where power was simply seized and held onto with no accountability to the people. If the PAP torpedoed the entire economy because of some stupid beliefs of the leader, they would be quickly and quietly removed.
      - noisy_boy 5y ago
        Gerrymandering would be somewhat curtailed (not nullified, I agree) if most of the people would have supported the opposition. They just don't. In the last General Elections, PAP's margin of victory did shrink from the past but it was still a pretty big margin[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Singaporean_general_election#Results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Singaporean_general_elect...
davesque 5y ago
I understand the sentiment, and I don't think you were probably being serious, but, for the sake of conversation, I think the issue with dictatorships is eventually with stability. The allure of that much power in a single position leads to the wrong kind of people talking it. Actually, when we frame things that way, it almost makes me feel like democracy is primarily designed to provide a certain amount of slowness in government; enough to spot corruption coming and head it off. Maybe corruption always eventually wins, just more slowly in democracies. Kinda feels that way lately.
- javajosh 5y ago
  It's nice to get the benefit of the doubt, and I'm tempted to let it remain, but let me clarify: I'm serious. I was impressed with Lee Kwan Yew's "From Third World to First" and it seemed to me he wasn't bashful about talking about the times he made an illiberal, dictator move. Both from the outcome and his telling, he made these moves as rarely as possible and didn't relish them. And he did smart things like rewarding government officials extremely well so that they would be (relatively) immune to bribery. I'm sure there are other examples of good leadership from the seat of absolute monarchy, even if we mainly focus on the bad ones in history class. FDR's wartime leadership comes to mind (people seem to forget how illiberal American government was during the war - and it was surely effective). In all cases, the key to success with illiberal government seems to be self-restraint. When the war ends, you give up power. Or in general, when the object is achieved, you give up power. I've not followed Singapore's timeline since I read the book, so maybe they've backslid? Maybe its a psuedo monarchy run my Yew's ancestors? If so, that's a failure. Hopefully they can figure out how to pick leaders in a rational way - like an aptitude test.
skissane 5y ago
Just over a week ago, Singapore executed by hanging an intellectually disabled Malaysian man (of Indian descent), Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam. His crime? He was caught trying to import heroin – I think it very likely the traffickers exploited his intellectual disability in order to talk him into becoming a drug mule. In this regard, Singapore is a rather extreme outlier among developed countries – few of which retain the death penalty, and those which do largely restrict it in practice to murder. William Gibson's famous phrase, "Disneyland with the Death Penalty", is as true as it ever was. So yeah, Lee Hsien Loong seems like a cool guy – wow, a Prime Minister who can write C++. But, remember Nagaenthran, and realise he's not actually cool at all, he's actually a rather terrible human being. Whatever the Prime Minister's formal role in decisions about executions, I don't think anyone doubts that he had the political influence (even if quietly, behind the scenes) to stop it going ahead, if he had wanted to.
- javajosh 5y ago
  I am also against the death penalty. But I am for consistency. It does not sound like a clear-cut case of injustice to me, and I am quite sensitive to injustice. Any compassion the state shows is a lie to cover for discretionary enforcement, which is a pernicious type of corruption. It truly sounds like a tragic case. If Mr. Dharmalingam was unable to understand the risks he was taking, then clearly he needed more guardianship, maybe from his family, or if that wasn't available, from the state. But state-sponsored guardianship of the intellectually disabled has it's own evil air, does it not? (Not knowing the details, if he was sent from Malaysia, then I hope the Malaysian authorities find and punish the ones who used him so cruelly.)
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    >(Not knowing the details, if he was sent from India, then I hope the Indian authorities find and punish the ones who used him so cruelly.) He was Malaysian. The cops probably know who sent him and let the guys go in exchange for a shiny watch.
  - skissane 5y ago
    > Any compassion the state shows is a lie to cover for discretionary enforcement, which is a pernicious type of corruption You actually think there is no discretionary enforcement of the law in Singapore? Like every other jurisdiction on earth, Singapore has prosecutorial discretion. [0] A handful of jurisdictions, such as Germany, traditionally reject prosecutorial jurisdiction in theory, but that theory belies the fact that even in Germany it has always been inescapable in practice–no prosecutor on this earth has the resources to prosecute every known crime in their jurisdiction, they always have to pick and choose which cases to prosecute and how much effort and resources to put into each prosecution, and there is always going to be an element of subjective judgement in that decision, which will inevitably be coloured by the prosecutors' beliefs/culture/politics/attitudes/biases. And, is prosecutorial discretion in Singapore applied in a purely impartial and non-discriminatory way? Considering Singapore's lengthy and ongoing history of politically motivated prosecutions (see for example [1]), it is rather obvious that it isn't. Most jurisdictions accept that factors like intellectual disability need to be taken into account as mitigating circumstances, frequently leading to more lenient punishment, and sentencing which focuses more on protection and rehabilitation than less on retribution and deterrence, compared to an offender with normal (or above-normal) intellectual capacity. The idea that intellectually disabled people ought to be treated with particular leniency is one supported by the United Nations, and even by the US Supreme Court (which held, in the 2002 case of Atkins v. Virginia, that executing the intellectually disabled is unconstitutional)–so extending them that leniency is hardly a "lie to cover for discretionary enforcement", nor a "pernicious type of corruption" [0] https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/prosecutorial-discretion-singapore/ https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/prosecutorial-... [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/singapore-first-convictions-under-contempt-of-court-law-confirms-fears-over-muzzling-critics-2/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/singapore-fir...

This looks impressive, and something we (America) should copy. Man, I can't help wishing that if we had to have a dictator why couldn't it be someone (mostly) reasonable like Lee Kwan Yew.

decafninja 5y ago

I feel dictators/autocrats come in two flavors. The first genuinely feel they know what is best for the country and how to best govern it. They might still enrich themselves and their cronies in the process of course. The second are primarily out to enrich themselves and their cronies. The country exists to support this selfish goal. Of course this is not black and white, but rather a spectrum but various historical figures seem to strongly lean to one side or the other.

dontreact 5y ago
And history repeatedly shows that even if you get a dictator of the first kind, it’s an unstable equilibrium of a system that eventually leads to a dictator of the second kind.
- AnAfrican 5y ago
  And that can happen with the same person !
- javajosh 5y ago
  Yes, but it's not always true - see cousin comment. There are examples of actually good dictators in history - but my back of the envelope estimate is that its like 1 in 20.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  Which Lee Kuan Yew was well aware of, and set up a constitution that makes it easy to peacefully remove a government. The only reason the PAP is still in power is because Singaporeans don't want to get rid of them.
  - sagaro 5y ago
    Gerrymandering is a popular tactics used by PAP in Singapore, to ensure they stay in power. In most democracies the Govt., Supreme Court and the Election Commission are independent of each other. Thereby elections are run fairly. But in Singapore, the election commission and supreme court is run by the govt. in power. This makes it easier for the party in power to sustain it's reign.
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      I'm not saying they don't give themselves unfair advantages in the election, but that's a very different thing to, say, Mugabe's Zimbabwe or Putin's Russia where power was simply seized and held onto with no accountability to the people. If the PAP torpedoed the entire economy because of some stupid beliefs of the leader, they would be quickly and quietly removed.
    - noisy_boy 5y ago
      Gerrymandering would be somewhat curtailed (not nullified, I agree) if most of the people would have supported the opposition. They just don't. In the last General Elections, PAP's margin of victory did shrink from the past but it was still a pretty big margin[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Singaporean_general_election#Results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Singaporean_general_elect...

davesque 5y ago

I understand the sentiment, and I don't think you were probably being serious, but, for the sake of conversation, I think the issue with dictatorships is eventually with stability. The allure of that much power in a single position leads to the wrong kind of people talking it. Actually, when we frame things that way, it almost makes me feel like democracy is primarily designed to provide a certain amount of slowness in government; enough to spot corruption coming and head it off. Maybe corruption always eventually wins, just more slowly in democracies. Kinda feels that way lately.

javajosh 5y ago
It's nice to get the benefit of the doubt, and I'm tempted to let it remain, but let me clarify: I'm serious. I was impressed with Lee Kwan Yew's "From Third World to First" and it seemed to me he wasn't bashful about talking about the times he made an illiberal, dictator move. Both from the outcome and his telling, he made these moves as rarely as possible and didn't relish them. And he did smart things like rewarding government officials extremely well so that they would be (relatively) immune to bribery. I'm sure there are other examples of good leadership from the seat of absolute monarchy, even if we mainly focus on the bad ones in history class. FDR's wartime leadership comes to mind (people seem to forget how illiberal American government was during the war - and it was surely effective). In all cases, the key to success with illiberal government seems to be self-restraint. When the war ends, you give up power. Or in general, when the object is achieved, you give up power. I've not followed Singapore's timeline since I read the book, so maybe they've backslid? Maybe its a psuedo monarchy run my Yew's ancestors? If so, that's a failure. Hopefully they can figure out how to pick leaders in a rational way - like an aptitude test.

skissane 5y ago

Just over a week ago, Singapore executed by hanging an intellectually disabled Malaysian man (of Indian descent), Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam. His crime? He was caught trying to import heroin – I think it very likely the traffickers exploited his intellectual disability in order to talk him into becoming a drug mule. In this regard, Singapore is a rather extreme outlier among developed countries – few of which retain the death penalty, and those which do largely restrict it in practice to murder. William Gibson's famous phrase, "Disneyland with the Death Penalty", is as true as it ever was. So yeah, Lee Hsien Loong seems like a cool guy – wow, a Prime Minister who can write C++. But, remember Nagaenthran, and realise he's not actually cool at all, he's actually a rather terrible human being. Whatever the Prime Minister's formal role in decisions about executions, I don't think anyone doubts that he had the political influence (even if quietly, behind the scenes) to stop it going ahead, if he had wanted to.

javajosh 5y ago
I am also against the death penalty. But I am for consistency. It does not sound like a clear-cut case of injustice to me, and I am quite sensitive to injustice. Any compassion the state shows is a lie to cover for discretionary enforcement, which is a pernicious type of corruption. It truly sounds like a tragic case. If Mr. Dharmalingam was unable to understand the risks he was taking, then clearly he needed more guardianship, maybe from his family, or if that wasn't available, from the state. But state-sponsored guardianship of the intellectually disabled has it's own evil air, does it not? (Not knowing the details, if he was sent from Malaysia, then I hope the Malaysian authorities find and punish the ones who used him so cruelly.)
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >(Not knowing the details, if he was sent from India, then I hope the Indian authorities find and punish the ones who used him so cruelly.) He was Malaysian. The cops probably know who sent him and let the guys go in exchange for a shiny watch.
- skissane 5y ago
  > Any compassion the state shows is a lie to cover for discretionary enforcement, which is a pernicious type of corruption You actually think there is no discretionary enforcement of the law in Singapore? Like every other jurisdiction on earth, Singapore has prosecutorial discretion. [0] A handful of jurisdictions, such as Germany, traditionally reject prosecutorial jurisdiction in theory, but that theory belies the fact that even in Germany it has always been inescapable in practice–no prosecutor on this earth has the resources to prosecute every known crime in their jurisdiction, they always have to pick and choose which cases to prosecute and how much effort and resources to put into each prosecution, and there is always going to be an element of subjective judgement in that decision, which will inevitably be coloured by the prosecutors' beliefs/culture/politics/attitudes/biases. And, is prosecutorial discretion in Singapore applied in a purely impartial and non-discriminatory way? Considering Singapore's lengthy and ongoing history of politically motivated prosecutions (see for example [1]), it is rather obvious that it isn't. Most jurisdictions accept that factors like intellectual disability need to be taken into account as mitigating circumstances, frequently leading to more lenient punishment, and sentencing which focuses more on protection and rehabilitation than less on retribution and deterrence, compared to an offender with normal (or above-normal) intellectual capacity. The idea that intellectually disabled people ought to be treated with particular leniency is one supported by the United Nations, and even by the US Supreme Court (which held, in the 2002 case of Atkins v. Virginia, that executing the intellectually disabled is unconstitutional)–so extending them that leniency is hardly a "lie to cover for discretionary enforcement", nor a "pernicious type of corruption" [0] https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/prosecutorial-discretion-singapore/ https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/prosecutorial-... [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/singapore-first-convictions-under-contempt-of-court-law-confirms-fears-over-muzzling-critics-2/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/singapore-fir...