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Isn't government (even in a representative system) supposed to listen to the people? So why complain when they do (by adopting opposition policies that the peop

Isn't government (even in a representative system) supposed to listen to the people? So why complain when they do (by adopting opposition policies that the people want)? [leaving aside the "within the constraints of respecting their rights" part] Why is it bad, per se, that a single party has been in charge without change? Regarding libel, I'd much rather libel cases, than gag orders (e.g. Australia recently). From the limited amount of time I've looked into the issue, I don't see cases of blantent abuse of libel laws. Of course, the person getting sued and eventually bankrupted will have a major axe to grind (as per the Wikileaks link you link to), but are they a fair third party to take your opinion of the situation from? If 40% of the people disagree with PAP, why don't they help finance the defendant, instead of letting him go bankrupt? Regarding a press strangehold, today, fewer and fewer people are reading physical papers. Plenty of sites - including Singapore Dissident, linked elsewhere - are available just fine on my home connection (maybe the government classified us as "ang moh" so we get better access?). I'm not defending PAP for the sake of defending PAP. I'm just finding it hard to reconcile my observations with the criticisms of the country I hear over and over again.

frenchieinsg 12y ago
As an example of the problem with rumours in the press, look at the candidacy of Herman Cain. The opposition (be that his own, or on the other side) dug up a few women who had a dubious story of sexual harassment (something the US public is sensitive to) and the press gladly ran with it. Cain's campaign was shot down in literally days. From the little I followed, the accusations turned out to be baseless, but it was too late for Cain. In Singapore, the fear of rapid libel suits with proportional damage would have kept the press from publishing without verifying facts. The original article, of course, makes sure to leave just enough words in the right place to paint a very different picture ("look at how they abuse the national defense theme").
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  >In Singapore, the fear of rapid libel suits with proportional damage would have kept the press from publishing without verifying facts. In Singapore a Herman Cain wouldn't exist in the first place and would probably be sued into oblivion for libel himself. He wouldn't get a radio show either. I've not yet heard of anybody successfully suing the PAP or anybody within it for libel either.
  - frenchieinsg 12y ago
    In Singapore Herman Cain would be a PAP MP :P I did see (in the Straights Times) a PAP politician about 1.5 years ago go down for having accepted sexual favours from the sales staff of a corporation in exchange for granting that corporation government contracts (I can't remember any names with which to google the case). I loved the fact that in Singapore, this behaviour is punished and government members are held accountable. In many Western countries (not to mention guanxi), it's the accepted means of doing business. Let's not even get into what happened with US defense contracts in the last 10 years... In my experience, all government officials I have known have been professional, rational people with great values, imbued by a sense of mission conspicuously absent from the civil servants I have known in other countries (who fit the "House of Cards"/"Yes Minister" profile more closely). I guess we'll know in 50 years when archives get declassified. At the end of the day, we can't know what the opportunity cost of having all the talented politicians join PAP for career reasons is, simply because there is no equivalent anywhere in the world. Other small nations either do not have a strong Federal government (Switzerland), have a strong multi party system (Israel) or are controlled by outside interests (Hong Kong)...
    - crdoconnor 12y ago
      >I did see (in the Straights Times) a PAP politician about 1.5 years ago go down for having accepted sexual favours from the sales staff of a corporation in exchange for granting that corporation government contracts (I can't remember any names with which to google the case). I loved the fact that in Singapore, this behaviour is punished and government members are held accountable. In many Western countries (not to mention guanxi), it's the accepted means of doing business. Let's not even get into what happened with US defense contracts in the last 10 years... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal "In 2010, BAE Systems pled guilty to a United States court, to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements in connection with the sales." The China, the West and Singapore all enforce rulings against corruption sometimes... and sometimes not. I don't think you'll see any of the corrupt Indonesians who stash their money here get prosecuted for instance. They're even better protected by the financial secrecy laws than oligarchs in London are. >In my experience, all government officials I have known have been professional, rational people with great values, imbued by a sense of mission conspicuously absent from the civil servants I have known in other countries (who fit the "House of Cards"/"Yes Minister" profile more closely). Basically because they pay better here. That's good in some ways. In other "yes minister" countries they actually supply a state pension to poor people over the age of 65 instead of forcing them to scrape shit out of a food court toilet in the last pathetic years of their lives. It's a country of polar opposites. The greatness of the country depends entirely upon your position in its class system, though. Based upon all of your answers, I'd say you're pretty far up, and believe me, I can well understand why you love it here.
crdoconnor 12y ago
>Isn't government (even in a representative system) supposed to listen to the people? So why complain when they do (by adopting opposition policies that the people want)? 1) Even if they do, they should give credit where credit is due. They pretended the larger class sizes was entirely their idea. Maybe the opposition should have sued for libel ha ha ha. 2) There are some HIGHLY popular policies that they won't copy, and they are using their power to quash (e.g. minimum wage). This isn't because their ideology prohibits it. It's simply because they are greedy. >Why is it bad, per se, that a single party has been in charge without change? "Per se" it isn't. That's not the point. >Regarding libel, I'd much rather libel cases, than gag orders And I'd rather have libel than extra-judicial murder. That's not the point. If you want to argue that Singapore is a free and fair democracy the libel abuse has to go. YESTERDAY. >I don't see cases of blantent abuse of libel laws. There is one going on right now. A guy who blogged about financial impropriety is being sued personally by the prime minister. Assuming the allegations were true, he will still lose simply because proving the allegations true would require 10-50x more than he has in his legal fund. Are the allegations true or false? We will never know. I guarantee it. No use pretending that we will. The court case certainly won't be illuminating. Again: we can't pretend it's a free and fair democracy if they do this, and they do this CONSTANTLY. >If 40% of the people disagree with PAP, why don't they help finance the defendant, instead of letting him go bankrupt? Good luck with that! Again: we can't pretend it's a free and fair democracy until they do sufficiently finance the defendant and they won't. Not now. Not ever. Not while the PAP is in charge. >Regarding a press strangehold, today, fewer and fewer people are reading physical papers. Could have fooled me. I see tons of people with the Straits times. They also watch television. >Plenty of sites - including Singapore Dissident, linked elsewhere - are available just fine on my home connection Yes, these things exist. I already mentioned this somewhere. They're the only media the opposition really has - and it's poorly funded and badly run and the government is trying to gain more and more control over them too (you heard of the recent blogging laws I presume?). >I'm not defending PAP for the sake of defending PAP. I'm just finding it hard to reconcile my observations with the criticisms of the country I hear over and over again Which of my criticisms do you find hard to reconcile? I live here too remember. I find it easy to reconcile.
- frenchieinsg 12y ago

frenchieinsg 12y ago

As an example of the problem with rumours in the press, look at the candidacy of Herman Cain. The opposition (be that his own, or on the other side) dug up a few women who had a dubious story of sexual harassment (something the US public is sensitive to) and the press gladly ran with it. Cain's campaign was shot down in literally days. From the little I followed, the accusations turned out to be baseless, but it was too late for Cain. In Singapore, the fear of rapid libel suits with proportional damage would have kept the press from publishing without verifying facts. The original article, of course, makes sure to leave just enough words in the right place to paint a very different picture ("look at how they abuse the national defense theme").

crdoconnor 12y ago
>In Singapore, the fear of rapid libel suits with proportional damage would have kept the press from publishing without verifying facts. In Singapore a Herman Cain wouldn't exist in the first place and would probably be sued into oblivion for libel himself. He wouldn't get a radio show either. I've not yet heard of anybody successfully suing the PAP or anybody within it for libel either.
- frenchieinsg 12y ago
  In Singapore Herman Cain would be a PAP MP :P I did see (in the Straights Times) a PAP politician about 1.5 years ago go down for having accepted sexual favours from the sales staff of a corporation in exchange for granting that corporation government contracts (I can't remember any names with which to google the case). I loved the fact that in Singapore, this behaviour is punished and government members are held accountable. In many Western countries (not to mention guanxi), it's the accepted means of doing business. Let's not even get into what happened with US defense contracts in the last 10 years... In my experience, all government officials I have known have been professional, rational people with great values, imbued by a sense of mission conspicuously absent from the civil servants I have known in other countries (who fit the "House of Cards"/"Yes Minister" profile more closely). I guess we'll know in 50 years when archives get declassified. At the end of the day, we can't know what the opportunity cost of having all the talented politicians join PAP for career reasons is, simply because there is no equivalent anywhere in the world. Other small nations either do not have a strong Federal government (Switzerland), have a strong multi party system (Israel) or are controlled by outside interests (Hong Kong)...
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    >I did see (in the Straights Times) a PAP politician about 1.5 years ago go down for having accepted sexual favours from the sales staff of a corporation in exchange for granting that corporation government contracts (I can't remember any names with which to google the case). I loved the fact that in Singapore, this behaviour is punished and government members are held accountable. In many Western countries (not to mention guanxi), it's the accepted means of doing business. Let's not even get into what happened with US defense contracts in the last 10 years... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal "In 2010, BAE Systems pled guilty to a United States court, to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements in connection with the sales." The China, the West and Singapore all enforce rulings against corruption sometimes... and sometimes not. I don't think you'll see any of the corrupt Indonesians who stash their money here get prosecuted for instance. They're even better protected by the financial secrecy laws than oligarchs in London are. >In my experience, all government officials I have known have been professional, rational people with great values, imbued by a sense of mission conspicuously absent from the civil servants I have known in other countries (who fit the "House of Cards"/"Yes Minister" profile more closely). Basically because they pay better here. That's good in some ways. In other "yes minister" countries they actually supply a state pension to poor people over the age of 65 instead of forcing them to scrape shit out of a food court toilet in the last pathetic years of their lives. It's a country of polar opposites. The greatness of the country depends entirely upon your position in its class system, though. Based upon all of your answers, I'd say you're pretty far up, and believe me, I can well understand why you love it here.

crdoconnor 12y ago

>Isn't government (even in a representative system) supposed to listen to the people? So why complain when they do (by adopting opposition policies that the people want)? 1) Even if they do, they should give credit where credit is due. They pretended the larger class sizes was entirely their idea. Maybe the opposition should have sued for libel ha ha ha. 2) There are some HIGHLY popular policies that they won't copy, and they are using their power to quash (e.g. minimum wage). This isn't because their ideology prohibits it. It's simply because they are greedy. >Why is it bad, per se, that a single party has been in charge without change? "Per se" it isn't. That's not the point. >Regarding libel, I'd much rather libel cases, than gag orders And I'd rather have libel than extra-judicial murder. That's not the point. If you want to argue that Singapore is a free and fair democracy the libel abuse has to go. YESTERDAY. >I don't see cases of blantent abuse of libel laws. There is one going on right now. A guy who blogged about financial impropriety is being sued personally by the prime minister. Assuming the allegations were true, he will still lose simply because proving the allegations true would require 10-50x more than he has in his legal fund. Are the allegations true or false? We will never know. I guarantee it. No use pretending that we will. The court case certainly won't be illuminating. Again: we can't pretend it's a free and fair democracy if they do this, and they do this CONSTANTLY. >If 40% of the people disagree with PAP, why don't they help finance the defendant, instead of letting him go bankrupt? Good luck with that! Again: we can't pretend it's a free and fair democracy until they do sufficiently finance the defendant and they won't. Not now. Not ever. Not while the PAP is in charge. >Regarding a press strangehold, today, fewer and fewer people are reading physical papers. Could have fooled me. I see tons of people with the Straits times. They also watch television. >Plenty of sites - including Singapore Dissident, linked elsewhere - are available just fine on my home connection Yes, these things exist. I already mentioned this somewhere. They're the only media the opposition really has - and it's poorly funded and badly run and the government is trying to gain more and more control over them too (you heard of the recent blogging laws I presume?). >I'm not defending PAP for the sake of defending PAP. I'm just finding it hard to reconcile my observations with the criticisms of the country I hear over and over again Which of my criticisms do you find hard to reconcile? I live here too remember. I find it easy to reconcile.

frenchieinsg 12y ago