"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." - Hubert H. Humphrey

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Democracy and Economic Growth: Antagonists?

"A proposition sometimes leveled at advocates of democracy is that there is a tradeoff between a country’s economic growth and the amount of freedom or democracy that its citizens enjoy. Indeed, no less an authority than Singapore’s Straits Times has observed that one cannot “eat democracy”. An example raised to support this point is that of India and China. It is argued that the former’s democracy has crippled it, while the authoritarian Communist Party in the latter lets it push through potentially controversial but necessary reforms that are good for the people in the long run."

The full article/essay is in the post following this one.

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Someone: i dont' really like to study with PS [Ed: Political Science] pp
too aggressive
in my PS tutorial they acted like they were PAP or politicians


Someone else: to my chagrin i discovered in the new paper today that some 14 year old china whiz kid is coming up to my college in oxford
now being very concerned for the mental well being of brights
especially kid prodigies
somehow i suppose i would need to help him get socially adjusted.

Me: uhh
why

Someone else: aiyah wouldn't you feel sorry for these people?
born in china, taken to england to boarding school by rich dad,
a yellow man in a sea of white.

Me: PRCs cluster as much in UK as here
my sister says in cambridge they're like here

the 2nd most annoying group of overseas students after singaporeans
or was it vice versa

Someone else: ooh.....
hmmmm...
i think we should be the most annoying of all....
since we are the only bunch of foreigners who speak fluent english who STILL elect to bunch up together.

Me: hahahaha
true. at least PRCs have that excuse

Someone else (2) on the above: agree. look at ***
she traumatised the class during presentation for *** last year
she looked like she was gg to kill us

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Street markets are such fun. At the one now at Tiong Bahru I saw this set of bootleg Gaoranger/Wild Force action figures. Not only was the tagline "Let's fence against the earth" (wth?! So much for them being "Guardians of the Earth"), GaoWhite had a male body, which was heavily muscled to boot.


Also, there was this area where many stacks of clothes lay, on sale for a song. I heard them being touted by this man going: "Lelong lelong, very cheap" (and other words to that effect). However, I couldn't see him anywhere. Eventually, I realised that he was repeating his sales pitch, and finally traced the sound to a spot on the floorboards in between 2 piles of clothes.

At first we had salesmen touting their wares manually, shouting till they were hoarse. Then they discovered mics and tormented us by turning up their amplifiers. When they found the joys of head-mounted wireless mics, they freed their hands to gesture extravagantly in a bid to con us into purchasing their wares. And now they've realised they don't even need to be around to pimp their goods (or even have to repeat their sales pitch till even they go insane), but can retire to Ya Kun Kaya Toast to lim kopi.

I am informed that "it's been like this in sydney for years".

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Time Commanders: Trebia

Expert 1: The Romans are being massacred.

Expert 2: Oh yah. This team is doing a much better job than Hannibal did.


Wah.

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Charlotte reviews Singapore Rebel

If anything, although it features SDP chief Chee Soon Juan, it seems to be more pro-PAP than pro-SDP. Want to know why PAP has a hold on the reins of power in Singapore? Want to know why certain political analysts call Singapore a democratic anarchy? Check out the film, which can easily be summed up into a fight between two elements. Singaporeans are a pragmatic lot. The choices? Efficient tyranny vs utter incompetence...

While there are such things as unfair laws, breaking such laws by claiming moral high ground do not justify any form of action. The best you can do is work within the system, so break a law, go to jail. Period.

During the Japanese occupation, it was no doubt illegal to collaborate with the Caucasian scum British against the Japanese, the rightful masters of Syonan-to. Doubtless, the members of Force 136 should instead have worked within the system, and current attempts to drag them onto the moral high ground are unjustified.

The cases of Chee Soon Juan speaking without a permit is interesting. Technically, he broke a law, but in democratic countries speaking your mind peacefully is a way of campaigning for changing the status quo while working within the system. So if you outlaw normal means of working within the system, what are we left with? Violent resistance? Externally-imposed regime change? A similar principle is used, among others, to argue against extending the death penalty to less major crimes: if you're going to be executed for raping a woman, there's nothing to stop you from killing her. Indeed, this will reduce your chances of getting caught since she will now be silenced.

In Burma, Article 3 (c) of The State Law and Order Restoration Council Law No. 5/96 (The Law Protecting the Peaceful and Systematic Transfer of State Responsibility and the Successful Performance of the Functions of the National Convention against Disturbances and Oppositions) states that there is a prohibition of "disturbing, destroying, obstructing, inciting, delivering speeches, making oral or written statements and disseminating in order to undermine, belittle and make people misunderstand the functions being carried out by the National Convention for the emergence of a firm and enduring Constitution". Here, claiming the moral high ground is not a justification for breaking the law. Instead, one must work within the system, or face the consequences. In this case, working within the system no doubt involves sending a petition up to the State Law and Order Restoration Committee (SLORC), imploring them to allow public debate regarding the new Constitution. Unfortunately, the person filing such a petition will of course receive, for his troubles, a bashing from junta thugs. Breaking this law - even if by discussing the new Constitution with one's wife - cannot be justified by claiming the moral high ground. You break a law, you are crippled by the junta's thugs. Period.


"There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern.

Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"...

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws....

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock?"

--- Martin Luther King, Jr. et al (Heart, Soul & Humor: MLK on Unjust Laws - Hitler, Jesus and St Augustine)

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Ah 9 found "a spudgy soccer ball in the main big hall on the 2nd floor" inside the archetypical bat-infested haunted house in Sentosa. I have a feeling we left that there after the ENS [Ed: NUS's Economics Society] camp, heh.

Christian adoption agency snubs Catholics - "A Christian adoption agency that receives money from Choose Life license plate fees said it does not place children with Roman Catholic couples... "It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith," Bethany's state director Karen Stewart wrote. "Our practice to not accept applications from Catholics was an effort to be good stewards of an adoptive applicant's time, money and emotional energy.""

Video games need a woman's touch - "Tara Teich enjoys nothing more than slipping into the role of a female video game character. But the 26-year-old software programmer gets annoyed by the appearance of such digital alter egos as the busty tomb raider Lara Croft or the belly-baring Wu the Lotus Blossom of "Jade Empire." Don't even get her started on the thong-bikini babes that the male gunmen win as prizes in "Grand Theft Auto," which was sent to stores with hidden sex scenes left embedded on the discs by programmers."