"If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much." - Donald H. Rumsfeld
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Young Republic on Walsh, Malays and the SAF:
>Mr Walsh wrote that a heavy emphasis on safety and the fact that "any major injury
>or death causes a very public uproar among parents" has resulted in a force less
>than ready for deployment.
>
>Taking a different view, Col Lim argued that "an emphasis on safety and rigorous,
>realistic training are not mutually exclusive" and that the SAF prepares its
>servicemen to "fight, survive and win" in battle.
A: Walsh has hit on the major argument used for the abolition of military conscription in peacetime in France, namely that the *armed forces* were against it. Clearly when the force is conscripted, public opinion is likely to have a much lower tolerance of serious injury or death, and rightly so. But this merely hampers the ability of any armed force to carry out its operations effectively. This is not clear yet since Singapore has carefully avoided any ACTUAL operations for the last 30 years (the peacekeeping operations Sg has joined are all relatively safe, and minor).
And anyway I can testify that in their emphasis on safety they have neglected one major cause of unsafety: having idiots for commanders.
B: "In fact, Malay officers have risen through the ranks and held senior
appointments." In fact. In fact, this was such a notable achievement that it has to use "in fact" - it doesn't seem adamant enough to say that "OF COURSE" they rise through the ranks and hold senior appointments. This does suggest that (in fact), there is substantial racism.
Me: Notice also the comma after "in fact". This indicates that the writter of this response had to pause to gather his thoughts and steel himself before spewing out the lie about Malay officers, which he subconsciously cringed at writing.
C: How many of you when reading the word "Malay pilots", immediately think of fighter pilots?
Truth is, yes there are malay pilots. 2-3 of them in the whole RSAF and they are on the transport side. So much for race NOT being a barrier in Singapore.
I have many Malay friends who applied to be a pilot, but they were rejected even before going for the COMPASS test.
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On the 'Moral Majority' in Singapore:
Cock: I do wish we refrain from having an excessively christian-centric view of Singapore. May we remind ourselves that as a percentage of the population christian Singaporeans ( including catholics) form 15% of the population- only slighlty more than the muslim population. Even if it is true that an excessive number of the nation's elite are christian, that still leaves a substantial percentage of people of various other faiths, like buddhists, taoists, worshippers of various chinese deities, hindus, sikhs, etc. Describing the opposition as the "Christian morality brigade" unfairly singles out one particular group as being opposed to social progress, whereas if you actually asked other groups what they thought about the issue it is likely that you would find a wider social consensus.
Therefore, it should be "morality brigade" as opposed to "christian morality brigade". The former description more readily acknowledges that social progress in Singapore is being impeded by many groups, not just christian ones.
A: I agree that other people who are socially conservative might be against cohabitation, but they do not form a brigade. This is because they do not week together weekly to foment their conservative schemes. Only Christians do this. When the govt announced that it would hire openly gay people in the public sector, only pastors wrote in crying fire and brimstone. While individual Muslims and Hindus also wrote in, no imams or Hindu priests did so. Thus, while they might be a silent majority or whatever, only Christians form a 'brigade' of any sort against progressive values.
Believe me, the culture wars are merely the latest US import to Singapore, and -- since the govt isn't responsive on abortion -- they are focusing their efforts on gay-bashing.
Just look at James I-am-a-moral-retard Dobson and friends and their efforts to move the evangelical agenda in the US back to the far right to what they claim are the 'great moral issues of the day' (i.e. gays, sexual morality in general, and abortion), instead of, say, world poverty, global warming, war and peace, etc.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/11/opinion/edchristian.php
This moral stupidity accompanied by a crusading attitude has already infected Singaporean Christianity, and you can bet your bottom dollar that its continued focus will be sexual morality.
It is largely at their feet that we can lay the blame for a) the dismal state of sex education in schools b) the continued persecution of homosexuals and c) the increasing lack of interest among Christian organisations in charity work -- where in the past they were focused on building schools, hospitals and clinics, today they are interested in self-righteous opposition to cohabitation, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, etc etc etc etc etc.
Oh sorry just to add to the whole 'great moral issues of our time' thing, I believe there's also, oh... DARFUR and the genocide going on there on which James Dobson and friends have said... nothing.
I've just been reading Pogge's World Poverty and Human Rights and apparently since the end of the Cold War more than 250 million people, most of them children, have died from starvation, malnutrition, or preventable diseases, due to acute poverty.
But, no the 'great moral issues of our time' are apparently 'the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children', for which read abortion, gay marriage, and pre-marital sex.
Idiots.