Man took female students on 'tour' of Fort Canning Park, only to molest them - "An odd job labourer molested two female students in Fort Canning Park, telling one of them he had "the Buddha" in him and could sense her unhappiness. Tan Soh Kwan, 59, was sentenced to a year's jail... Tan was at Fort Canning Park on Sep 12, 2021, when a 20-year-old French student went there for a walk. Tan introduced himself to the student and they began talking about attractions at the park. As Tan showed the student around the park, he claimed that he had been to Thailand and had given Buddhist teachings. He took the student to a bench, sat down with her and told her he had a Buddha inside him. They both sat cross-legged on the bench, facing each other. Tan took the student's hands, held her palms together and began chanting. After this, he told the student that she had "a lot of thoughts and a sad heart". The student told him that she was happy. But Tan insisted and told her that she had been having a "love problem" the past few days. The student began to trust Tan, as she indeed had such a problem. Tan then asked her to follow him to another bench. They sat down cross-legged again on this bench, facing each other, and continued talking. Suddenly, Tan hugged the student without warning and touched her eyebrow and her neck. He placed his hand on the student's chest and began chanting for two minutes. He then told her that he would give her a massage and massaged her shoulder and back. Tan asked the student to turn around, before hugging her with his lower body touching her buttocks. The student felt uncomfortable and moved away, saying she felt scared of Tan. Tan told her not to be scared as he had "the Buddha" in him and hugged her again. This time, he embraced her so tightly that the student could feel his chest pressed against hers. Tan then said he wanted to crack the student's back, but said she would have to sit on his lap. She said no, and Tan asked her to lie down on the bench. She did so, and Tan touched her face and neck before kissing her face. He molested the student and pressed his palms against her belly and leg... he saw two 18-year-old local students out for a walk. He introduced himself to the students and offered to take them around for a tour of the park. The two girls agreed, and Tan told them that he had learnt massage techniques in Thailand and could assist them to heal their medical ailments. He then helped the two girls perform back-stretching exercises before asking one of them to sit on his lap. The girl complied and sat on his lap, with her back to him. Tan massaged the girl's back before molesting her. He then told her that she had "women's problems" and touched her abdomen without her consent. He led the two girls to a nearby hut with a bench, and again asked the same girl to sit on his lap. He placed his hands on her chest, over her yoga cropped top, without her consent. He then wrapped his arm around the girl's chest. She stood up quickly."
TOC, ex-GIC chief economist issued Pofma orders over false statements on HDB's losses, rules on state land sales - "Mr Yeoh had published two Facebook posts on Oct 4, after Mr Lee told Parliament that day that the Housing and Development Board (HDB) will incur an overall loss of about S$270 million for the Build-to-Order (BTO) project Central Weave@AMK, which made headlines when some of its units were priced at almost S$900,000. Mr Yeoh called it a “rather disingenuous and misleading analysis” and described the reported figures as an “accounting sleight of hand”. Since the Government acquired most of the land at a minimal or much lower cost by compulsory acquisition, Mr Yeoh claimed that this S$270 million figure is the opportunity cost of the state reselling the land at market price, which it has passed on to the HDB. "The true cost price should be the original book value of the land plus construction costs which on average is much lower than BTO prices before subsidy"... MND said on Friday that Mr Yeoh's posts falsely convey that HDB will not incur a S$270 million loss from the BTO project and that the Government is free to sell state land at nominal or much lower cost than its fair market value. Meanwhile, TOC's headline falsely conveys that the Government’s sale of land to HDB for the Ang Mo Kio BTO project will lead to an increase in Singapore’s reserves"
I remember when we were told that POFMA was not going to be used for political purposes, but to stop fake news
Facebook - "In applying POFMA against the former chief economist of GIC, Mr Lam Keong Yeoh, did the PAP Government :
A. Really act against false statements of fact, or only against Lam Keong’s opinion which it did not like; and
B. target statements which Lam Keong actually made at all - in particular in targeting an alleged implicit statement that the PAP Government was free to sell the land at any price?
It is worth remembering what the PAP Government said when POFMA was enacted, that the legislation would not be used against opinions, no matter how unreasonable (and Lam Keong is far from being unreasonable). I said before and I’d say again - this is an awful use of POFMA which simply reflects poorly on the PAP Government... The Correction Order also accused Lam Keong of falsely stating that the Government is free to sell land at any price. However in this regard my opinion is that the Correction Order itself misleadingly proclaimed as a false statement something which Lam Keong never said."
Facebook - "The G is on a roll In recent years, it’s put in place so many speech-related laws (whether POFMA, POHA or FICA) and still introducing some more (like changes to Broadcasting Act and maybe on cancel culture?) It has initiated criminal(!) defamation proceedings, contempt of court, fined/jailed people for illegal assembly, called up people for police interviews, POFMAing what appears to be points of view and generally dissing questions from the Opposition as without basis. While each action can/may be justified on its own, has the G considered what the cumulative effect is?... being efficient on delivering the “good life’’ is going to be tougher and may not be enough to sustain any kind of social compact. And while we are at it, a social compact is not what the G says it is or should be. It does not depend on trusting the elected to do the right thing. It’s about creating a system in which citizens can feel safe with laws that are clear (not decorative or overly discretional), can speak out plainly and in good faith without worrying about a legal comeback and take part in civic life/offer suggestions/point out mistakes/ask questions without being castigated as mere keyboard warriors."
Facebook - "According to the PAP government, it would further appear that if I buy a brick for S$1.00 and it goes up in value to S$2.00, and I lease you the brick for 99 years, I make no profit because I have merely converted an asset (a brick) into another (cash), and it is also irrelevant that you have to return the brick to me at the end of the lease."
Facebook - "instead of resorting to POFMA which is a legal tool, can the G think about using the old method of right of reply? Especially when it doesn’t agree with another way of looking at things. An outright fabrication is not the same as a different perspective. I am sure media will run and it will get shared."
Indranee crosses swords with Pritam, says 'not meaningful' to reveal cost of HDB flats as affordability is what matters - "Mr Singh suggested that releasing such data would be useful to track the amount of subsidies that go into helping people own a Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat, but Ms Indranee disagreed, saying it was not “meaningful” to do so...
Mr Singh: The connection would be that the identity of the individual who was issued the Pofma correction direction was the chief economist of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation. So if the minister says that this has been known for a long time, one would expect someone of that stature to also not fall foul of Pofma and be "Pofma-ed"."
Facebook - "The HDB made an about-turn yesterday, revealing more details of its BTO flat pricing approach which it said demonstrated how it was focused on making affordability rather than profit its prime objective. It showed the cost of developing land and building flats, but made it clear that this does not equate to the selling price of flats which is largely based on the prevailing market price of neighbouring resale flats, subject to an ‘affordability’ discount via subsidies. This is unlike the private sector, which incorporates a profit premium into its selling price... The HDB reiterated that the mortgage servicing ratio of 25 per cent is lower than international benchmarks, and calibrated against growth in household income"
Comment: "This is a very compelling reason to quiet quit/ lie flat. Because when Singaporeans collectively work harder to afford more, the cost of housing will indirectly increase proportionately as the govt wants you to pay 25% of your salary for your flat. Collectively, working harder can easily become a negative sum game if we factor in the externalities of working more/ working harder"
But on an individual level, defection still makes sense
HDB says it incurred record deficit of $4.4b but doesn't reveal original cost of land acquired through compulsory acquisition - "historical prices of land which were acquired by past PAP Governments were much lower than their present fair market value. Many of these lands were acquired compulsorily from Singaporeans at a very low monetary value under the Land Acquisition Act. Take, for example, the land at Bishan was acquired from Kwong Wai Siew Peck San Theng temple through a compulsory acquisition by a past PAP Government... After much negotiations, the government was only willing to pay a paltry $4.9 million for the 131ha of land owned by the temple. “As expected, the compensation did not amount to much. It came to less than $5 million for the 131ha of land – or 30 cents per square foot after appeal,” Mr Lim recalled... with a land acquisition gazette notification, the government at the time acquired the Bishan land on the cheap at 30 cents per square foot in 1979. On another note, the HDB BTO estate that was launched in 2020, Bishan Ridges, had 1,502 units and sold 4-room flats at about $555 per square foot."
On Tone-Deafness and the Danger of the House Burning Down :-( - "Asset Enhancement Defies the Laws of Mathematics When I first heard of about this policy I didn’t think it made sense. How do we achieve asset enhancement with 99-year leasehold properties? How does the Math work out?? Well, as it turns out like my instincts were right, it does not... I am actually curious to know how such a flawed idea could have gone ahead. I can think of two possibilities:
(1) Staff error...
(2) (Poor) political judgement. Staff told the big boss, this can only last 10, maybe 20 years, and the boss decided to go ahead, since in 20 years, *not his problem*...
However, it is actually still plausible that that staff who worked out the sums for “Asset Enhancement” didn’t actually completely get the estimates wrong. Yes, Asset Enhancement is confirm *not* sustainable *in the limit*, but if we can regulate the market well enough to cap the price increases to say 2% p.a. (or whatever matching the prevailing inflation), the runway could actually potentially be long enough that it is a problem that could have been left for a later date. I don’t fully recall why some genius invented the BTO, but my impression was that for a while, HDB has excess flats in Punggol because it was too ulu and nobody wanted to move there. Whoever was the minister in charge was obviously under pressure and needed the problem solved, or at least needs a solution so that the government doesn’t have to deal with this problem in the future. Some genius comes up with BTO. You make sure that you have buyers before you build. This way confirm won’t have “ghost” towns. Wah so clever! Promotion for the man!... There are 2 major problems with BTO:
(1) Having excess flats is actually a feature and not a bug. It just means that if some Singaporean want to get married and wants a new house straight away, there is a house available!... because of the artificially induced lag of (at least) 3–4 years for BTO, we automatically generate a housing shortage (think own goal). Does anyone need to learn Econs to figure out what a perennial shortage does to an elastic market?
(2) What the BTO also does is that it delays the child-bearing for many couples...
BTO is not the only solution. What I would have done if I were in charge would be to do a reverse auction. For every month that a flat remains unsold, I would reduce the selling price by $10K. Why cannot? I guarantee that before long, all the surplus flats would be taken up. :-)... we don’t want to be a China or a Hong Kong. We don’t want our kids to grow up having this stress of not being able to afford a roof over their heads. Yeah, the government is saying every day that it will do its best to keep housing affordable. Do our kids believe that when they see that BTO prices are now at $700K? And they haven’t even finished school yet! Do they look like they cannot learn from past trends on what’s likely to be awaiting for them when they actually graduate and want to start their own families? It amazes me that a government consisting of supposedly clever people can be *so* tone-deaf. For good measure, allow me to say this again: for all that’s said about trust, the people currently *do not* believe an iota when the government claims that it can control the housing prices. Obviously cooling measures will temporarily dampen the market, but what happens after?... What exactly is the definition of affordable? Is having to spend a sizeable chunk of one’s income on mortgages what we accept as “affordable?” One of likely the blind spots of the present government in my view is that the policy makers don’t seem to understand that “their” understanding of what affordable means is not what many people like as a definition of affordable... high property prices lead to more inequality, likely leads to worse outcomes for our migrant workers and will feed in the business costs and raises the costs of living for both local and foreign workers. Singaporeans have often been criticised for being lacking in creativity and entrepreneurship, but can we blame them? What role models do they have, when all their lives they are told stories of “successful” people who bought and flipped properties. But even if not, they should all seek to build a second or even third property for “passive” income."
Defining “Affordability” for Public Housing - "It is also important to understand an implication of the current definition of affordability: CPF OA is more or less depleted by design(!). :-( Suppose one decides to marry at 28. BTO takes 4 years. By 32, the BTO purchase will likely wipe out all CPF OA balances. For the next 30 years, most the CPF contributions will mostly go to paying for the house. How much do people have left in their CPF by 62? How many more years left to build up CPF before retirement? Then when retirement comes how? No money in CPF how? OK, downgrade to smaller apartment to cash out cash proceeds! Don’t get me wrong, cashing out is a perfectly fine and legitimate thing to do. But allow me to ask all the parents out there: is this the life that you envision for your kids? Slog n years in school, find a job and effectively become a mortgage slave (房奴) for 30 years and then be forced to do a reverse mortgage? Is this going to be our new Forward Singapore Dream? Is this the Dream we want? Or does it sound more like a nightmare?... based on what we have seen in the US, as property prices and costs of living continue to creep up, the talented and able will migrate. We saw migrations from the valley to Seattle and then from Seattle to Texas."
Interesting Fact: An Official Rainbow Flag in Armenian History - "A controversial historical fact remains a big discussion for Armenians. A rainbow flag was proposed by Martiros Saryan in 1919 and it was used for a short time."
My Baby Died In My Arms. HBO Really Messed Up With That 'House Of The Dragon' Scene. - "what does it say about us when we venerate TV shows that fetishize women’s birth trauma and suffering? Especially given our current political climate, this type of content is irresponsible."
Ahh the entitlement. The days of "if you don't like it, don't watch it" are long over. The show is known for being gory, so she has no excuse
No one cares about male suffering, of course
The Heirs of the Dragon | Game of Thrones Wiki | Fandom - "Sapochnik’s goal was "not to shy away from what was happening but also not to sensationalize it". This resulted in a "painstaking" editing process, which began with an "all-in version", after which they began "slowly whittling away...what was too much, or felt gratuitous, or a repeat beat." Once they intercut it with the jousting sequence several shots became redundant so further cuts were made. During this editing process, they tweaked the scene's point of views, "shifting away from Viserys's experience of the birth onto Aemma's, until we felt we’d found the right balance that neither glorified nor shied away from the point we were trying to make." Finally, the showrunners played the scene for as many women as possible to get their feedback: "We were anxious not to get it wrong. And unanimously, the feedback was positive. Some felt it wasn't violent enough.""
If someone is determined to find fault...
Is ramen without the “men” a Tokyo dining paradox worth experiencing?【Taste test】 - "The Noodle-less Ramen Rice, or Men-nashi Ramen Rice in Japanese, recently appeared on the menu at Tachikawa Mashi Mashi, which has two branches in Tokyo"
Margaret Thatcher's Forgotten Tax Increase - Bloomberg - "Strategic tax-raiser... raising taxes to help close a big budget deficit is very much part of the legacy of Thatcher... in 1981, Thatcher pushed through a tax increase at a time when the economy was shrinking and unemployment was around 9 percent. She did it because it seemed to her politically impossible to cut spending any further and yet she felt it was essential to cut the budget deficit. Shrinking the deficit, she felt, would bring down interest rates, which would enable private businesses to borrow and expand, ultimately leading to more growth... Geoffrey Howe, her Chancellor of the Exchequer, came to her with a way to increase tax revenue without boosting rates: Postpone the inflation adjustment in tax brackets. That would push more families into the higher bracket—a big deal at a time of 13 percent inflation... What’s most striking from today’s perspective is that Thatcher saw her tax increase as a blow to the Keynesian orthodoxy of the day. The Keynesians believed that government should sustain demand by running big deficits when the economy was weak, then pay off the debt by running surpluses when times were good. To Thatcher, the followers of John Maynard Keynes were too fond of meddling in the affairs of the private sector... Thatcher’s contemporary, President Ronald Reagan, shared her devotion to shrinking government and cutting taxes. He, too, occasionally raised taxes, including on capital gains and corporate income in 1986. That either shows that even giants have feet of clay—or that once in awhile, there are worse things than raising taxes."
Commentary: PSLE scores and the problem with the beloved late bloomer narrative - "Many of us know a Charlie – the quintessential late bloomer whose story is a permanent and predictable fixture in the social media news cycle around the time that the results of a national examination are released... while this innocuous narrative might intend to help some feel like they’re allowed to bloom in their own time and go against the norm, the problem arises when it ironically reinforces traditional definitions of success, from climbing the professional ladder to obtaining high social standing. It inadvertently implies being a late bloomer is worth shouting about – if you eventually bounce back on track by achieving conventional success... Because of their feel-good nature and championing of the underdog, these social media posts tend to go viral, making it seem that doing well in life despite your PSLE results is a common occurrence. In reality, that is likely the exception to the rule. Most of our journeys are far more nuanced."
Instead, they should highlight people with high PSLE scores but are "losers"
Indonesia Struggles to Attract Investors to Back Its New Capital Nusantara Plans - Bloomberg - "With its gleaming offices, electric buses and economically productive residents, Nusantara is the quintessential modern metropolis—smack in the middle of a vast rainforest. At least, that’s what the government brochures depict. What they don’t show quite so clearly is where Indonesia will find $34 billion to build a new capital city from scratch. With just 18 months left in his final term, President Joko Widodo is still aggressively courting international investors to finance 80% of a project that he hopes will elevate Indonesia’s economy, resettle millions of people from rapidly sinking Jakarta—and cement his own legacy... more than three years after Nusantara was first announced, not one foreign party—state-backed or private—has entered into a binding contract to fund the project... “Many countries are either facing recession or are already in recession because of the global economic slowdown,” said Jakarta-based David Sumual, PT Bank Central Asia’s chief economist. For the next couple of years, he pointed out, even the richest countries are likely to “prioritize their own domestic agenda.” Indonesia must also battle its long-standing reputation as an economic underachiever. Despite abundant supplies of coal, metals, palm oil and rubber, the Southeast Asian nation’s growth rate—averaging 4.3% over the past decade—lags behind neighbors like Vietnam and the Philippines. Corruption, cronyism and a slow-moving bureaucracy have all been blamed for the nation’s repeated failure to meet its lofty targets... “I was surprised the government went through with the project given the economic battering the country took due to the pandemic,” said Jamie Davidson, an associate professor from the National University of Singapore’s political science department who has written about the politics of infrastructure development in Indonesia. “Imagine going forward if every Indonesian president feels like he or she needs to leave a legacy like this one behind. It’s like setting money on fire.”"
Do teachers work long hours? - "For most practical purposes, teachers and nonteachers work about the same number of hours per week during the school year... teachers work an average of 42.2 hours a week as compared to nonteachers working 43.2 hours."
This won't stop liberals going on about how US teachers are overworked, even though they work less than non-teachers. But then, they still think that school funding is all through property taxes and that school funding is the main determinant of outcomes (of course, they could do no other, or their worldview would collapse)
Meme - "the slow but very real progression into fascism as charted by the evolution of the Lego police officer"
Conrad Black: Canada's self-esteem problem - "The second-largest province, Quebec, with about 24 per cent of the total population, about a fifth of them English- rather than French-speaking, is proposing unilaterally to amend the Canadian Constitution (which it has not officially ratified), in order to restrain the use English within its borders. All the political parties, in Quebec and federally, apparently welcome this development. Unlike the response to previous egregious Quebec language laws, the implications of emasculating the chief language of the country in its second-largest province, to the point where French will be the sole official language in Quebec offices of the federal government and all workplaces of federally chartered corporations, have been shrugged off by the country, and only desultorily treated by what is surely the most tedious and unenterprising media of any advanced country in the world... In other bilingual or multilingual advanced Western countries, such as Belgium and Switzerland, the idea of comparable legislation in those countries to Quebec’s current language bill is unthinkable. What does it say about a country’s national dignity when it permits the practical abolition, at least gradually, of its principal official language in its second-largest internal jurisdiction?... the chief purpose of Canada in practice has not been to exploit its potential as the only transcontinental, bicultural, parliamentary Confederation in the history of the world. Rather, we have spent almost all our history seeking to avoid being subsumed by the American colonies or the United States. That was the great success of Louis de Buade de Frontenac and of Guy Carleton and was the real motive for Confederation. It was Macdonald’s triumph to assemble seven provinces and to build a great transcontinental railway across the Canadian Shield and the Great Plains and through the Rocky Mountains. It was the triumph of Wilfrid Laurier to attract proportionately as many immigrants as the United States and preside over economic and demographic growth roughly parallel to the unprecedented rise of that immense country. It was Mackenzie King’s greatest achievement to lead Canada through the Second World War without the terrible abrasions that almost broke up the country over conscription for overseas service in the First World War. And it was the great achievement of Pierre Trudeau to defeat the Quebec separatists, in part by guaranteeing the rights of members of both official language communities throughout the country, precisely what the present government of Quebec is attempting to exterminate (with the explicit or tacit approval of almost everyone)... anti-Americanism has ceased to be a real motivation for Canadian nationalism and all we are left with is lobotomous idiocy like the letter of the 100 Canadian notables opposing the renovation of our venerable Air Force (ably debunked by my colleague Matt Gurney here last week), and our absurd obsession with climate change. Everyone opposes environmental pollution, but climate change is just the wolf of anti-capitalist antagonism swaddled in eco-sheeps’ clothing. anti-Americanism has ceased to be a real motivation for Canadian nationalism and all we are left with is lobotomous idiocy like the letter of the 100 Canadian notables opposing the renovation of our venerable Air Force (ably debunked by my colleague Matt Gurney here last week), and our absurd obsession with climate change. Everyone opposes environmental pollution, but climate change is just the wolf of anti-capitalist antagonism swaddled in eco-sheeps’ clothing."
Sydney University rips up law exam paper after student Freya Leach claimed her name was used - "Sydney University has torn up a law exam after a furious student claimed her name had been used deliberately to portray a fictional HIV-positive killer. Freya Leach, 19, a second year student at the University of Sydney, said she was horrified to discover a right-wing woman also named Freya in her law assignment. The character kills a man, then has sex without disclosing her HIV-positive status and is ultimately murdered herself. Ms Leach claimed 20 fellow law students had texted her saying they believed the Freya in the assignment was based on her... In the first criminal law assignment, 'right-wing' Freya pressed the accelerator of her Mercedes-Benz to the floor and said to herself 'I'll give that chardonnay socialist a fright' before killing 'Adam'. Freya's friend Daniel had fought with Adam in another scenario, describing him as a 'woke prick' because he'd asked Daniel to recycle a document. In another scenario, Freya and Daniel have 'penile-vaginal sex' and although she knows 'she is HIV-positive ... does not disclose this to Daniel, who fails to wear a condom'. Freya is then pushed to her death from a window by Daniel's drunken fiancé... Ms Leach claimed she was being targeted after confrontations with 'socialist' students who had called her 'a parasite' in a 'zoom bombing'. She argued in her complaint that it was unusual for an assignment question to use 'uncommon' names such as hers. She also claimed memes were circulating among students depicting her as having HIV as a result of the assessment."
Meme - "When you don't use the same method as the math teacher but you still get the right answer *broken pipe*"
The Oldest Treasures From 12 Great Libraries - "The New York Public Library, for instance, has not only cuneiform tablets and ninth-century gospels, but also a Gutenberg Bible and a copy of The Bay Psalm Book, one of the oldest books printed in America. In addition to its own cuneiform tablets and Gutenberg Bible, the Library of Congress holds one of the oldest examples of printing in the world, passages from a Buddhist sutra, printed in A.D. 770, as well as a medieval manuscript from 1150, delightfully titled Exposicio Mistica Super Exod. In the history of writing, bound books as we know them today arrive fairly late, so there are no actual “books” on this list. Instead, this is a wondrous collection of illuminated manuscripts, papyrus scrolls, and clay tablets. Some of these items you can even see in person, if you pay a visit."
The Famous Nazca Lines Aren’t Mysterious—But They are Ingenious - "One theory holds that artists first painted these designs on canvas. They could sketch an image, then scale it up proportionally with some type of grid system, as today’s architects do with blueprints. They’d use poles and rope to map the lines across the desert... the Nazca didn’t need anachronistic (or alien) flying machines to see their creations: They’re visible from nearby mountain peaks."
PAP Royal Bloodline: Aristocracy or Meritocracy?
BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Democratic Legitimacy - "‘[Democracy] is breaking down because there is a threat to democracy coming from what the Republican party's doing in the United States. In political science, one of the big legends is Juan Linz, who spent his whole life studying why democracies break down, he studied the interwar period and the 50s and 60s in South America. And what's interesting with Linz is that he came up with a litmus test, there were a number of things you should look out for if political leaders did. One was, if there were political leaders who publicly said they wouldn't respect the outcome of an election. Secondly, if there were political leaders who didn't take a clear stand against political violence, and the third thing was that if there were political leaders who didn't respect the civil liberties of their opponents, so on all these three tests, Trump, click, click, click’...
‘Over the last 30 years or so across Europe, we have seen a lot more referendums, and of course, most dramatically in the UK over EU membership. Surely that's a way of reconnecting the electorate to that gut sense that democracy is about them deciding?’
‘No, it's not. This rests on a very naive idea that democracy is about realizing the will of the people and the empirical research about how elections and opinions actually work doesn't support this at all.’
‘Why is the will of the people, not the guiding principle of democracy? I think a lot of people might think it's a reasonable definition.’
‘Yes. But that is not how actual democracies work. That is, tons of empirical research about elections about opinions show that policies are too complicated. People know too little, and so on. What democracy can be about, the best hope we can have is that democracy is about accountability. That you can, after the fact, vote people out of office that you don't think have done a good job, or realize the promises or whatever. And the problem with referendums is that there is no one that can be held accountable... People can be held accountable. This is called retrospective voting. This is the theory that what people are actually voting is not to realize their policy preferences, because they are too complicated’...
'When we speak of Trump, we have the person who brags about harassing women, who makes publicly fun of handicapped people, who has been shown to be a notorious liar, a person who clearly disrespect, basic knowledge from science'"
Weird how the Democrats fulfil all 3 criteria for a failing democracy, but it's the Republicans' fault
Apparently democracy coming closer to fulfilling its potential through referenda is a bad thing because that goes against political science theory about how democracies actually work. Bizarre logic. This is not even the perfect being the enemy of the good - it's the bad being the enemy of the good
Fake news is good when it makes Trump look bad
