Thus the magical result of an ‘asian democracy’ – reaping the benefits of being within the wealthier sections of the planet, yet being able to refute accusations of repression by seeking recourse to cultural rights.

I would also like to add that with the decline of the US as a global hegemon, the debate on democracy seemed to have died out as well. With the Asia which is arguably still largely authoritarian, I doubt we’ll see a ressurection of the ‘asian democracy’ paradigm since there’s no need to be aligned with democracies anymore. In fact, we’d probably see our government up-playing our ‘chinese-ness’ or ‘authoritarian-ness’ to cosy up to China and Russia.

and this democracy with chinese characteristics has been around way before the 1930s, in fact it drew inspiration from the Meiji restoration.

But the article is interesting… but I think abit problematic

i chose to use that quotation precisely because he holds that view. read the chapter its taken from in Can Asians Think? and you’d be surprised at some of the things he wrote there.

I think Kishore is a brilliant thinker and a very eloquent man. But he is also a diplomat, and when you’re a diplomat, you tend to have to pander to both sides — both the hardline “Asian democracy” advocates in Singapore, and the Westerners who put pressure on us. By quoting him, I just wanted to catch him in a position where he seems caught in pleasing both

in case u din know, kishore is someone who subscribes to the brand of thinking that asian societies have to shape their own democratic values rather than blindly following western-style democracy. to quote a sentence out of his book is kinda self-defeating….

If it ever happens, do you think our wonderful incumbents will be in the country or run away with their $$$ to join their kids already living overseas?
==============================================================

I read that most of their children are overseas. They have huge bungalows there too.
I guess if anything happens here, example like 5 million PRCs take over the country, they can easily move overseas.

Because information is restricted here, we will never know how many of them actually hold Australian OR New Zealand PRs,

If you look carefully at SG, SG is more authoritative than China, it is almost a dynasty. In China, Deng passed over to Jiang, Jiang passed over to Hu and their immediate families are not in politics.

In SG, father passed to son, planning to pass to grandson. DIL holding the sg purse, classmates and friends all surrounding the cabinets and gov linked companies.

If you say SG system equate to Confucianism or Asian democracy is a joke. Can someone pls explain how they equate to Confucianism or democracy?

Query 2
From http://www.elections.gov.sg/candidates_expenseslimit.html
Regarding the Elections Expenses Limit.

I was very amused to read the following text on the above website:

The law imposes a limit on the level of spending by or on behalf of every candidate in the conduct and management of his/her election.

This is to ensure a level playing field between candidates. Without such a limit, parties with greater resources will gain advantage through spending more for publicity and awareness. This leads to distortions in the democratic process.

Also came across this on the website (http://www.elections.gov.sg/elections_parliamentary.html):
Political parties will be given air-time by the television stations. The length of air-time depends on the number of candidates each party is fielding.

Could this point explain why I don’t recall seeing ANY air-time publicity given to any of the opposition parties…except maybe to disparage them!?

Also, even if the PAP stick with their election spending limit officially, what about all the air-time and press-time given in our MSM?? Should that be calculated as part of their elections spending limit?

Taken from an audit perspective, this is most definitely so because one should look at the substance over the form of the expense and the intention one can read behind it.

So…what happens now?
Well, for starters, we should start to think – what can I do? where do I start?
For starters, start to talk with the Opposition to find out what they are actually thinking and planning, rather than letting the MSM tell you. Afterall, I would not trust the MSM(aka SPH) to tell me that PAP candidates fart perfume. :P

And how are they kept weak? By our not voting them into parliament, doing away with the PAP majority that time and again are very much full of NATO, except for pay rises for themselves and policies for their benefit.

Redrawing electoral boundaries every election cycle!!
Irregular election cycles!
Only 8 measly days allowed for actual campaigning!!
Police permits repeatedly denied when license to conduct a rally is requested!!
Being sued whenever they make any claim about actual wrongdoing/lies!!
Having the courts (who appoints the judges?) disallow witnesses/evidence that helps the opposition defend their stands!!!

Come on, open your eyes. Having met some members of the Opposition parties, I can sense they’re always second guessing themselves about what they can say because they really don’t want to get sued unnecessarily and waste money on damages instead of putting up the election deposit of ~$12,500 for each of their candidates (calculated as the sum equal to 8% of the total allowances payable to a Member of Parliament in the preceding calendar year, rounded to the nearest $500…this is 8% of approx. $156,000 for our part time MPs).

I should be glad that the blind followers of the PAP aren’t shooting at the opposition (yet) – seeing that MM Lee does not appear averse to calling out the army if the opposition come into power I’m not so sure if this is a case of when rather than if (through whichever appointment holder is beholden to him).

If it ever happens, do you think our wonderful incumbents will be in the country or run away with their $$$ to join their kids already living overseas?

There is no point preventing what is gonna be InEvitable ‘cos it may be a futile attempt.

‘Future’ can mean anytime in future.

peace

I only have the following quotes for you!!

“Those who sacrifice freedom for safety deserves neither.”

“When the government fears the people, there is liberty; When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

Where do we draw the line when we don’t get to draw the line. Instead, someone else draws a line where WE are on a short leash and they continue to pay themselves higher salaries without delivering results that matter (and I’m not talking about kissing overseas balls to score points for themselves – today’s MSM headlines are so shameless!).

Cheers!

Are we seeing some divide n rule here.

“Oh and don’t go arguing about how our political landscape disallows opposition a chance; that, to me, is nothing short of bollocks.”

But the bollocks have been engineered for such political landscape to germinate.

“After all, is it not the citizens apathetic attitude that gave rise to such a phenomenon?”

If you feed them with bollocks, they will only know bollocks and look like bollocks.

“If we keep up with this attitude (the NATO one), change is impossible.”

A good made-to-believe complimentary close where at the end of the day you really need to deal with political landscape first and lastly the bollocks.

Always be sincere with what you are saying if it involves the larger well-being of the nation & the general population and if you want to empower them.

Oh and don’t go arguing about how our political landscape disallows opposition a chance; that, to me, is nothing short of bollocks. After all, is it not the citizens apathetic attitude that gave rise to such a phenomenon?

If we keep up with this attitude (the NATO one), change is impossible.

The time for change is now. Change will come whether we like it or not. For all their efforts to cling on to power, the people want a say in how they are governed. The era of one party rule belongs in the rubbish heap of history.

Re: Very sure the most important Asian values advocate by old fart is SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN.

Youère absolutely right. Shut up and sit down is especially useful when a ruler wants to extract the maximum amount of obedience from the ruled so that they will cooperate with him to cover up his incompetence and wrongdoings.

The specific human rights that they rail against are free speech (for everyone) and the rights of other political parties because they would threaten to expose the ruler s incompetence and wrondoings.

To help towards this cause, the ruler fabricates another Asian value from thin air: that Asians want strong leaders.

strong leader (defn.): He who has the greatest capacity for abuse.

They can subscribe to what they think is correct, so long as they don’t disturb the majority of us who don’t believe them. Keep your stupid ideas to yourselves.

TW is also Asian country. Also one of the now-extinct Asian tigers of the Asian miracle.

TW is a vibrant democracy.
Its people were able to use democratic rights which contributed to the arrest and sentencing of their ex-President. If another asian president is corrupt, who is there to arrest him? I mean, i dunno can or not? u know you say and tell me lah.

TW is Asian.
TW has democracy.
TW has Asian Values.
Asian values includes Democracy?