Its His Chee-ky Plan All Along!

The PAP already has the public in an outroar(singapore style, where they complain on forum boards and straits times, not american style where they take to the streets with guns and shit) over the minister's pay rise. They already know that the general public is very against it. Up pops their most irritating(but no greatest) nemesis, Chee Soon Juan.

And guess what, he's holding a forum with foreign dignitaries from around the world, to 'express their disgust' at the pay rise, and he's applying a permit to do it! HELL NO, CHEE! The ministers probably thought to themselves, why should we allow more bad press about our pay raises? So they threw his application out the window.

But, what if that was Chee Soon Juan's very purpose? To incite outrage among the public. Pick a topic that you KNOW the PAP will reject, invite foreigners in to ensure that the news will not only be local, but global, and wait for the PAP to do what they always do. That way, if the PAP accepts your proposal for the forum, you get to slam the minister's pay. If they reject it, you get to highlight how horrible the PAP is that they won't allow something as small as a forum to come in.

I think he's a smart man, this Chee guy, even though he's done some dumb things in the past.

In the end, i figure the Singapore gah-men has done a good job. THUS FAR. We have safe streets, litter-free, few homeless people, low drug rate, relatively good relationships between races and religions, good economy etc. Its plenty more than many countries around our region have had. And i love my country. Its my home, and always will be.

However, and that's a big HOWEVER, the PAP seems to be heading down the path which may lead to a police state. For most of its life, the PAP has known better than its people, in that sense. It has made some wise but unpopular decisions in the past, like implementing national service(very unpopular, but rather necessary considering how small we are), seperating from Malaysia, implementing extremely strict laws on racial harmony etc. And in the end the government DOES need to do what's right for the people, not what they people like.

And it seems like lately, they think they can do what they want when they want. Public opinion be damned. Seems like a contradiction with what i said above, that the government needs to do what's good for the country, not what the people like. But if you do it often enough, and you ignore the people's opinions long enough, the PAP may very end up one day(if they haven't already) doing what they 'deem' to be the best thing for the people. When in reality its merely an illusion. To use a very strong example, Hitler probably thought he was doing what he deemed best for Germany, and Germany economy DID grow during his reign(before the war).

In the end, the oft-quoted cliche is true. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the PAP is walking down that dangerous line towards absolute power. Will it reach there one day? I don't know, really. I sure hope not. Alot of the time as 'the little man' we think we have no power. Especially since the gah-men is gonna do what they want ANYWAY. but i don't believe that's true. Another oft-repeated quote is this :

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing
-Edmund Burke, British Statesman

As the little man, we may not have political powers. We may not have the influence. But we are the people, of which the gah-men rules. And before the gah-men does actually reach the stage where we're a police state, the people need to make their views known. The people being you and me, and hopefully, the gah-men's conscience will be pricked, and do what's really best for Singapore.

In other words, hopefully the PAP will wake up their idea! =)

Lol... and thus ends my long political rant. Majulah Singapura!!!!! XDXDXD