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Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

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Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#51

Post by baybal2 »

anvandare wrote: post #33
nindalf wrote: post #15

I see people in this thread surprised that this is happening in Singapore, a “modern” country. Singapore is certainly wealthy, the population is highly educated, institutions aren’t corrupt, all of which is great. However, the political system resembles a democracy only superficially. Every election since 1965 has been won by the same party. It is inconceivable that the People’s Action Party wouldn’t win an election…

>that one Dictator in a million Also called an enlightened despot; In the Eastern -Chinese Legalism tradition- a 明君 "míngjūn". There have been instances of them throughout history. But like you said, the problem is usually what happens once the ruler is gone. It's never a (long-term) good idea to have the success of a group dependant on a single person. A political system that produces mediocre-but-stable success (ov…

>In the Eastern -Chinese Legalism tradition-

Oh my, can I ask you where did you pick that up? It feels to me that an average Western person nowadays has been taught more of that stuff than a well studied Chinese.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#52

Post by toyg »

nbevans wrote: post #42
hkt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main proponents of doing this are a guy who bought a water cannon to use on protestors in London, a man so Catholic he'd vote down abortion, and a bunch of people who are mostly OK with letting people who are fleeing war drown in the Mediterranean. I do not hold out much hope.

They use water cannon in the rest of Europe, and even tear gas. What's the problem? They should have had a water cannon for the London Riots in 2012 - and that is why they purchased some. Which the current mayor has selfishly used for political points by selling them off for barely 10k. He will be praying they aren't ever needed.

As a foreigner, the UK police is widely admired for their restraint. Tactics like kettling, for all their drawbacks, are absolutely preferable to the alternatives seen elsewhere in Europe. It’s one of those things, like the lack of ID cards and centuries-long administrative continuity, that really set the UK apart from most other places and made it a beacon of pragmatic liberalism. Wish for “normalization” at your peril.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#53

Post by inferiorhuman »

cinquemb wrote: post #38
ponyfleisch wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why?

Over regulated daily life (though very well run) combined with being very culturally bland automaton like outside of very few pockets, mixed with Israeli militarism applied to its own people, just doesn't feel very welcoming compared to say Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. Some of my wife's family has lived there and Indonesia for a while, and it is agreed that out of all the places in SE asia, it is a good place to…

> Some of my wife's family has lived there and Indonesia for a while, and it is agreed that out of all the places in SE asia, it is a good place to make money and potentially for schooling when young, they plan on moving when retiring.

Not having to shoulder the cost of an aging population would work very well for SG.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#54

Post by cinquemb »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #53
cinquemb wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over regulated daily life (though very well run) combined with being very culturally bland automaton like outside of very few pockets, mixed with Israeli militarism applied to its own people, just doesn't feel very welcoming compared to say Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. Some of my wife's family has lived there and Indonesia for a while, and it is agreed that out of all the places in SE asia, it is a good place to…

> Some of my wife's family has lived there and Indonesia for a while, and it is agreed that out of all the places in SE asia, it is a good place to make money and potentially for schooling when young, they plan on moving when retiring. Not having to shoulder the cost of an aging population would work very well for SG.

You should see their subways when they are littered with signs for people to get pregnant.

"Pool of citizens aged 65 and older grew to 14.4% this year, from 9.4% in 2007, as lifespans increase and births stay low"[0]

[0] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/spore-ageing-at-faste...

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#55

Post by rishabhd »

nindalf wrote: post #15

I see people in this thread surprised that this is happening in Singapore, a “modern” country. Singapore is certainly wealthy, the population is highly educated, institutions aren’t corrupt, all of which is great. However, the political system resembles a democracy only superficially. Every election since 1965 has been won by the same party. It is inconceivable that the People’s Action Party wouldn’t win an election…

Not surprised, William Gibson dubbed Singapore as "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" in his seminal article [1] on wired. That was true in 1993, that is still true now (can also relate since a lot of friends and family are living there).

[1] https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/

edit: corrected spelling mistake

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#56

Post by avar »

nindalf wrote: post #15

I see people in this thread surprised that this is happening in Singapore, a “modern” country. Singapore is certainly wealthy, the population is highly educated, institutions aren’t corrupt, all of which is great. However, the political system resembles a democracy only superficially. Every election since 1965 has been won by the same party. It is inconceivable that the People’s Action Party wouldn’t win an election…

> Surely a de facto dictatorship like this shouldn’t be so wealthy and successful[...]

It's also worth noting that the entirety of Singapore just barely exceeds the area enclosed by Washington DC's beltway.

Whatever their form of government, small city states are always going to be able to avoid many of the pitfalls of larger countries. There's effectively only one level of government to deal with, and the despot is always going to live down the road from you and need to use the same public services as you, so you don't get the sort of disconnect e.g. Rome or the British Empire had from its provinces or overseas holdings.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#57

Post by baybal2 »

chillacy wrote: post #31
nindalf wrote: post #15

I see people in this thread surprised that this is happening in Singapore, a “modern” country. Singapore is certainly wealthy, the population is highly educated, institutions aren’t corrupt, all of which is great. However, the political system resembles a democracy only superficially. Every election since 1965 has been won by the same party. It is inconceivable that the People’s Action Party wouldn’t win an election…

“Which is great” is an understatement. Looking at the other southeast Asian all the countries in ASEAN one starts to realize that Singapore could have been a lot worse off. Instead the GDP per capita is comparable to the United States, and crime is much lower. LKY strikes me as both highly intelligent and pragmatic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8GwmsLXOx8 But I guess only time will tell if the system is as good a…

I lived in Singapore for 2.5 years. I mostly remembered him for his psychomumbling of later part of his life.

Calling him "doing all things right" is a big stretch. The biggest error of him was to cling to power long after his mind went going.

Singapore's economic success was pretty much a meme too. The median income is only ~20000 USD a year, less than half of the economic product per capita.

There were three epochs in Singapore's economy:

First - everybody sat in their campungs and chewed paan. Pretty much nothing was happening till seventies. The only exception to that was that there was pretty much a small scale communist insurgency going on.

Second - reformation and industrialisation. This is the fabled Singaporean miracle. They built MDB flats, and everybody got so happy. A small industrial sector appeared, but it was quickly overshadowed by another kind of activity.

Singapore exploited Western reprehension dealing with Asia, and marketed itself as a "Western outpost" in the middle of barbarian lands. Singaporean companies used Singapore's GATT membership to run trade agencies that bought cheap goods from Asia, and stamp "made in Singapore" on them. That brought the country a big part of its current wealth.

Third - wind down and stagnation. China accessed to WTO, and Singapore's WTO membership no longer meant anything anymore. Singapore got into the middle income trap. People began to feel that Sing's economy was a one trick pony. It tried, but failed to upgrade its economy towards advanced economic activities. From that era, we got the fabulous Nanyang University, excellent primary education, and, back then, liberal immigration policy.

But there was blessing in a curse - China's WTO accession brought tons of money from China's first generation of billionaires to the country. From then on, Singapore fully took on its current identity of the "Luxembourg of Asia."

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#58

Post by baybal2 »

avar wrote: post #56
nindalf wrote: post #15

I see people in this thread surprised that this is happening in Singapore, a “modern” country. Singapore is certainly wealthy, the population is highly educated, institutions aren’t corrupt, all of which is great. However, the political system resembles a democracy only superficially. Every election since 1965 has been won by the same party. It is inconceivable that the People’s Action Party wouldn’t win an election…

> Surely a de facto dictatorship like this shouldn’t be so wealthy and successful[...] It's also worth noting that the entirety of Singapore just barely exceeds the area enclosed by Washington DC's beltway. Whatever their form of government, small city states are always going to be able to avoid many of the pitfalls of larger countries. There's effectively only one level of government to deal with, and the despot is…

The better comparison for the nation should be Luxembourg, and Andorra, not other Asian countries.

> Whatever their form of government, small city states are always going to be able to avoid many of the pitfalls of larger countries. There's effectively only one level of government to deal with, and the despot is always going to live down the road from you and need to use the same public services as you, so you don't get the sort of disconnect e.g. Rome or the British Empire had from its provinces or overseas holdings.

Recently, I also heard the opinion that another country that can be compared to Sing is Kazakhstan... wait?

The comparison is not so ridiculous if you go through with it:

... it is not a city state, but you can say that it is a "two city state." Besides Astana, and Almaty, the nation is effectively a post-soviet wasteland.

... LKY, just as Kazakh president was a socialist and nationalist early on, and of a very radical kind.

... LKY, just as Kazakh president purged every socialist and nationalist the moment he got a nation for himself.

... aside from elites living in ghettos for the rich, the ordinary population is pressed against the wall by low median income.

... to a very big extend, the state gives just enough of handouts to the masses to prevent them from rioting. This way, both Kazakhstan and Singapore can be called a de-facto, but not de-jure socialist states.

... both countries' economies are one trick ponies, despite of decades of dramatic efforts to change that.

... both countries spend lavishly on clearing up their image abroad, but the general populace of both countries can't disagree more with their respective countries popular image.

The biggest noticeable difference is of course that Singapore is cosy with the West, and Kazakhstan isn't.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#59

Post by hkt »

nbevans wrote: post #42
hkt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main proponents of doing this are a guy who bought a water cannon to use on protestors in London, a man so Catholic he'd vote down abortion, and a bunch of people who are mostly OK with letting people who are fleeing war drown in the Mediterranean. I do not hold out much hope.

They use water cannon in the rest of Europe, and even tear gas. What's the problem? They should have had a water cannon for the London Riots in 2012 - and that is why they purchased some. Which the current mayor has selfishly used for political points by selling them off for barely 10k. He will be praying they aren't ever needed.

In the UK we do policing by consent. We aren't interested in attacking our own people. Some other countries could learn by our example.

The reason he "selfishly" sold them, by the way, was because they were in poor condition, cost more to keep than to sell, and were actually illegal to use.

It is clear to me where you get your news from, based on what you say. It is not encouraging.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#60

Post by angelsl »

Why is everyone focusing on the fact that someone spoke via Skype?

The fact is that

1. Jolovan Wham did organise a physical gathering of people 2. The gathering/assembly meets the definition as in the Public Order Act[1] 3. The venue, The Agora, meets the definition of a public place as in the Public Order Act

[1]: https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/POA2009

They could have been watching a recorded video and it would have been the same.

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