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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

#131

Post by mempko »

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…

It clearly wasn't right for the guy doing a skype call. Stalin also substantially grew the economy of the USSR. US economy grew with the slave trade. Maybe using economic gains as an argument for what is "good" is a poor argument.

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

#132

Post by kreeWall »

Nasrudith wrote: post #69
flag_bcz_mad wrote: post #23

Why does everyone assume democracy is good? It clearly wasn’t necessary for Singapore. A well run “dictatorship” is much better than your average democracy. I would concede that a democracy filled with the right people is the best but in reality it is very rare to come upon a population that is actually ready to govern itself. People generally have extremely reductionist and incorrect opinions about such things in my…

Why are you assuming Singapore is truly well run? Dictators lie their asses off about quality of life and paper over problems with violence. Just wealth isn't a reason - Saudi Arabia is wealthy but sure as hell not well run.

Having lived in Singapore for 10 years, I can attest to the high quality of life there, much higher than I have experienced anywhere else in the world.

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

#133

Post by EliRivers »

nailer wrote: post #107
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.

> The main proponents of doing this are a guy who bought a water cannon to use on protesters in London Boris Johnson purchased a cannon to use on rioters - the vast majority of which had no concern about the police killing the armed drug dealer in question. Water cannons are effective for use in riots, as we've seen recently in Paris. My main concern is Sadiq Kahn who sold them, leaving us again vulnerable in a repea…

Given that Theresa May specifically did not give permission to use them, what would you rather Khan did with them? Given that they can't be deployed against rioters.

I understand they required work to be done on them anyway, and would have incurred ongoing maintenance and storage costs; spending more money on weapons that specifically cannot be used seems like a poor choice.

Or were you hoping that Khan would ask again and be told that he could use them after all?

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

#134

Post by mempko »

angelsl wrote: post #60

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 bee…

And? Some laws are stupid and must be broken.

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

#135

Post by mempko »

mikeash wrote: post #29
flag_bcz_mad wrote: post #23

Why does everyone assume democracy is good? It clearly wasn’t necessary for Singapore. A well run “dictatorship” is much better than your average democracy. I would concede that a democracy filled with the right people is the best but in reality it is very rare to come upon a population that is actually ready to govern itself. People generally have extremely reductionist and incorrect opinions about such things in my…

Democracy is awful in all sorts of ways. Its one major advantage is non-violent succession, something other systems really struggle with. Dictatorships can be great for a whole, but eventually you get a mad dictator or two people who both think they should be the dictator and it all falls apart.

Dictatorships are never great. Using economic arguments to support dictatorship is just being lazy, stupid, or both.

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

#136

Post by baybal2 »

kreeWall wrote: post #126
elliekelly wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also my understanding that almost everyone in Singapore lives in some sort of government-subsidized housing. The system is structured such that it's difficult to get an apartment or buy a house unless you're married so many typical Singaporean households have several adults earning an income under the same roof.[1] [1] https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/07/06/why-80-of-singapor...

Clarification - Singaporeans live in these flats (HDB housing) - not expatriates. Expat families live in different neighborhoods, different apartments, go to different schools and eat in different places than the locals. No part of an expat life is subsidized. It is therefore unfair to say that almost everyone in Singapore lives in subsidized housing - almost all of the Singaporeans do.

Nobody prohibits a privatised HDB flat tenant from subletting it.

It's a big stretch to say that every expat lives in a landed property.

My first place in Sing was a room that I shared with 3 Indian labourers, and no aircon.

Then, when I moved to a more upscale place thanks to hefty sales commissions, I think everybody was bedazzled "how such a pipsqueak can rent a place for $1800 by himself." Only then, I realised that only top few percents of Singaporeans can afford to live in non-HDB condominiums.

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

#137

Post by jessaustin »

jessaustin wrote: post #80
jopsen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, Not true, it looks so from where you're sitting. But politics change a lot over time. It's slow moving and in a two party system, you are unlikely to see big differences between either side. That said, the world would have looked differently had Hilary won in 2016.

Syria would have looked different, that's for sure.

(i.e., more like Libya looks now)

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

#138

Post by tootie »

denzil_correa wrote: post #116
tootie wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that it's wealthy, the people are pretty free there. I visited recently and there's nothing there that indicates it's anything other than a first-world democracy. Media and internet are not censored. It's socially conservative compared to Western Europe or the US, but not draconian at all. The authoritarian streak is there, but it's not pervasive like China.

> Media and internet are not censored. Singapore has strong censorship mechanisms for the media and Internet. It ranks 151 on the Freedom of Press Index [0]. [0] https://rsf.org/en/singapore

What I meant is that they don't firewall the entire internet the way China does. You can read any international news or social media. Their censorship regime is purely domestic.

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

#139

Post by bilbo0s »

jessaustin wrote: post #78
avar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This sounds like an argument for smaller nations?

City-states have historically lead to far more numerous wars.

I won't argue the fact that Cyrus was enormously influential to the course of fertile crescent civilizations. That said, really he was just one of the first Fertile Crescent leaders to see not only the weaknesses of the city-state, but the means by which to exploit those weaknesses. (It's just that what he did to exploit those weaknesses was so radically orthogonal to the way things were done at the time that even today we're still calling the guy Cyrus the Great.)

Once the Nation-State idea was out of the bag, city-states just couldn't compete. Even the Greek city states fell to Macedon because by the end of the Theban hegemony, they were all so weak that even Macedon, effectively a baby nation-state at the time, was able to take them out. City-states wouldn't be able to compete today either. You'd always have to have some great power around to back them. Even Federations of city-states have faired poorly historically.

It's like continuing to rely on bronze swords once people got the hang of making iron ones. It no longer mattered all of the reasons that bronze was better for you, because iron was better when it counted. The cat was out of the bag, you could try to put it back in the bag, but everyone's already seen it.

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

#140

Post by nailer »

EliRivers wrote: post #133
nailer wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main proponents of doing this are a guy who bought a water cannon to use on protesters in London Boris Johnson purchased a cannon to use on rioters - the vast majority of which had no concern about the police killing the armed drug dealer in question. Water cannons are effective for use in riots, as we've seen recently in Paris. My main concern is Sadiq Kahn who sold them, leaving us again vulnerable in a repea…

Given that Theresa May specifically did not give permission to use them, what would you rather Khan did with them? Given that they can't be deployed against rioters. I understand they required work to be done on them anyway, and would have incurred ongoing maintenance and storage costs; spending more money on weapons that specifically cannot be used seems like a poor choice. Or were you hoping that Khan would ask aga…

I'd rather May gave permission to use them. Kahn should have kept them regardless and assumed authorisation would come when the next major event occurs - rather than praying it doesn't.
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