3/19/2007

of compassion and wretched souls

For $4.2 million to be shared among the NKF, KDF and Khoo Foundation, kidney dialysis patients will now be subjected to means testing. These poor buggers will now have to prove how poor they are so that they can get another $100 to relieve them from this deadly curse of being alive. Means testing to catch cheats is not a bad thing. But who would want to cheat when they are in dire straits? We are a very caring and compassionate society, especially in how we exposed the sufferings of the poor and sick, on air as well. The only good thing in my view is to subject all the charities to scrutiny on their accounts and management of public funds. When Penny Lane wrote the lyrics of Amazing Grace and the phrase 'wretched souls', was he referring to himself or the poor slaves that he caught and sold?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you are refering to the Gospel song.
It is written by John Newton.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

hi wang,

thanks for the correction. yes it is john newton. both penny land and newton were slave traders. and newton did felt the wrong that he had done and regretted it.

thanks again.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

redbean,

I wonder where you get your bizarre ideas from?

One which keep cropping up often is that if one "poor", this automatically gives one a "right" to charity—meaning—that one immediately is entitled to claim the private property of other people, and that these other people are in some way "duty-bound" to help.

Throwing money at problems simply wastes money. Problems are solved by intelligent human action; not simply by throwing money at the "problem".

Singaporeans are so caught up in this myth that "money solves everything", and if necessary that money should be taken by force.

The best example I can come up with to illustrate this is that Singaporeans submit themselves to be willfully TAXED so that they can pay for the world's most expensive parliament (on a per capita basis) by throwing BIG BUCKS at ministers and super-duper-scale civil servants, to entice these Super Humans to work for the state, instead of going into the private sector.

This "welfare mentality" has to be plugged at both the top and bottom extremities, and return Singapore to a REAL low-tax regime, so that people can voluntarily choose to direct their money in any way they see fit.

When you think of it, the entire parliament runs on "welfare". And this point of view begs the question: How come no one is means testing parliamentarians? How come they just get paid handsome salaries?

Matilah_Singapura!

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

when there are so much money up for grabs, give a little to those helpless buggers lah. not that they deserve to have them, but they are really pitiful.

why keep on giving money to the so very rich when they don't really need them?

but of course in our society money solves everything. wanna bet?

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Sure I'll bet with you.. but first I'll re-phrase my statement:

In the long run money alone doesn't solve problems.

OK. Now we can bet. And there is no way I can lose :)

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

now what are we betting? i believe that money can only solve money problems. but many problems are not just money problems alone.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Money alone cannot solve money problems. So you will lose the bet ;)

All "problems" are cause by human action. All problems are solved by human action too.

Money is simply a resource (a medium of exchange), but on its own is INERT and therefore unintelligent. Money cannot act on its own accord.

Throwing money at poverty does not solve poverty—it simply provides temporary relief to those who are poor. The problem of poverty is still there.