No more ERPs!

Yes, believe me, ERPs are obsolete. With the price of petrol shooting to the sky, casual driving is out. Driving to work is also out for many drivers. The road congestion problem is solved. There will be fewer cars on the roads. Now comes the big headache. How to find alternative revenue to replace ERPs? Congestion in car parks! Car parking fees to go up.

Illegal demonstration in Queenstown

6 Jun, more than 30 protestors held a vigil at the Queenstown Remand Prison where Chee Soon Juan was held. Each of them holding a cardboard with words and pictures of the siblings on them. And they were not dispersed. More than 4 gathering in public places without a permit is illegal assembly. Did they have a permit? Presumably not? So the gathering should easily be classified as illegal assembly. But it seemed that they were not disturbed. This must be the first sign of relaxation and tolerance. We must be progressing in the way we handle public demonstration. Or this is not a demonstration but just a vigil.

Of human rights and obligations

Walter Woon is trying to make his position clearer by bringing in obligations and human rights as complimentary issues. While the fanatics are singing their human rights like religious hymns, there is also the obligations to the people with the rights. But fanatics came in different forms. There are fanatics who think that it is for the good of the poeple, to protect them, that it is ok to take away their human rights or civil rights. They even have the audacity to take their hard earned savings away. Oh they never say that. They just say it is better to lock them away just in case the owners throw them away carelessly. Then they decide for the owners how to spend them or how much and when to return to them. Now, is this an abuse of human or civil rights, or is it a form of obligations? Would our great legal minds care or be bothered to discuss this issue? Or it is safer to stay clear of it? And yes, this is another definition of human rights by another group of fanatics.

When a country is well governed...

Japan is perhaps the best model of a country that is very well governed, putting aside whatever idealism about a perfect political philosophy and system. The best characteristics to observe are the quality of life and the way the people go about living their lives, in contentment, in self fulfilment of individual pursuits, in being able to be the best one can be, on his own, without help and no charities. Everytime when the msm flashes on its front page about how much subsidies or handouts the govt is giving to the people, it is a sure sign of regression, a mismanagement of resources. The bigger the handouts and subsidies, the bigger the mistakes in the accumulation and allocation of funds. For when efficiently managed, there should be no necessity to over collect and ended up with over giving, or the need to give. Something is wrong in the process. Then the fad or misplaced zeal to run charity shows and set up charity organisations. These are all bad signs that things are not well. For when the people are able to take care of themselves, there is no need for charity. Charity is actually a disguised form of begging, an act that demeans the recipients. The charity mindset is something that we must erase from our memory. Charity is bad. Charity is only a last resort. It is shameful to celebrate or praise charity. It honours or give a sense of well being to the givers and tears down at the pride and dignity of the receivers. The more charity organisations we have, the more charity shows we organised to raise funds to be charitable, the greater is our failure as a society. I don't think we hear much or see much of charitable activities and charity shows in Japan. I don't hear the Japanese govt spending its time accumulating money and setting up all kinds of organisations to help their poor, or to provide all kinds of handouts and subsidies at the scale and frequency that we are doing. The subsidies are more in areas of economic activities, trade protectionism, etc, but not directly to give to the people. When we have reached a state when there is no need for subsidies, no need for charities, and people willing pay for what they need, and their taxes, then we have arrived. For the moment, we are living like the days of Jesus when he was the saviour, performing miracles to spread the loaves and fishes to the hungry and poor. And the poor could not look after themselves and will be eternally grateful and dependent on the miracle bread, and eternal bondage to the giver.

Celebrating Singaporeans - Stand by your man.

Many people did not know who she is. Many would not want to know her or speak to her. And in the list of honours for National Day, her name will be missing. This is a mother of two children who has given up the a normal and comfortable lifestyle of an academic and bring up children in a family friendly environment. She stood by her husband, no matter what his beliefs and pursuits, and soldiers on in virtual disgrace and humiliation, to stand by her man. These are virtues that not many women are prepared to live by in this materialistic world when success is measured in how much is the man's pay packet. Dr Huang Chih Mei is the wife of the infamous leader of an opposition party, Dr Chee Soon Juan. The latter's political experience and antics have made life very uneasy and uncomfortable for many, and was at the wrong end of the political justice. He has been named with all kinds of unfavourable and undescribable adjectives. He has been tarred, feathered and paraded on the pages of the msm. He has lost a decent and respectable lifestyle and the opportunity to bring up a family like any high income earners in paradise. This role is now left to this dutiful and loyal wife. Under many circumstances a weaker woman would have bowed out and take on a new life. Huang Chih Mei did not, and strive along despite the many material and financial disadvantages, and social ostracisation as well. Her qualities as a woman, a wife and a mother, are all that family virtues can ask for. And if anyone is deserving of an honour during the National Day, she deserves to be one. She is not in politics though her husband is. She confines her roles as the other significant half of the family.