Most Singaporeans welcome foreigners but…

This is the finding of the most authoritative English newspaper in the island. It did a survey on 400 individuals on their views about foreigners and the result is published in the paper today.

Coincidentally the finding is as good as what is expected. The people welcome more foreigners and foreigners are needed if we want growth. Also foreigners are more talented for sure. And foreigners will contribute to our growth. But I am to fill the survey form, I think my answers will be very different. And if there are 400 respondents like me, I don’t think anyone will want to publish the result of the survey.

It is not that I am anti foreigners. I think there is a place for some foreigners to be here. But I strongly disagree with the number of foreigners here. I strongly disagree that they are needed for the type of growth the average Sinkies want and the kind of lifestyle that they are forced to live with. And to call them talents is rubbish. There are many more local talents that are now regarded as non talents. Many are not better than the average Sinkies in all levels except the very exceptional like the few American entrepreneurs. And many are of dubious background but with a lot of money to throw.

We definitely need the foreign workers in the construction industry and some lower level jobs that no Sinkies want to do. We definitely do not need plane loads of questionable middle level executives to compete with our graduates from the three top local universities. Unfortunately, somehow, the local graduates from the local universities will never be good enough. Even at top management level, many are also found not good enough, especially in finance. But this problem will be solved in 20 years time. They realised that we are not producing good finance talents and they are starting to work at it. In 20 or 30 years time, the top banking institutions may see a chance to be headed by our own, genuinely local talents.

I wanted to conduct a survey on the views of netizens on how they feel about this survey and how they feel about foreigners. Then I know that the result would be what I expected. I humbly understand the biases in a survey sample and would not have the audacity to claim that it reflects the view of the average, or majority of Sinkies. That is how real people can be and how unreal people can be in the conduct and findings of surveys.

If I were to do a survey with an intended outcome, I can even jig or rig the result by carefully choose who I ask, how many is the sample size, the smaller sample the better, how the questions are phrased, and even throw away those answers that don’t fit the results that I wanted. Heh heh, it is so easy to conduct survey to produce the result that I want or for whoever wants it. I can simply cheat or game the result.

But that is me, or that is the kind of result one can get from the netizens, biased and unrepresentative. Big reputable organisations will not do such silly things or conduct surveys on netizens when the results will be known even before the survey is completed.

Back to the ST survey. Now that it is confirmed that Sinkies are quite happy with the foreigners here, then everything is fine and there is no problem bringing in more, except a little bit more, not so many. How many is not so many?

An exceptional talent

He molested an undercover cop and tried to bribe her with $100. He was jailed for one month and fined $10,000 for attempting to bribe a police officer.

In mitigation, his defence lawyer told the court that he ‘was an exceptionally talented individual, who graduated with a first class honours degree in engineering... He was also very good singer and had qualified for vocal training at the London School of Music.’

I am not sure if the court took into consideration the molestor’s exceptional talent when passing the sentence. What I thought was a pity is that he was not recruited as a foreign talent to boost our economy. First class engineering must be rare and in high demand here. And good singer could be usefully employed in our entertainment industry.

What a waste of talent. He could be another esteemed FT and may even become an MP with potential to be a minister.

Are we putting our soldiers at risk

Our soldiers and NSmen are there to defend this country against external threats. What are these external threats? They are threats from another country and will come in the form of foreign soldiers. They can be any foreigners.

We are importing millions of foreigners and issuing them with pink ICs to call them Singaporeans. How reliable are these new citizens? Would they be one of us, to defend our country, to fight with our children as comrades in arms, or would they do the unthinkable?

We have lost two of our fine young men in Sydney to a foreigner turned new citizens. The foreigner is still alive in Australian jail while our children dead. The foreigner could be paroled and live as another free man and will likely return to his original country.

The question is, how wise is the decision to make so many foreigners citizens and to serve as our soldiers to defend our country and our people? One potential terrorist is one too many. One potential soldier that could harm our sons is one too many. Are we too trusting or too idiotic? As it is, many would not even want to serve. Can they be forced to defend our country like our children? What have to fight and die for? They have nothing, no emotional attachment for this island. And there will be those who serve reluctantly or with different agenda or reasons. Soldiering is already a dangerous occupation. We have to guard our secrets, guard against external enemies, real or potential. You mean we don’t have to guard against these new citizens?

How much added reservations and precautions are needed to guard against new citizens turned NSmen? What is the margin of error? A little percentage that could do mischief can be a serious threat to our defence capability, and the lives of our soldiers.

Throwing citizenship crazily at anyone is already bad enough. Embracing total strangers, train them and arm them and expect them to defend our country will incur additional risk that is unnecessary.

‘What money can’t buy’ is a very appropriate question here.

What is obsolete?

While everyone is caught in a hectic pace of trying to get rich and get ahead in this materialistic world, has anything really changed with the meaning of life, with the value of things? I quote this statement by a Dr Michael Sandel in an article in the Today paper written by Nicholas Kristof on ‘What money can’t buy.’

‘Do we want a society where everything is up for sale? Or are there certain moral and civic goods that markets do not honour and money cannot buy?’

By asking such a question, I know that this Dr is antique. He has been sleeping and outlived his usefulness. He does not know what this world has become and the modern values that are being cherished as the symbols of success. In short, everything is measured in money and money can buy anything. How successful is a person is measured in money. How much dignity is measured in money. Intelligence is also measured in money.

The goodness of a person is measured in money, if we can remember the dashing and talented and handsome young man who used his Ferrari to take away 3 innocent lives. The only thing people remembered or knew him was how much money he has. Who cares if he is a reckless drunken driver. Who cares about the people whom he killed? Does anyone remember who were killed in the process and their names?

Honour, integrity, loyalty can all be bought. With money, one can buy soldiers, party members, slaves to do silly things without questioning about right or wrong, without questioning about evil and wickedness, without shame and honesty. Just put some money in their mouths and you can move them around in a merry go round.

National pledge is only an aspiration. This is the latest highly regarded opinion to live by. In fact all the age old virtues are just aspirations for the losers to live by. Ask any successful Sinkie and he will tell you this.

Every profession and professional is driven by money. They will do anything for money. Only silly and lowly educated people, the daft ones, will believe in those fanciful old virtues.

The article ‘What money can’t buy’ is superfluous, obsolete, in modern living. It is good to talk about it in fairy tales. I think the schools may have left them out of the syllabus long ago. Only the backward thinking people, the Rip Van Winkles, will still romanticize about such values. I have forgotten about them ages ago. Left them behind too.

To be successful, to live a good life, it is the rule of the jungle, the animal wins. The more animal values one possesses, the more successful one becomes. But some will still hide behind the façade of honesty, integrity, loyalty, goodness, compassion, generousity, graciousness, kindness, truthfulness, and so on, only to laugh themselves silly in good company, without the losers around.

Yes, the losers are all daft. We have sold practically everything that can be sold or in the process of selling them, including our souls, to get more money in return.

In defense of the main media

Everyone is kicking the main media around like a ball. It has been alleged of biased coverage in the by election to favour the ruling party candidate. It has been accused of putting the opposition party candidate in a bad light with funny pictures. But the main media has improved, like the results of the by election. It has improved from what it was before. According to Baey, I think, he also noticed that the main media is getting fairer with more coverage for the opposition candidate. Can’t imagine this kind of coverage in the past, I can’t remember what it was like.

At the rate the main media is improving, soon it will be accused of biased coverage against the ruling party. The incremental improvement counts, just like the 2% gain. One election 2%, ten elections will be 20%. There is great hope that the main media will be better everyday and will do journalism and the journalists proud, one day. Just give it time. Don’t write them off. Hold back the criticisms, afterall they all ‘tan chiak one’ and need to do a good job.

I can’t imagine how the media coverage would be after 2016. One thing for sure, it will be very much fairer. This is the 21th century and no one can think of shitting on anyone’s head in public and in print and say no he didn’t. Everyone will just have to be honest, like it or not, unless one chooses to be an ostrich.

Have faith, our main media is run by professional journalists who always do their due diligence, check up on the facts of things they choose to report on. They will always give honest and truthful reports and in depth analysis. And every photograph is carefully selected to tell the story better. How else could they win so many international awards, like best design, best pictures, best photography, best newsworthy news of this and that, or things like that. I really can’t remember what awards it won but know it won many. An award winning newspaper must be of good reasonable standard. The awards are the proof.

The main media is right and telling the honest truth. This is just my personal opinion, and feel free to disagree. I am very generous and would not sue you if you disagree with me. Everyone has a right to enjoy his freedom to express his own opinion here, in mysingaporenews.