Should happiness be a national goal?

It’s the beginning of another year. Let me wish everyone a happy new year. Happiness is always intrinsic in new year greetings of all races and cultures. Wealth is the other main item in new year greetings. Health is also creeping in as a major concern as it is no longer a case of living healthily but a fear of falling sick and being robbed by the health providers and be emptied of one’s savings.

I was intrigued by the topic of happiness in a CNA programme that greeted me in the new year. The topic was whether happiness should be a national goal. The participants and panels were equally enlightened to know that this elusive subject is something that is best not to trifle with. They understood that happiness is a vague concept that meant so many things to so many people that one could hardly put a handle on it. Eventually the discussion tried to narrow down to equate happiness with material well being of the individuals and economic growth at the national level.

The nation’s economic growth as a convenient tool to measure happiness was also disparagingly dismissed as pure nonsense, a tool that could easily be abused by the perpetrators of the notion that economic growth is happiness. There is no doubt that economic well being or materialism could make life very comfortable, and living very convenient. But that’s where it ends.

The role of making people happy must not be passed to the hands of the govt. It is dangerous and can be exploited for all the wrong reasons. It is not that the govt does not know what happiness is, it is a very subjective thing and no one is wiser. What is sad is for a govt to assume this role that it knows better, it knows how to make people happy, and channel resources towards this goal like asset enhancement. One of the panellists said, it is ridiculous and bad for the govt to take money from the people through taxes and to pass back the money to the people and tell them it will make them happy. It is best the people keep their own money and decide what they want to do with their money to make themselves happy. Immediately the national ponzi scheme came to mind.

The concept of happiness is not directly related to material well being. Nevertheless, economic well being is something that the people want. This is about raising the quality of life of the people in material comfort. Many could be contented to be living well. Whether they are happy or unhappy is a totally different issue that only an individual will know. Only an individual could satisfy his own curiosity and idiosyncrasy of what he can be happy or what can make him happy. Basically the panellist disagreed with a role for the govt in making the people happy. But when the voting was called, 70% of the votes wanted happiness to be a national goal. Do they mean that they want the govt, who probably has as vague an idea as them on what is happiness, to mess around with their happiness or to tell them how to be happy or what makes them happy?

It is a strange conclusion to an interesting discussion. May 2013 be a happy new year for all of you, if you know what can make you happy. Maybe it is easier to know what will make you unhappy and you can start from that premise to stay happy.

DPRK has right to launch its satellite

China should never alienate the DPRK people for doing something they consider it their right to do. China and the Chinese people should never forget the difficulties they encountered in their pursuit of national independence and national revival in the past. The new Chinese leader Xi Jinping has just started talking about Chinese dreams of revival in the past few days. While China and the Chinese people think that they have the right to fulfill their national dream, how can China hope to deprive the DPRK people of those same rights to fulfill their dreams of national independence and a national revival?
As one of the oldest civilizations in the world, China and the Chinese people should never forget their national moral principle: jisuo buyu, wushi yuren ( do not impose on other people things you do not like yourselves) .
As the only third world country representative in the UN Security Council with the power of veto, China must uphold the principles that are fair to the aspirations of the vast population in the third world, which accounts for eighty percent of humanity, in order to be worthy of its permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Our world is full of trouble and miseries, and our future looks dim, exactly because a few powerful nations do whatever they please in this world in complete disregard of the principles of fairness to all. They use their advanced weapons, such as unmanned drones, to kill people they regard as a threat. They do not even need to prove to anybody in a court or anywhere that these people who are targeted by these lethal weapons deserve the death penalty before they are killed by the push of a button.
Nobody has made any outcry about these inhumane killings carried out in the third world by the US military and the CIA. Who give them the right to condemn North Korea for launching a satellite for peaceful purposes? The people of the world need to wake up to the real dangers present in this world, and support the weak third world countries' right to defend themselves.

Posted by Professor Han Dongping

Hillary Clinton the evil American demon politician

Hilary Clinton is a vicious wicked aggressive warmongering woman and a trouble maker in the traditional satanic line of evil American supremacist exceptionalism. She is also  very extremely anti-China and anti-Chinese. She has told much lies about China and adopted endless evil confrontational policies geared to stop Chinese peaceful development with the intention to split and weaken China and thus eventually hoping to destroy China and the Chinese people. Her wicked policies include supporting the terrorists brigands of the demon Dalai Lama and the Uighur separatists as well as stoking problems in the East China sea and the South China Sea hoping thus to drive Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines to start an open warfare with China. She should be cursed by all Chinese and all peace loving people and if there is such thing as a God she should be instantly despatched to hell so that she will not be able to cause any more trouble in this world.

Bomb threats or pranks intolerable for public safety and security

An Indian national by the name of Aditya Bhatia, a foreign student at the Global Indian International School, has posted in his facebook a threat against Singapore. He wrote that he would take a ‘big big revenge” on Singapore when he leaves the country… he is going to spit everywhere…he will “plant bombs on Marina Bay Sands”

This is no joke and no small threat. Anyone mentioning the word ‘bomb’ in the airport can be expected to be whisked into custody and subject to intensive interrogation by the police. Here is an explicit comment on an act of terrorism, planting bombs at the Marina Bay Sands.

For the police not to take action or to treat this case as a childish prank is unacceptable. Some had been arrested in the past for making reports of bombs over the phone. The country cannot afford to take such pranks or threats for granted. If this is not curbed immediately, it could lead to more of such nonsense being repeated. After a while, nobody will take them seriously, just like crying wolf. That will be serious as the guards will be down and a genuine threat may be mistaken for another prank and lives and properties could be lost.

No one, yes, no one, must be allowed to make such threats even as joke or a prank, or as an expression in a moment of folly or anger. The police must punish the culprit severely and make this case or any such cases forbidden to fool around with.

How safe are our women folks?

The horrific rape and the death of a medical student in India must be an eye opener to the people here, and also the authority for the risk it is taking with our women folks. Foreign workers, not only from India, but from other third world countries are simply country folks that are basically hungry and a bit wild with their basic instinct.

We have half a million of them here or there about. Many are living in very close proximity with our women folks, our oldies and children. While our men folks are away, working, many of these shift workers are hanging around in the void decks and corridors of HDB and even condos, with too much time in hand and nothing to do.

Like it or not, these are hungry men, and their basic instinct and sexual desire are often unsatisfied. Their roving hearts, roving eyes can easily be aroused and who knows what they could do. When the men folks are not around, the women folks are easy victims to such hungry men.

How safe are our women folks in the midst of these foreign workers? Are we playing with fire, taking for granted that nothing will go wrong, that in our home ground, we are safe. The foreign maids and Geylang could take off some pressure for the moment. But it would never be able to remove all the built up pressure and lust that need to be released. And all it needs is a moment of folly, a moment of animal lust and some people’s life will be in ruin.