Singapore is the beacon of political honesty

As I said, I am going to write something honest about Singapore. I am going to say the darnest thing about political honesty. Tharman has said his peace and everyone is aroused by what he said and getting very excited. If you missed it, here it is, ‘To tackle social and political issues, return to 'honest politics’. The whole social media is abuzz by this statement. This is the most politically honest statement coming from Tharman.

And I agree with Tharman that we must return to ‘honest politics’ when tackling social and political issues. Singapore is what it is today because of such honesty. Singapore moved from Third World to First World because our politicians and political system are honest.  Wait, wait, don’t throw eggs at me so early. Let me justify my case ok?

Honesty is an inherent trait in Singaporeans and more so in our politicians. Some may say not so sure about opposition politicians. My claim is based on a few assumptions, oops, a few fundamental facts. We have the most well educated population, not counting the foreigners who came here with degrees from genuine degree mills and well respected and recognized as genuinely good. The system has acknowledged their goodness that now they are saying degrees are not important. Honesty is infectious and the foreigners have also become honest like us, and for that we accept their degrees with grace and generosity. No need to check any more to embarrass them.  Also our educated population is educated from world best universities and world best education system, so must be good and can tell the difference between honesty and dishonesty.

With such a clever population, there is no way dishonest politicians can bluff the people unless the people are really daft, a congenital defect. Being dishonest is bluffing, lying, cheating and even conning the people. The very fact that the people continued to vote the politicians into power speaks for itself. The people, all so well educated, cannot be so stupid and cannot tell the difference between honesty and dishonesty. They believe in an honest govt made up of honest politicians saying and doing all the honest things. The whole world must be envious of our politicians. The only element that could undermine an honest govt, money or corruption, has already been taken out from the equation. For that, the people or at least 70% have voted and confirmed that we have an honest govt and honest politicians. This is an indisputable fact.

And our politicians are so honest that they often spoke their mind, honestly. They did not have to hide or lie to tell people they are more than the lesser mortals. They believe that dignity comes from having a big salary. See how honest they are, no need to bluff. They honestly said they need millions or their lifestyle would be affected and would not want to sacrifice their privacy to be politicians. They also believe that if the govt pays good salaries, in the millions, you will have honest politicians or at least no politician will be dishonest with money matters. Town council management or some town council management may be an exception. At least they all started as angels but they cannot be angels all the time. This is honesty.

And honesty is how all the social and political problems are solved here. The latest is the amendment to protect children under police investigation. There is also the urgency to have a minority president and this is done quickly and honestly.  It has absolutely nothing to do with Tan Cheng Bock. The Terrex Incident is also a good case of honesty and how it should be handled honestly for the good of everyone. I am waiting for them to produce the declaration forms in the media as proof on what was actually declared. Honesty will dispel all the speculations and guessing, everything will be transparent and honestly declared.

And honesty means that when they made mistakes they own up. Even when mistakes of hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars were made, they put it on public records.  Our govt is so clean and so honest. This is something the people must be proud of. When they want to fix things they also said so. This is true honesty of the highest level in politics.

I dunno when they said Singapore belongs to everyone is an honest statement or not. But when they said Singapore needs 6.9m population I am sure they are honest about it, that it is only a planning parameter.

I can go on and on about political honesty with many more examples. Singapore would not have come this far if politics and social problems were tackled  dishonestly. It cannot be. Anyone or any politician that is dishonest would be caught with his pants down in an honest system. 

It is time to return to honest politics. What, have we gone somewhere or fell asleep and must now return to honest politics? My apologies, just a Freudian slip. It is good and an honest thing to do to return to the right path should one go astray.

Another Little Brown Brother got insulted

It has to take a Duterte to wake up the Pinoys that no matter what, they are just Little Brown Brothers to the Americans, to be used to serve the Empire’s business, to fight proxy wars, to challenge the enemies of the Empire with the masters shouting from behind, providing arms and vocal support.

Indonesia just found out, my goodness, they haven’t woken up yet, that the literature and military doctrines of the Australians used them as enemies and were insulting their Pancasila, including their belief in God and inciting Indonesian Papua to be independent from Indonesia. Quoting an Agencies’ report ‘Indonesian military spokesman Major General Wuryanto said, “all forms of cooperation”, including military exercises and education and exchange programmes, have been suspended indefinitely.’

Who do the Indonesians believe were the ‘enemies’ in the Australian military exercise materials? China? The Australians rehearsing all their military exercises in anticipation of a Chinese attack on their territories? But it is not all in vain. Indonesia has started to question the increasing presence of American forces stationed in Australia, for what purposes, to prepare for an invasion of China?

Little Brown Brothers must always remember that they cannot morph into anything else, not into white brothers. The historical experience of the Australians meddling in Indonesian affairs, particularly in Timor, in Papua New Guinea, would not go away and would be repeated at the opportune moment.

This little deputy white sheriff is meddling too much in a region that it should not and is not behaving like a little sheriff, thinking that it is a big regional power. One day it would be overrun by Indonesia to put it in its rightful place.

Behind the headlines, looking inside the skulls

How  would Trump deal with a trigger happy North Korea? Jeremy Koh

To tackle social and political issues, return to 'honest politics': DPM Tharman

Above are two headlines in Channel News Asia on 8 Jan 17. In the first headline, the mindset of the author, Jeremy Koh, is that Kim Jong Un is a trigger happy man, or the North Koreans are. How did he come to this conclusion? What did the North Koreans did to be branded as trigger happy? Did they go to war, commit terrrorist acts? Or they were testing their missiles and nuclear weapons? If testing missiles and nuclear weapons are considered trigger happy, would the USA be branded as trigger happy, the most trigger happy as they have tested the most missiles and nuclear weapons and possessed the most and threatened to use them in the most occasions? Or is conducting military exercises considered trigger happy? Which country is conducting war games all over the world? North Korea?

What about countries engaged in wars under the slightest provocations or fabricating false information like WMD, would they be considered trigger happy? Which country has been conducting wars all over the world? Not trigger happy?

Or North Korea is trigger happy because the Americans said so? A little critical thinking and common sense would easily identify who is the real trigger happy country. No prize for the correct answer.

Singaporeans are not called daft for no reasons. Their daftness is legendary.

 

The second question is an eye opener. Returning to honest politics. Who have been indulging in dishonest politics and who needs to return to honest politics?  See the halo over my head?

Ok, let’s not engage in speculations, allegations or name calling. Let those honest people engaging in dishonest politics to start to change to honest politics. No need to ask them to own up and confess that they have been engaging in dishonest politics. That would be asking too much.

All those engaging in dishonest politics please kee chiu.

Thank you Tharman for saying the darnest thing. I know that you are referring to the international players and this is not meant for domestic consumption.

PS. Any cat wants to declare it does not eat fish and wants to turn vegetarian?

From Terrex to Terex

Virgo sent me this. Is this the result of our Terrex? Melted down and morphed into this?

There are merits in the American political system

The pro independence kids in Hong Kong have a serious contention about their lack of independence to elect their Chief Executive of preference. The Chief Exedcutive was shortlisted by China and they felt offended, short changed, as if the election of the Chief Executive of a country b the people is a universal democratic formula. Did they know that Singapore also inherited the same British democratic system and the Prime Minister was elected by the political leaders among themselves, not by the people? Singapore or Britain did not elect a politician to be the Prime Minister. The politicians elect among themselves.

The American system is different in that they more or less elected their President directly. There is a presidential election though it still has to go through a second election by an Electoral College of Electors or people’s representative to confirm the election by the American public. This is not what makes the American system particularly more democratic than the British system.

What is distinctive in the American system is that the elected President has a free hand to handpick the best men and women as his ministers to assist and support him in the running of the country. These men and women are the Secretaries or equivalent of Ministers, but not elected by the people, not necessary politicians. It goes for several other top appointments of the govt as well, including the judiciary and finance.

The key difference here is that these men and women are not elected by the people but experts in their own fields or at least are known to be experts in their professions related to the appointments. Notice the glaring difference between these Secretaries and the Ministers in the British system? The latter are politicians and not necessary experts in their ministries. The stark inadequacy of the British system is best seen at home when you have eye surgeon helming the foreign ministry, cancer surgeon helming the defence ministry, generals helming education, transport, internal affairs, etc etc.

The obvious Achille’s heel in the British system is that the politicians are politicians and not necessary experts or professionals and are put into ministries that they have no clue about, not train in, no expertise in but are expected to perform like they know everything. Some may perform, some perform hopelessly.

In reality, not many people are so talented to be experts in things they are not trained in or even in things they are trained in. Some may be good in passing examinations but unable to apply what they learned in schools. Politicians are politicians. Are politicians experts in managing ministries like defence, foreign affairs, health, education etc etc. In many instances politicians are like salespersons, good at presentation or presenting what they want to sell, or like actors/actresses but without the ability to do the professional stuff. They are not knows all.

There is a caveat here of course. Despite the obvious flaws in the British system when non practitioners or non experts are put to helm important ministries, Singapore is Unique. Our talents are super talents, at least by the measures of their multi million dollar salaries. And they really become experts overnight in the ministries they are put in charge.  Even at the lower level they could become experts and advisers in all fields ranging from sports, arts, cultural, clans or trade associations.

This is the great difference in Singapore.  Though everyone can see the weaknesses in the British political system, when put into practice in Singapore, it still works, or at least it works in the past and the momentum seems to prove that it is still working, for how long we don’t know.

Conceptually, the American system is more realistic and practical. The President picks the best experts of the respective fields to do the demanding jobs of the respective office. A general to head defence ministry, a finance experts to head finance, health expert to head health ministry etc etc. Logical isn’t it? Of course there are counter arguments that a soldier is bad to head the defence ministry and likewise a doctor to head health….

What do you think? Is there a need to modify our system to allow experts to head ministries that need and demand people with the professional or relevant training and experience to helm them? The American system has no mismatch problem.  Ours definitely have, but saved by the abundance of super talents born to be knows all, to become expert in anything overnight. That is why we did not hear of mismatch in our political system, at least we never hear of any minister or politician being a mismatch in his job.

The British system is flawed and its derivative systems, if copied profusely, would be equally flawed. You not only did not elect the PM/Chief Executive, you have politicians of all colours trying to make the best of their appointments in ministries they have no expertise in.