- The SDP should stop whining about the state-owned media not allowing them their 'fair share' of air-time. Look, we are not kids and we know that the media is not unbiased. No point harping on the same issue. Try presenting some real policy thinking instead. And no, your so-called alternative Budget doesn't cut it. I could have assembled a few JC students to come out with something similar.
- If the SDP wants to be taken seriously, they should get rid of Chee Soon Juan. He is a liability to the credibility of the party.
- Apart from NSP's Goh Meng Seng (who was my peer in JC), there is very little evidence of lucid economic thinking. Many of the ideas are merely variations on the theme of 'we are rich so let us spend the national reserves', which is basically socialism in disguise and an indirect form of bribing voters with their own money. The interesting thing is that having accused the PAP of vote-buying through the HDB upgrading programme, they failed to see that their ideas are of a similar nature.
- Kenneth Jeyaretnam should probably hide the fact that he studied economics at Cambridge. From my avocational reading in the philosophy and history of economic thought, I have come to the view that the economic theories taught at Cambridge have played a very big role in contributing to the economic malaise afflicting the Western world. Being a Cambridge graduate myself (thankfully not in economics), it is obviously not my intention to knock the school.
- Another suggestion to Kenneth: Brush up on your organisational skills. Having so many people quit your party should be enough evidence that you need to change.
So much for now. :-)
1. Whining? Hardly. The Straits Times almost never publishes policy proposals from these other parties even if the parties have come up with them. Ditto with Mediacorp. Even if they're bad, let them be published/aired and let the public decide. They can only improve if there is a free atmosphere to debate such ideas, and if their ideas don't work, so be it.
ReplyDelete2. How so? He's pretty much proven himself as a leader who's held his party together even the through tough times, fighting for democratic rights as they went along. His party works as a team and not through his personality - have you even noticed the presence of his other members?
3. The PAP method of vote buying is clientelistic - HDB upgrading, then progress package/grow and share monies paid are on sliding scale - the poor get more, the rich get less. Similar concept with Workfare, where you are beholden to this government privilege which is not a right. Minimum wage is. You obviously can't tell what's clientelistic and what's a right, so it's time to go back to school and stop whining about something you can't understand.
4. I find this suggestion strange. Why should Kenneth hide the fact that he studied Economics at Cambridge? Shouldn't one be proud to be an alumnus of a school that at least promotes critical thinking? Just because a university's teaching of economic ideas has some "connection" to the economic malaise in the Western world doesn't mean it has all to do with it. What about Chicago, Harvard and LSE? Should everyone be hiding the fact they studied their economics as such schools too? They have "contributed" pretty much a lot to the problems of the developed world. Shouldn't you knock the men who came up with these ideas instead of the schools?
5. This is the only point i can agree on. But oh well, shows how you have been too busy with work and not being able to think critically. I am surprised to note that you're a Cambridge grad. What a wasted graduate you are.
Haha, perhaps you are right. There are plenty of wasted Cambridge grads and I could be one of them.
ReplyDeleteYou have raised substantial points which are interesting but were not in my original post, especially in respect of what your view of what constitutes a 'right', to which I have substantial disagreement. But that's for another day.
If I appear to be whining, that's unfortunate but this is my blog afterall. I'm not complaining about not being given enough media exposure, unlike the SDP.
Chee Soon Juan had a very troubled/turbulent past which most people who had gone through maybe 3-4 elections would remember.
ReplyDelete1. He went a hunger strike to protest about his termination but wasn't sincere abt it (he drank milk)
2. He shouted at GCT, maybe even hurling vulgarities in one walkabout, like a madman.
3. He fell out with Chiam See Tong and forced him to quit SDP, the party that Chiam founded. The full story was never made known in public.
4. He was always doing funny street protests against the govt, behaving like a clown rather than like a politician.
Albeit he may have change for the better. This election so far, we haven't heard funny stories about him, but the incidents above definitely left a bad impression with most people.