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Home Perspective Vantage Liberal democracy gives rise to social ills? Part 1
Liberal democracy gives rise to social ills? Part 1 Print Email
Tuesday, 04 January 2011
Singapore Democrats

"[I]t has a lot to do with the erosion of the moral underpinnings of a society and the diminution of personal responsibility. The liberal, intellectual tradition that developed after World War II claimed that human beings...would be better off if they were allowed to do their own thing and flourish. It has not worked out...Westerners have abandoned an ethical basis for society..."

Thus saith Lee Kuan Yew in an interview he gave to the Foreign Affairs magazine in 1994.

 
He surmised that democracy equals Western values and Western values equal individualism. Individualism, in turn, brings about moral decadence leading society to eventual ruin. Democratic values, by implication, must be rejected.

The 'erosion of moral underpinnings'


Ethics and morality are terms Mr Lee chooses to frame the discussion of the success - or failure - of a society. Against this premise, let us examine the situation in Singapore and the kind of society he has forced on this country.

Our sex industry is thriving where high- and low-end sex workers flood the island. In 2007, 5,400 unlicensed prostitutes were arrested, an increase of 25 percent from the previous year. We have become the centre for the trafficking of sex workers.

And where prostitutes gather, so will pimps. With pimps come gangs and with gangs come crime - violent crime. Orchard Plaza, a venue permeated with adult stores and sex bars, came into the spotlight recently where a gang, wielding machetes, brutally murdered a man in the wee hours of the morning.

Another gang, also with parangs, went on a chopping spree in Kallang, killing one and severely wounding another including hacking off the victim's fingers.

Retiree, Mr Lee Kaw, had gone to buy a newspaper in the evening. When he stepped into a lift, another man pulled out a knife and slashed him across the throat. Mr Lee stumbled out and with blood gushing from his neck, managed to get help from neighbours.

"First, you must have order in society," Mr Lee lectured. "Guns, drugs and violent crime all go together, threatening social order."

We may not have guns in Singapore but knives do just as well.

And drugs? A Reuters report stated: "Evidence tells of the emergence of an underground party drug scene mostly at night clubs frequented by the wealthy." In 2007 heroin arrests exploded by 600 percent.

Our youths are violent too


On youths Mr Lee said: "Then the schools; when you have violence in schools, you are not going to have education, so you've got to put that right." That's the rhetoric.

Here's the reality: In Singapore, students are killing students. Nineteen-year-old, Darren Ng, was cut to death in a youth-gang fight, a group of teenagers, in which the youngest member was 8, went on a rampage slashing passers-by at Bukit Panjang; two boys, aged 12 and 14, punched and robbed an elderly man in Ang Mo Kio; a gang of three, aged 13, 15 and 18, nearly severed the hand of a man in a violent confrontation. All this in a matter of weeks over November and December last year. (See here)

Then on Christmas eve, youths fought each other in three separate incidents: a couple was attacked at Downtown East (the place where Darren Ng was killed) and left the man with blood dripping from his eye; 10 youths attacked another at Orchard Road until he was unconscious and in critical condition; and a brawl took place at Clarke Quay leaving the victim with a broken nose. (See here)  

Democratic values to blame?


The liberal, intellectual tradition has abandoned an ethical basis for society?

Let's look at the facts. Singapore is not even a democratic society, let alone a liberal one, where individuals enjoy political rights. It is very much a state where the ruling party sits on top of all and sundry and directs society from its perch.

And yet, we are seeing drugs, crime, and youth violence hit this country like never before.

In truth, it is not that liberal democracy causes social breakdown as Mr Lee would have us believe, rather it is the wayward policies forced on the population by this regime.

Much of this is fueled by the PAP's lust for all that glitters. Its relentless push to achieve GDP growth, no matter the havoc that it wreaks on society, is inflicting much injury on the social arrangement in this country.

The opening up of the casinos and the re-writing of our banking laws to turn Singapore into a tax haven has opened up our society to easy money for the Government. The result of such a policy cocktail is an explosion of crime and vice in this country.

The irony is that without democracy, dissenting - and moderating - voices are silenced. The PAP, with all its machinations of the electoral system and the control of the media, continues to tell us the lie that democracy is bad and dictatorship is good.

For our part, the Singapore Democrats will continue to speak up. More important, however, Singaporeans must wake up to the dangers that we face with an autocratic PAP.

In Part 2, we will take a further look at the erosion of social order in Singapore and examine its causes.
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Comments (6)
  • freedomT
    I think this old man has served his days already and should be preparing to meet the maker. Greedy senile old man that only think of himself and only for himself should retired and should stop treating others like a bloody fools.
  • bobg - bobg
    Agree. Societies do not degenerate because of a surplus of liberal or democratic values, they degenerate because of a deficit of these values.

    I think a lot can be learned about this topic from studying the recent history of the United States, a country that any observer would agree is in decline.

    It's laughable to believe that the US political system still honors it's original democratic traditions. It is a corrupt, corporate run plutocracy with the two main political parties practically indistinguishable in their positions. The political elite run the country according to their whims with no accountability to the public they claim to represent. Most positions taken by mainstream politicians are completely at odds with public opinion. A corporate run media establishment, beholden to their moneyed clients, dishes out tons of propaganda to support and perpetuate the status quo. I say without reservation that the US government is even more removed from it's citizenry than the autocratic PAP.

    But there is one important difference - the US still honors it's traditions of free speech and free association, with no restrictions on political activity - the so called "first amendment rights" from the Constitution's Bill of Rights. The idea that someone could be sued and bankrupted just for something they said is unheard of.

    In the area of individual rights and freedoms, the US still leads and is out in front of even the other western liberal democracies such as England and France, which did much to shape western democratic tradition.

    This is what still keeps the nation vibrant and limits decay that by all measures, should be much worse. The plutocrats must employ huge resources, financial and otherwise, to control the flow of information and keep population docile and obedient. The creation of the consumer society is all about directing people's attention away from the things that really matter, and keeping them out of the political arena.

    It's incredible how successful this method has been, despite it's difficulty in a truly free society. It is much harder to brainwash people into thinking they have achieved nirvana than to employ oppressive measures to control what they say.

    I think the future is bright for Singapore. The opposition is small, but credible. They represent a true alternative to the status quo. People here are starting to enter the political arena and want real change. Brainwashing is not working. The idea that someone now in their 20's or 30's who might be a future prime minister would run the country the same way LKY did is unthinkable, regardless of his/her political affiliation.

    Regarding the social problems mentioned in the article - a high level of personal freedom would go a long way toward mitigating them because people without fear then feel empowered to deal with them. I think the root of the problem is boredom. Young people here need more healthy outdoor choices and opportunities. There is more to life than school, shopping malls, and the internet.
  • quantum - March - of - Democracy
    http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/march-of-democracy.html

    "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
    - Winston Churchill, 1947 A.D.

    Where has democracy dominated and where has it retreated? This map gives us a visual ballet of democracy's march across history as the most popular form of government. From the first ancient republics to the rise of self-governing nations, see the history of democracy: 4,000 years in 90 seconds...!

    http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/march-of-democracy.html


  • Tan Tai Wei
    Freedom might not result in people's moral and social development, but what would the "carrot and stick" most probably do?

    They say that LKY required PAP cadres to read Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity", where is recommended the technique of mass "behaviour modification" by basically the sort of "conditioning" Skinner used in his experiments on rats and pigeons.

    Leave their minds alone, the more thinking is undermined, the more effective the conditioning. Just keep them in the cage and place in the bait, the cheese, and then they eventually will get habituated to open the right door to it which you want them to open. Thinking would make them wonder if the cheese is worth it or not, whether it might be better to get out the cage for better things, etc.

    Well, rats can't think much in any case, so all that is fine.

    But treat a man that way, and you get a rat-man, not a thinking, morally and socially responsible, human.

  • Prime Citizen
    there is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end of it is death. I am a prime citizen of this adopted nation and i am going to make sure democratic and liberal spirit rules the public and not the nicolaity and crocodile-dictatorship. Count on my vote Re(present)Public of Singapore. Dr Chee deserves our votes to bring the democracy to a higher level in this nationhood.
  • quantum - Moral and social development
    With so many corruption scandals in the government departments and MOE teachers doing child porn and having sex with students, I am not sure if we are that morally and socially developed.
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