Dude.........you understand what he is talking about or not?Originally posted by Rexdriver:If so, the plan was already hatched and vocalised in 1956.
From September to October, the new Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock ordered the arrest of some trade union and civic leaders, putting down a sit-in in two Chinese middle schools, and deregistering three apparent Communist front organisations. In an Assembly session, Lee proposed a motion of “grave concern” over these actions. He deplored the purge as a careful plot hatched with the “colonial masters as fellow conspirators” to “ensure no organized challenge at the next election”.12 He quoted positive Western news reports, insinuating that Lim had ordered the arrests to gain their favour. He warned of the danger of such powers used illegitimately against real or imagined threats:
If it is not totalitarian to arrest a man and detain him when you cannot charge him with any offence against any written law - if that is not what we have always cried out against in fascist states - what is it?Â… If we are to survive as a free democracy, then we must be prepared, in principle, to concede to our enemies - even those who do not subscribe to our views - as much constitutional rights as you concede yourself - LKY (August 1954)
Repression, Sir, is a habit that grows. I am told it is like making love - it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course, with constant repetition, you get more and more brazen in the attack and in the scope of the attack.13Reflecting that “repression is an easy substitute for hard work and organisation”, Lee portrayed the arrests as the beginning of a systematic Labour Front campaign to eliminate rival organisations and societies and detain political opposition. Even if this succeeds, it would ultimately lead to “complacency” and “degeneration”.14 “Indiscriminate suppression” was not the answer:
I agree… that if any act is done to overthrow a government by force, that act must be suppressed. But if we say we believe in democracy, if we say that the fabric of democracy is one which allows the free play of ideas, which avoids revolution by violence because revolution by peaceful methods of persuasion is allowed, then, in the name of all the gods that we have in this country, give that free play a chance to work within the constitutional framework. 15The following month, Lee’s fellow assemblyman Lim Chin Siong was detained along with hundreds of trade unionists and activists for stirring up student riots in late October. Lee moved a motion deploring the detention, done “without, in his view, proper justification”.16
"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
- Harry S Truman (1884 - 1972), August 8, 1950
Yeah, I understand. Which is why I said it's shocking and sad. He already knew the formula for authoritarian rule in 1956. Whether he switched alignments subsequently or was insincere at the outset (when he uttered those words) is anybody's guess?Originally posted by Himbo:Dude.........you understand what he is talking about or not?
Sue them?Originally posted by Rexdriver:I'm sure someone must have confronted him with these quotes before. What was his response?