Originally posted by kilua:
I am not against PAP,
1. only the against the arrogance in dealing with people,
(Like slamming people, e.g. the NTU Economic Professor getting slam by Ng Eng Hean or hammering of Catherine Lim, James Gomez)
2. only againt the low tolerance for alternative views
(yeah like Ministers Salaries - Please study countries like New Zealand or Finland and publish it in the "state times" and not try to supress viable alternative views)
3. Only against Elitist education system
(Yes, Countries like Finland have a more egalitarian system where oppourtunities abound for its people regardless of early childhood performance. Streaming starts very late, and much help is given to the weaker students, not lip service help in Singapore like "teaching at a slower pace" using streaming but genuine help. Somehow i think that as long as the Elitist LKY is around, we will never have a system where resources and benefits are more evenly distributed.
If they can put these right, i would vote for no 2
If not i hope long run it will be no 5 (No PAP to represent Singapore)
Let me give another side of the coin.
1) Singapore is running quite a different system from many countries. We are living in a paternalistic democracy society, where we have our government to think what is "good" for us. Of course there might be pros and cons for the people. Not many of us wanted to be controlled as compared in the early 1970s and 1980s where our former PM, LKY was running our country.
The second reason where I read from the book by Mr. Alan Chong where he write about our 2nd PM, GCT, where he said the reason why Singapore needs a paternalistic system is because our people is the only resources and investment we have. We need to retain the talents and expand globally. Our human resource might be the only asset we have; otherwise it might the demise of Singapore.
2) No doubt our ministers are getting one of the highest paid salaries in the world. Maybe it will useful if the government can give a explicit explanation on this.
3) In many developed nations, people can be jobless and survived with government’s financial aid. That means many of them can be free-lanced artists or pursue their own interest. Therefore, the emphasis of education is much lesser compare to our country. However, in Singapore, we are paper driven society, which has constrained parents to be “competitive” to their children. Education system is a base that develops our limited talents and be competitive in the future.
Maybe a lot of forumers may not agree with my views, but my stand is neither for nor against the PAP. But I believe our common goal will be the contribution to the success of Singapore future.