The topic of Singapore's freedom and democracy came up in a number of other topics concerning Dr Chee's protest in the Speaker Corner. In an effort not to hijack the original thread, I start this topic to discuss purely on the above mentioned issue. I remind my fellow forumees that this is a discussion thread and I would appreciate if we can all discuss on the basis of reasons and facts rather than using emotionally abusive terminology or using the thread as an emotion venting outlet.
On Freedom:
In a previous thread, I have had a brief exchange with ShutterBug on the concept of freedom.
I refer to FREEDOM as it is used commonly and naturally as in the phrase; "FREE as a bird". FREE like any creature warm blooded or otherwise. FREE as we are born naturally FREE. Free as in "Born Free".
Freedom needs not to be 'forced' onto any person or peoples. Freedom comes with our life/lives.
And FREEDOM, depending on which country, society, and or community you were born in, is to some extent and by conditions, controlled and or regulated for reasons personal, governmental or otherwise political. But FREEDOM cannot be lived in FEAR as is the case with FEER.
In FEAR, there is NO FREEDOM. If there is FREEDOM, there is and should not be, any FEAR.
Man are born free, but everywhere he is in chains. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The freedom that is currently most commonly interpretated is the liberal concept of freedom, a freedom from interference. In short, the more rules there are in place, the less freedom there is available. Yet, achieving absolute freedom may not be necessary desirable. For if freedom is unlimited, then there cannot be any rules and laws. Any rule, even restrictions that prohibit murder and other crimes, is an infringement on freedom.
As you have said, freedom "is to some extent and by conditions, controlled and or regulated for reasons personal, governmental or otherwise political" These freedoms are regulated to eliminate fear. Fear of being murdered is generally reduce by restricting the freedom to kill. Fear of being stolen is reduced by restricting the freedom to steal.
There may be some that argue that murder and theft are not freedom, they are crimes! But until these actions are restricted and became crimes, they are freedom. For if man are born free, they can do anything limit only by their ability. Hence the need for a state to limit these "freedom".
Fear and freedom are therefore not zero-sum, they need not substitute each other, the deminish of one can also deminish the other. This is not to say that over-restriction of freedom will not create fear. Too much restrictions causes people to continuously fear these restriction. The essential is therefore to balance freedom and fear, to maximise freedom within the framework of not increasing fear. The extremes are easily define, eg you want to restrict the freedom of killing, but not the freedom of breathing. But there are a lot of freedoms that fall into the grey area and nobody exactly know the correct level of limitation that should be placed upon them. This correct level can only be found differently at each individual society via a long period of trial and error.
"Freedom
needs not to be 'forced' onto any person or peoples. Freedom comes with our life/lives. Correction, freedom
should not be forced upon. If people choose not to live in the level of freedom preferred by others, then a general concensus must be estimated for these people to continue to live together. There are people who believe that we should have less restriction on freedom of speech and demostration but they may not neccessary be the majority. Assuming that the people of Singapore are not supporting Dr Chee out of fear and ignorant is a personal assumption not neccessary shared by the rest of the community.
Before liberal democracy and freedom and be attempted to be achieved. Extensive efforts must be taken to understand if the society of Singapore really prefer it. If the society is not intensively keen upon it, then any attempt to change the current arrangement by means that utilise assistence from foreign societies would be "forcing" the "preferred level of freedom" of a minority on the majority, which paradoxically contradict its own ideology.
Knowledge and concept of freedom and democracy must also be throughly explore before it can be efficiently and safely advocated to our fellow Singaporeans. Forums such as this are social means to explore the topic and I hope that this thread can contribute to the effort of concept and ideology exploration as much to the general public as much it is to me.