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Jimmy Carter:"Bush tortunes prisoners"US lives with openness

robertteh
12 Oct 07, 09:54

Are we able to evolve our governing system to one which is practised in US or Scanidavian countries (countries where citizens are winning Nobel prizes cannot be that mediocre as assumed by our MM) where citizens can criticize any mistakes in governing the country any time without being sued for defamation, investigated for income tax filing or challenged unnecessarily as has happened so often.

If we do not evolve such a open system and instead keep clinging on to the autocratic system where one man governs on his own narrow-minded agenda to serve party and promote the elites or connections called talents, what will be the consequence?

Will the ordinary citizens progress and enjoy better lives with the current tight controls on their freedom and rights?
Herzog_Zwei
12 Oct 07, 10:27

Originally posted by robertteh:
Are we able to evolve our governing system to one which is practised in US or Scanidavian countries (countries where citizens are winning Nobel prizes cannot be that mediocre as assumed by our MM) where citizens can criticize any mistakes in governing the country any time without being sued for defamation, investigated for income tax filing or challenged unnecessarily as has happened so often.

If we do not evolve such a open system and instead keep clinging on to the autocratic system where one man governs on his own narrow-minded agenda to serve party and promote the elites or connections called talents, what will be the consequence?

Will the ordinary citizens progress and enjoy better lives with the current tight controls on their freedom and rights?
roberttech sounds more and more like insurance companies which refuse hospital stay claims without 1 week's advance warning when the insured was put into hospital due to an emergency.
robertteh
12 Oct 07, 12:38

Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:
roberttech sounds more and more like insurance companies which refuse hospital stay claims without 1 week's advance warning when the insured was put into hospital due to an emergency.
The no. 1 problem is hypocrisy so all must tackle this problem first.
kramnave
12 Oct 07, 14:33

Originally posted by robertteh:
The no. 1 problem is hypocrisy so all must tackle this problem first.
Just posting a few scenarios which by no means is the truth, just for the sake of discussion....

1) If you torture a person and there is a chance that you can possibly get information out of him that saves many many other lives, do you go ahead and torture that person or you stand on the high moral ground and say that no matter what, torture is inhumane ?

2) If you go ahead and torture this person and save many many lives, do you go public about it and tell voters, who treats torture with disdain that torture is right ? Suppose that to keep yourself in office, you agree with the public that torture is wrong but you do it to save many many lives, are you a hypocrite ?
robertteh
12 Oct 07, 14:45

Originally posted by kramnave:
Just posting a few scenarios which by no means is the truth, just for the sake of discussion....

1) If you torture a person and there is a chance that you can possibly get information out of him that saves many many other lives, do you go ahead and torture that person or you stand on the high moral ground and say that no matter what, torture is inhumane ?

2) If you go ahead and torture this person and save many many lives, do you go public about it and tell voters, who treats torture with disdain that torture is right ? Suppose that to keep yourself in office, you agree with the public that torture is wrong but you do it to save many many lives, are you a hypocrite ?
What is our no. 1 problem in the running of our country. I believe it is hypocrisy.

Only openness, accountability and transparency can help us to upgrade our governing system.

Such a problem affects all aspects of government from the way draconian laws are being passed to change our election sytem to GRC thereby serving the narrow-minded agendas of the ruling party to the way government is taxing the citizens with all forms of direct and indirect taxes to the latest postponement of CPF withdrawal drawdown age from 55 to 85.

There is a lot of hypocrisy in the way policies are arrived and implemented.

So I would rather that you first understand the real problems first before starting to go into the next level of which type of power should be granted to the ISD or the state or PM to help them in doing a better job.

Priority should be accorded to the collective decision implementation processes which will ensure finally that leaders do not abuse power and can answer to queries of all kinds as posed by Jimmy Carter to his president without any one being persecuted.

Have our leaders the true talents to govern the country with fullest support of all citizens based on such openness ? What is wrong with evolving to such an open and accountable governing system for stability, law and order and progress from support and understanding of the whole population.