It is not difficult to understand why Singaporeans are always brow beaten by its government - because the government treated its people as small fishes thus posing no threats and will always be ignored as small fish.
This is the kind of paradigm adopted by the government. As MM Lee has said many times in the past, the world is like the big ocean where the big fish eats small fish and the small fish eat shrimp.
Let us look at how the government conforms to such a paradigm in all its treatment of the people for the past many years.
With the big fish the government will always at the end owns up on its mistakes or wrong judgment one way or another. With the bigger fishes Temasek, PSA, SIA lost many deals over its wrong judgment or decisions like to parties like Thai regulatory authority, Port Pelepas, or Budget Airlines and capitulated.
But with people, the small fish the government will not listen at all from NKF problem way back in 2000 or deferral of their retirement CPF drawdown age. So people being small fish will have to be swallowed up by the government using its legalistic passing of more laws changing wrongs to right and finally win e.g. ministers' writing their own pay cheques is immoral and dishonest but the government still carries on persisting in their bullying of the people.
It is sad that we have now due to past dogging for the government by weak people produced a government which behaves like the big fish in the ocean going after the small fishes to whet its immense appetite.