Ian On The Red Dot

Apparently Catherine Lim asked Minister Mentor whether the military would be sent in on the really slim chance that the PAP loses an election.

Minister Mentor’s answer makes sense. His answer is reproduced below.

Some thoughts. If the government is really messed up and incompetent, I’m pretty sure the PAP would be able to come back into power lawfully after 1 cycle.

However, even if the new opposition isn’t really messed up and incompetent, there are my ways the PAP can indirectly fuck up the new government to make them look like idiots.

Let’s talk about the people in the civil service, the President and the people who work for him. To me, it is human nature to be loyal to the people who were in power when you gained power.

The PAP has been in power for a long time. Let’s just say that the PAP can ask the funeral parlour owner for many many favors.

Is this corruption? No. Don’t be silly. It is human.

It is also human to mistrust new authorities. We had that problem when a new PC took over our platoon. Do I trust him? Do i follow the SOPs set by the old PC, SOPs that worked?

It takes time to build the guanxi. 5 years might be too little time to get the mojo going. Not too hard for the old leader to tell the follower not to follow the new leader.

For those with aspirations to be dictators in Singapore, the males have been so well-trained that Catherine Lim’s question is moot and that a coup can be done as easy as saying ABC.

If the PAP really wanted to do something after a freak election, just get the military to do a SAF-wide activation. All the males have been well-trained in mobilization and will return to their camps to report. Just keep the males there. Confiscate mobile phones upon report. Tell the males to gather at the parade square and prepare store for moving out. Don’t actually need to move out.

Trust me, most of the Singapore males will not miss a mobilization exercise. Maybe, they might get an inkling that it is a coup happening. But no one will not dare go back. Why? Cos the male will say this to himself, ‘if i don’t go back, and the new government topples, I will be charged for AWOL. Ok… better go back’.

Now, before I end, I must say this. The ministers in our government do have connections with the military. Come on, look at some of their ranks. It would be naive to think that they cannot push the current officers in the SAF to do what they want them to do if they really wanted them to do something.

And one final note, the only thing saving us from these sort of shenanigans is that we currently have decent men in our government. But they won’t be there forever, and we as a nation better do something to ensure that when wolves do get in, they can’t fuck us up.

Which if you look at Minister Mentor’s answer, is something our current leaders have been trying to do. I pray they have done enough.

You look at our record and the moves we’ve made. Let me put it simply like this. First, we maintain a system which gives any opposition the opportunity to displace us peacefully. We allow the system: we’ve not interfered with the civil service, the judiciary, parliamentary procedures, the police and so on.
If you can win an election, so be it. If at some point we are not able to find a team which can equal an opposition team, on that day we deserve to be out. If we become corrupt, inefficient, can’t deliver, we’re out.
What if we have a freak election, as we may well have? Many voters say openly: ‘In my family, three of us voted for you but two voted against, just to let you know that we want an opposition voice.’ In that situation, you may have a freak result. That worries me.
So we’ve set in place a President with blocking powers. Any opposition that comes in will find that he cannot touch the reserves, otherwise you can promise the sky and spend the money. And all our hard-earned savings will go in five years.
Second, you cannot change the top officials without the President’s consent. Any raiding of the funds must be approved by the President who has a council of presidential advisers to advise him yes or no.
Now, why should we do all these if we expect to overturn an election?
We expect that if we are voted out, to stay out, and hope that within one term, that new government, incompetent and unable to deliver, will be out. And there’s enough core competencies and the funds to enable a fresh PAP government to revive the system.
I spent 15 years thinking about these safeguards and finally persuaded my younger colleagues that we needed these because they can’t guarantee that each time they will produce a better team than the opposition just because you’ve done so in the past.
I don’t see any problem in the next election, and probably the election after that. But if we don’t get a good team in the election after that and the opposition does get a good team together, we’re at risk.
One of the first lessons I learnt in politics was from Harold Laski. He said if you don’t have a system that allows fundamental change by consent, you will have a revolution by violence. If we block all possibilities, we must expect violence. In that violence, eventually the army won’t shoot because you are in the wrong. That’s what happens in Africa, the army goes in and holds up the president and often shoots him.
If we had not these thoughts at the back of our minds, why do we do these things? Just to bluff the people? Doesn’t make sense. An army commander, air force or police, has to be approved by a committee and the President must agree. Why? Because we will appoint the commanders? No, because a stupid government will do the wrong things and when we return, we may find the whole machinery has collapsed, as often is the case. Simple.

The problem with analogies to explain anything is that it rarely is a one-to-one mapping. Sometimes we extend the analogy beyond its usefulness to explain just one concept. I’m guilty of that as are many bloggers. But that’s so besides the point.

Nocturne wrote this. It was a seductive argument.

But there’s one problem. It assumes that the PAP will always want the best for all Singaporeans, the average Singaporean, the Singaporeans in the lower segments of society….

Basically, it assumes the PAP will always be this paragon of virtue.

Assumptions they say, makes an ass out of you and me.

We could just say let’s keep the status quo until the shit really hits the fan. But then what? Shouldn’t we try to be more prepared for the day the shit hits the fan. Shouldn’t we work towards a system that can handle the shit hitting the fan when the PAP is currently a paragon of virtue as opposed to something much much worse (cue Zimbabwe).

This comment sums up the problem:

Interesting. Anyway I was just thinking… I might like all my employees to aspire to be the next CEO, but at the meantime if I only need a Junior Mgr, then I’ll just hire one without the need to hear about his aspirations. Of course, there are those who even expects his truck driver to aspire to be a CEO and have a plan for it.

We as citizens seem to demand so much from the PAP. But we don’t hold our opposition to higher standards. We make excuses for them. Oh, the PAP has done this. The PAP has done that. How can the opposition compete. Let’s allow the opposition to take one step at a time.

Whatever.

We make excuses for them. We apologize for them.

That’s why they will never be more than mediocre.

Update: This really should be the last post on these sort of matters for some time.

Update 2:

This post was written by xizor2000. I’ll just assume the first part on City Harvest Church (I think it would be a fair assumption that’s the church in question) was just a convenient coincidence. Nothing having to do with xizor2000 trying to be snide and doing a cheap left-jab-right-hook. He’s got to be better than that.

On to the second part.

What I am trying is this: be realistic and not idealistic. Many people who achieve greatness or their objectives in the end normally do not let his opponents or any other people determine how it should be done or what the rules of the game is. They look at the reality at that time to make the best of it, or redefine what the rules should be and work towards their ideals one step at a time.

In short, to ask for certain plans to be revealed before the person is given a task is an absurd proposition which only the Tali-PAP Men-In-White can devise to fxxk up the opposition. I don’t even know what to think about the people who would accept that!

Why, oh why, do we always present such false dichotomies? Be Realistic And Not Idealistic? Why not be both realistic and idealistic. They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, if there is any advice, it should be ‘Be Idealistic, but temper it with Realism’.

Now, I don’t disagree with xizor2000’s point about redefining the rules and working towards ideals one step at a time. That sounds like a plan. A damn good plan if you ask me.

The question of course is whether the opposition is doing that. It is of my opinion they aren’t. They are still very much playing by the rules of the PAP. They exist and carry out their actions very much in the context of the PAP. Just look at how they always complain PAP do this, PAP do that so we can’t do this, we can’t do that. Of course, there seems to be an inevitability about their situation. PAP is after all the proverbial immovable object. Sadly, our opposition is far from an unstoppable force.

Like xizor2000 said,

Many people who achieve greatness or their objectives in the end normally do not let his opponents or any other people determine how it should be done or what the rules of the game is.

Sadly, our opposition is letting that (i.e. letting others determine how they should be and what the rules of this political game in Singapore is) happen to them. I call bullshit if you say it isn’t happening. I think xizor2000 is right in saying that’s one way to achieve greatness and objectives – a necessary but not sufficient condition – which really begs the question, where do our opposition stand when measured against this condition.

The last part about,

In short, to ask for certain plans to be revealed before the person is given a task is an absurd proposition which only the Tali-PAP Men-In-White can devise to fxxk up the opposition. I don’t even know what to think about the people who would accept that!

You do realize that it is perfectly normal for one person (e.g. Individual A) to expect another person (e.g. Individual B) to have plans for a task before the task has been given to Individual B. What is crazy is to ask Individual B if he or she has any plans if they don’t even know what the task is. That is hardly the case when it comes to the opposition and the tasks needed to be done for Singapore to make it a better country for its citizens and people who choose to setup shop here.

If you really want an analogy, a company has a desire to construct a new office. The task is to build a sprawling campus the size of 10 football fields. They ask for tenders. What happens then is other people find out the task, come out with a plan and pitch the plan to the company. The guy with the best plan to fulfill the task gets the job.

Happens all the time. And if you are wondering what to think of such people, well, don’t worry your brain cells about that, I’ll just give you the answer here – normal.

Reading this post, I see xizor2000’s point. This is the analogy that was used:

But in the case of our opposition parties now, it is more like that of a fresh graduate looking for a job and with nothing much to show except for his FYP (Final Year Projects) or internships. For one to argue that the opposition has nothing to show and thus shouldn’t be allowed into parliament would be equal to the argument that no fresh graduate should ever be given a job for his lack of experience, or having no clue on how he should be doing his job! The fact that both Potong Pasir and Hougang have taken that step to vote in Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Khiang respectively, would say a lot about what they think a people – gahmen relationship should be.

I appreciate his point that just because an individual doesn’t have prior experience in a job (or any job for that matter) doesn’t mean he or she shouldn’t be given a chance to do a job. Like I said in my earlier post, there are a lot of markers to see if a person might be suitable for the job. In this case, to use the analogy that xizor2000 offered, the potential employer can look at the fresh grad’s FYP, internships, resume and grades as an indicator of suitability for a job.

The key thing to note of course is that the fresh grad would most probably be offered an entry level position within the organization. In this case, being a member of Parliament would be the entry level position as opposed to the more senior positions of running a government and being a minister.

Why is the above important?

Because when a party and its members contest an election, they are not only contesting to win seats in the Parliament, but enough seats to form a government.

Well, at least that’s how I think it works in most countries.

In Singapore, the opposition has made it a strategy to NOT to try to win enough seats to form the government.

There are valid reasons for this. One of them is that the voters in Singapore might not be prepared for an opposition led government and thus not vote for any opposition candidate because of the psychological barrier erected by the fear that a freak result might occur and the opposition wins a majority of votes such that the end result is the opposition gets no votes.

So, the opposition thinks some opposition in Parliament is better than no opposition thus they don’t try to win the majority of seats.

Basically, they play to lose the war.

To extend xizor2000’s analogy, the fresh grad goes for an interview where two positions are offered, one more senior than the other. Afraid that he might appear too cocky and then lose out on the more junior position or for whatever reason I cannot think of now, the fresh grad during the interview disqualifies himself from the more senior position by saying,

“Look, I don’t think I’m ready to be in the senior position. It is not that I’m not good. I am. But I want to be fair to you. I want to give you a chance to assess me then if I am really really qualified, you can promote me from the junior position to that more senior position some time in the future.”

The fresh grad aims low. He just wants to get into the company. He sees himself no up. Or rather he assumes that the future employer sees him no up and is afraid to overextend himself in case the future employer indeed sees him no up and holds the desire for the more senior position against him and he gets nothing at all.

So back to the opposition. What I want to see is an opposition prepared to go in not just to win the little skirmishes, or the battles but the whole freaking war. No one should ever play a game already prepared to lose the bigger prize.

I know, I know. The opposition just wants to get one foot in and build from there. Frankly, I think that strategy hasn’t quite worked out.

No?

They should work on their resume before going for the interview, prepared to get the highest position possible. They should be prepared to form the government if they win and should work on more things outside of just being members of Parliament and running constituencies to show us that they can be the government. If they don’t win, they could possibly be more effective watchdogs.

Effectively, they should be telling the potential employers,

“I’m fit for the top job. Hell, I could be the CEO from day one. But if you put me in the entry level position, I’ll be the god damn best entry level worker you ever have.”

But, frankly, that’s not the message they are sending. At least to me. And if they aren’t playing to win the biggest prize or at least sure they can win it, how can I be confident they can be good at anything.

Self-confidence backed by preparation for bigger things, if you must remember, is something employers look for.

How can you tell if a girl can be a good wife? Well, see how she performs when she is married to another guy, if she is good, then steal her from him. Or date her long enough until you feel comfortable she can be a good wife. But then that doesn’t really work. Right? Because when you are dating her, she is only acting in the capacity of a gf. So, what she has proven is that she can be a good gf, and possibly a good wife, but you can never really tell for sure. Right? But a close approximation is really better than nothing.

Ok.

Let’s flip it around. How do you let a gal you really like know that you can be a good bf or a wonderful husband?

One way is to woo her. But what if she rejects your efforts in courtship. Then what? Do you repeatedly keep trying to woo her?

Think about it. The objective is to be the bf because you want her as a gf as well as you think you can be a wonderful bf, possibly the best. Note, both motivations can be mutually exclusive.

The thing is, you don’t need to be a bf before you can show you can be a good bf.

Courtship is really about getting the status to then have a chance to prove that you can be good in that status.

Yet, there are many ways a guy can prove to a gal he can be a great bf without having to be the bf.

He can do well in school. Pursue a career with dedication. Be a loving son. Help out in the community. Have a vision greater than just earning buckets of money. There are many many things an individual can do outside of a relationship to actually show his potential as a good bf.

Which now brings me to this post made by xizor2000.

None of the opposition parties are in any position to take over. In other words, stop asking the baby to come up with a plan to fly like Superman, when the baby isn’t even given the chance to walk. And by that I mean, if you don’t even vote – or trust – the opposition parties in to let them manage your own constituency and town council, why the hell are you even asking them for a plan when they are in no condition to, anyway? Is trust not built bit by bit?

I agree with xizor2000. Trust is built bit by bit. However, this trust doesn’t need to be built only once the opposition enters the government. They got to build it now. And frankly, they aren’t doing it. They are saying, let us in. We show you what we can do. I’m saying, you can show us what you can do even before you get into Parliament. But they aren’t doing that. In my opinion, their only goal is to get more opposition into Parliament. They think they can only show us what they are capable of once they enter Parliament. Which is nonsense. There are so many things an individual or a group can do to make Singapore better without being in Parliament. The opposition should take the lead on that count.

For example, Indignation 2008. The people behind this are trying to make a difference for a segment of Singapore’s society. Actually, scratch that. They are trying to make a difference for Singapore’s society – we all benefit if we can learn to treat these individuals with more respect, value their rights and include them as equal members in our society (although, frankly, they would be lowering their standards to be at our level).

The opposition can take a lead in more of such stuff. But wait! Didn’t they try to protest over rising prices. Those are just side shows. Nothing lasting was created. That’s just protesting instead of working towards a solution independent of government’s efforts.

I made this statement:

‘No use talking about it. You want to fix things then come out with a concrete plan to fix it’

And here is what I meant by it. Plurk isn’t really a good place to convey the idea.

Say you live in an estate. You pay for cleaning but it never happens. You can keep complaining to management why the estate isn’t cleaned. You can talk about all the problems that can happen if the estate isn’t cleaned.

Or you can take a broom and do the sweeping.

Look. I know technically it isn’t your job. You aren’t the one being paid to solve the cleanliness problem. And I’m not asking you to do the management’s job or the cleaner’s job.

I’m just saying when the shit is going to hit the fan, and no one else can take care of you and family, then maybe it is time to come up with a plan to fix things on your own.

Now, when it comes to our government, I’m not saying we should come up with plans for our government to fix things. Xizor2000 is right. They are paid enough to do it and do it well. But if they don’t. Then what?

The citizens should make our own contingency plans. I’m not talking about migrating. I’m talking about us organizing ourselves to fix things on our own.

Small example: I hate traveling back during peak hour. No matter how much noise I make, the transport companies aren’t going to fix things in the short term. So I make my own plans to ensure that my own commuting experience is a pleasant one.

Which brings me to the last point. I truly believe the way things are going, if we vote the PAP out just to get them out, our country has a high chance of dying. Sure, things arguably may not be too awesome at its current state, but if the PAP is out, things will get much worse.

When I say the above, it is not because I think the opposition is truly incompetent that they will lead us to hell. It is because I think they haven’t figured out how to secure the other power bases in Singapore once they get control of Parliament. Those other power bases will still be secured by the PAP and the government would be operating in a hostile environment.

Of course all this is just talking strategy on paper. It is of no use.

But I’m just going to say, if we truly want a better watchdog or a new government or push the PAP to be better than they currently are, we need an opposition to think bigger than their issues with the PAP.