The impending execution of Van Nguyen has rightly aroused a lot of outrage. While it seems unrealistic to suggest trade sanctions or anything similar, there is one response that is relevant, proportionate and justified. The Singaporean government should be told that, if the execution proceeds, they will never again receive any co-operation from Australia on drug crimes. The same message should be given to Indonesia in relation to the Bali Nine (where, disgracefully, Australian police set up the arrests while leaving their Indonesian counterparts free to seek the death penalty).
John Quiggin 
Would we be willing to accept the reciprocal policy? No assistance from these countries with regard to preventing drug dealers entering Australia may be costly. I could imagine that if Indonesia also decided to be less cooperative, particularly with regard to issues such as illegal immigrants, and the associated illicit human trade, this may also make things more difficult for Australia.
May we live to see the day when this sort of punishment is not visited on any of us, no matter what we do.
Sorry John would have to disagree with you. Not cooperating with any Government over criminal offences would not be helpful, which is not to say that I think it was anything other than culpable that Austrarlian Police delivered the ‘Bali Nine’ into the hands of a country which is known for imposing death sentences on drug traffikers.
Far better a form of protest will come from individuals and organisations who cancel their Optus lines, refuse to fly Singapore Airlines, and use any power they have to punish Singapore where it hurts most. The Money God is all that talks these days.
The Singaporean government should be told that, if the execution proceeds, they will never again receive any co-operation from Australia on drug crimes. The same message should be given to Indonesia in relation to the Bali Nine (where, disgracefully, Australian police set up the arrests while leaving their Indonesian counterparts free to seek the death penalty).
Yea shameful, shows how much Aussies like you love your drugs eh.
Don’t suppor this train of thought one bit. Neither do I support use of the word “disgraceful” to describe the Federal Police helping to nab drug runners.
That aside, refusing cooperation with overseas law enforcement on our part may well result in us not recieving intelligence, warning, help an cooperation in regard to crimes against Australia, including possible terrorist attacks (both overseas and on our soil), quarantine breaches and illegal immigration incursions. We have the most to lose.
Hanging is sombre and sobering to contemplate. Abhorrent and barbaric to our sensibilities. But should we compromise ourselves over a drug runner? No.
I find Singapore to be MUCH safer and cleaner than Sydney, Brisbane and many regional Australian cities. This is not coincidence. Viva Singapore!
“I find Singapore to be MUCH safer and cleaner than Sydney, Brisbane and many regional Australian cities. ”
And a fuck of a lot more boring. Unless of course yer into ruthlessly air-conditioned Statist central planning. Moved there recently have you SATB? And if not, why not?
What about going to the root of the problem? If registered addicts could get safe heroin on prescription, to be administered under professional supervision, these rent-seeking opportunities would be eliminated. I suppose people would still smuggle guns, but I don’t think any democratic states murder people for that.
“I find Singapore to be MUCH safer and cleaner than Sydney, Brisbane and many regional Australian cities. This is not coincidence. Viva Singapore!”
Not sure how exactly hanging people en-route to deliver a product to another country has to do with this safety and cleanliness, even if this matters so much. What Nabs said. Why do these right wingers and faux libertarians like Thatcher and ‘Steve at the pub’ slobber so much over this repressed little shopping mall run by the Lee family?
Jason Soon: Singapore is an uncrowned monarchy. The Lee family has turned it into quite a theme park.
If you don’t understand how rigorous enforcement of law & order results in a lack of lawbreaking, then there is little which can be done for you. Mensa material you ain’t.
Nabakov: Singapore is as boring as you want to make it. It is possible to have a great time without being mugged or stumbling over overdosed junkies you know.
Don’t quite understand your gritty tone of voice about “if not why not” speculation about my domocile being relocated/not relocated to Singapore. Life in Singapore is certainly cheap & convenient, also very safe. The country seems to be awash with western expats, some of whom live here forever. You talk as if I am afraid of Singapore life? Hehe, wazzamatta, did some decent Singapore girl give you a knockback? (Poor Nabakov).
Alexander Downer and Kevin Rudd are having nightmares about the prospect of Van Nguyen being killed. But no problems for Steve at the Pub who links the cleanliness to Singapore’s to its support for the death penalty. It is very indicative of a particular mind-set. Could we organise a fund to pay for Steve’s travel to Singapore on the condition that he remains there permanently? He’ll be better-off and so will we.
Basically I’d support anything up to and including a commando-style raid to rescue Van Nguyen. This is a horrifyingly unfair penalty for such a crime. The Australian police should not cooperate with any State who kills anyone over such issues.
Harry Clarke? You support a commando raid to rescue to drug runner? (wow, such intelligent priorities) If you are killed carrying out this raid you will be in the running for a “Darwin Award”!
Either way, we will be sure to keep an eye peeled for your commando exploits to hit the news tomorrow! You are braver than me.
You will pay my fare to Singapura, (assuming you are neither killed nor captured during your “Force 10 from Navarone” type raid on Changi Prison tonight) but only if I remain there permenantly? Wow, I get to remain permenantly in a country where I won’t be mugged, where I can sell a nip of rum for $18, where I pay negligible tax, where piles of sexy pretty smart svelte malay & chinese girls clamour for my favours, where the cuisine lends itself to health & weight loss, electronic goodies are far more advanced than those on offer in Oz, the police are polite to me, the broadband is a zillion times faster, and to cap it all off; the streets are clean and free of addicts! The promised land *hallelujah*
P.S. It will be better for both of us if you buy my fare on Singapore Airlines. The price is 2/3 of the fare charged by Qantas, and the hosties are both helpful AND pretty, a marked contrast to the cranky old boilers on Qantas who keep their job through seniority rather than ability.
Steve at the pub: there do exist useful forms of argument other than ad hominem. They deserve taking out for the odd walk, surely?
Re all the whinging about the execution of a convicted Australian drug smuggler: it’s clearly ridiculous. Singapore has a mandatory death penalty, which has been impartially applied in this case. Isn’t that how legal systems are supposed to work? Aren’t countries who don’t apply the law in this manner generally excoriated as being less than civilised by the very groups of people who object to this particular execution? Why should someone be exempt from the normal rigours just because they have powerful foreign friends?
I agree that there is no room for the death penalty in any humane or useful correctional system (Mr. at-the-pub clearly hasn’t read his criminology on this point). A principled stand against it would require some kind of concerted and consistent action, not ad hoc whinging when one of our own happens to have been caught up.
Harry Clarke: if there should be commando raids anywhere, they might be better off involving a certain illegal torture camp in the Caribbean, where at least one Australian is being held with no hope of a fair trial. Why pick on the Singaporean case, just because you happen not to like the result of this particular application of a duly constituted law?
Yep, steve has his priorities right. I’ve lived in Singapore a few years on and off. Always impressed at the Gov’t drives for cleanliness, politeness, short hair, etc. Everyone goes along with it. Read in the newspaper, “member of purse snatching ring arrested”.. Next day “all members of purse snatching ring arrested.” -Torture does work apparently, and the Ratan (cane) is an added incentive to be good. The police are tough, but if you’re a white boy with cash to throw around, no worries you can party all night. They moved Bugis street, one place there was spontaneous fun so you wouldn’t get you pocket picked. It is a “democracy” – except any viable opposition is in jail or in the courts over some pretext or other. And Singapore Airlines are far superior to Qantas. If you don’t see addicts steve, doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Singapore just ensures your free spending sensitivies aren’t sullied by actually seeing them.
What the F**?
By the way, anyone know the circumstances of Van-Nguyen’s arrest. Apparently at Changi airport in transit. How the hell did that happen? There’s a Jillion people go through there a day – no-one checks you for anything while in transit.
Perhaps the Australian police just set people up in other countries so they don’t have to fill in the hundreds of forms and court appearances that presumably go with arresting people for drug trafficking in Australia.
The simple solution to all of this is would be to decriminalize all of these drugs, and actually try and get people to take responsibility for themselves and things that they stick into their own bodies. It worked quite well for cigarettes, AIDS, skin cancer, seat belts and so on. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for currently illegal drugs also.
I agree with James Farrell. Any rational person would have to conclude that the so-called ‘war against drugs’ is unwinnable. If governments were actually serious about reducing drug use and associated crime, they would legalise all drugs and tax and regulate them heavily. However, no government is currently going to do this because it would be political suicide.
Meanwhile, the Howard government seems happy to collude with corrupt regimes that are happy to do their dirty work for them by proxy. The current controversy about Nguyen is an opportunity for Downer, Ruddock et al to practise their disingenuous humanitarian acts in preparation for the main event of the Bali 9.
morganzola: “Meanwhile, the Howard government seems happy to collude with corrupt regimes that are happy to do their dirty work for them by proxy.”
.. what’s more, these regimes are clearly a great political inspiration to Howard, hence the anti-sedition laws etc. How far will he go? According to a radio report this morning, in Singapore it’s illegal to hold a public assembly of more than 4 people without a license (causing demonstrators against Nguyen’s sentence to feign a restaurant date). I hope Howard wasn’t listening to the same report.
QUOTE
Re all the whinging about the execution of a convicted Australian drug smuggler: it’s clearly ridiculous. Singapore has a mandatory death penalty, which has been impartially applied in this case. Isn’t that how legal systems are supposed to work?
END QUOTE
Unless you are just being bloodthirsty, surely a custodial sentence is more than adequate for someone of Nguyen’s profile (first serious offence, remorseful, unlikely to reoffend). Advocates of capital punishment seem to assume prison is some kind of walk in the park!
Helen: your post is a classic example of why discussion on the web is generally of such poor quality. You selectively quoted based on what was clearly a reading of only a small part of the post you quoted from.
(for what it’s worth, I reckon a walk in the park might be a more useful component of a decent treatment regime for many criminals than either prison or capital punishment, but that’s another story).
[…] Some posts elsewhere on the topic: Catallaxy, John Quiggin, 52nd State (crossposted at Larvatus Prodeo). […]
What’s so bad about drug runners/traffickers? As long as they do it non-violently, I don’t see them as being the problem. Smuggling is a symptom of poor legal policy, not a heinous crime that requires capital punishment.
I can see an argument for the death penalty for mass-murderers, but for providing drugs to willing buyers? That makes no sense.
We must be the only blog that isn’t covering this story. Respectfully, to everyone involved, we decided to stick to other stories and issues. Might be worth mentioning.
“Why should someone be exempt from the normal rigours just because they have powerful foreign friends?”
Crispin is a cheeky fellow. He lectures contributors on debating style and yet his own comment is based on a gross misrepresentation of the cause of all this “whinging”. I have yet to hear anybody say that Nyugen should not have been put down because he had powerful friends or was Australian etc.
wbb: I’m not claiming that anyone’s argument against the death penalty for Nguyen was to do with the status of his friends. My point is that, given the current state of Singapore law on the point, the only possible cause of Nguyen getting off would have been because foreigners used their influence. That would, on my view, have been a corruption of Singaporean law, and that wouldn’t be good. Who am I thus ‘misrepresenting’?
I’d love Nguyen not to have been executed, but by means of removing the barbaric law, not ad hoc concessions to anyone who happens to have influence on his side. Singapore, China, Indonesia, the USA, and many others will continue butchering people for their internal political purposes, and the majority of the “whingers” in the media will hardly notice, because the victims will not be sufficiently Australian, photogenic, etc.
Singapore has lots of raisons d’etat for this policy. To prevent all the drug trade funnelling through there, to send horrifying messages on the cheap, 18th century style, etc. One parliamentarian here said on the news that it shouldn’t be done because it was archaic (irrelevant), barbarous (well, no, not exclusively – see your history) and frightening (but that’s the whole point of that approach).
The lack of justice comes from the incommensurateness of the penalty (but we’re talking reasons of state, not justice) and the lack of judicial flexibility in sentencing and avenues of appeal (but that prevents the usual Asian corruption).
In the end, the general principles at issue relate to the primacy of the state, not to justice at all – and there’s the rub. It’s part and parcel of the insecurity of states generally and Singapore as a state in particular. In the end, government is not about justice and the only link comes from a strategic bowing to those who are interested or to a coincidental respect for it embedded within the particular state’s own ethos. And that, as we see even in Australia, is not something that can be relied on to endure down the years.
Opponents of any capital punishment and opponents of the meting out of capital punishment in Nguyen’s case are united in their desire to have justice systems like Singapore’s to conform more to “civilised” western standards.
Tacit is the assumption that “our” standards of justice represent “progress” and that “theirs” are regrettable examples of archaic prejudices.
Perhaps one effective way to encourage change in Singapore would be to instill the notion into Singaporeans — most of whom are educated, many of whom are prosperous, and cosmopolitan in habits, lifestyle and outlook — that a Singaporean passport carries with it some unfortunate “baggage”. Many white South Africans were confronted with this perspective of their own country during the apartheid era, as indeed was I when confronted by persons overseas with evidence of the White Australia Policy, an aspect of Australian life that my civics teachers had mysteriously neglected to teach me.
The internet appears to be the most immediate means of augmenting the view of the world according to the Straits Times.
This is slow medicine, but it is often effective.
One complication, however, is that, for some funny reason, especially on the watch of John Howard, but also on the NSW watch of Rob Carr, the future is beginning to look more Singaporean.
Just who owns the future?
Steve: “Hanging is sombre and sobering to contemplate. Abhorrent and barbaric to our sensibilities.”
Funny, a week ago it was cause for loud applause and tasteless jokes.
“Just who owns the future?”
Considerign that hin’a communist leaders regard Singapore as their principal model for future development, that’s a very good question.
Please do not call SATP, or supporters of the death penalty, generally “libertarians”. It simply ain’t so – conservative maybe, libertarian no. A libertarian would generally be of the opinion that the State does not have the right to deprive a citizen (or a visitor in this case) of their life.
jquiggin says:
“The Singaporean government should be told that, if the execution proceeds, they will never again receive any co-operation from Australia on drug crimes.”
This seems to be cutting off our noses to spite our face. Because the US has committed outrages in its anti-terror policy does this mean Australian government should not co-operate with it in combatting terrorism?
If the Australian government wants to hurt the Singaporean government where it really matters it should make an all out effort to lure Singaporean investors or immigrants to Australia. That will make the pips squeak.
The sympathetic coverage for Van Nguyen will probably weaken support for the death penalty. Australian public opinion is gradually softening on the issue of meting out capital punishment for murder. It seems to be hardening for grossly anti-social offences, such as terrorism, hard drug trafficking and child molesting.
The Australian Election Survey 2004 shows public support for the death penalty for murder waning, but still in majority at 51.1%. Opposition stands at 32.7% (16.2% undecided).
The death penalty is still fairly popular amongst the general population, in both Australia and Asia. Australian elites dont like the death penalty very much. Even Howard’s victory in the Culture Wars, and the corresponding decline in crime, have not done all that much to reduce the massive gap between elite and popular opinion on this issue.
James Farrell Says: December 2nd, 2005 at 12:27 am
“What about going to the root of the problem? If registered addicts could get safe heroin on prescription, to be administered under professional supervision, these rent-seeking opportunities would be eliminated.”
The root of the hard drug abuse problem is demand, not supply. Pumping lethal poisons into your body is a moral failure, not just a health problem. (Wine and malt whiskey are good for you if taken in moderate quantities.) Punishing hard drug users works to curb these nasty habits.
It is a piece of Wet mythology that prohibition does not work. Zero tolerance and three-strikes out policy has massively reduced drug-related crime in the US and elsewhere.
The Australian War on Drugs is another one of Howards unheralded success stories (helping Lowry on the A-League was another). Miranda Devine is one of the few journalists who have reported on the extraordinary success of conservative social policy in waging Australia’s war on hard drugs:
“it is getting little publicity because it destroys the popular myth that the illicit drug problem will never be eased by prohibition. It is a fascinating case study in how ideology blinds people to the truth.
We switched from a disastrous decade-long experiment with harm minimisation and lax law enforcement (which saw a doubling of daily heroin users) to an official Tough on Drugs strategy, overseen by the Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD). In charge was Salvation Army Major Brian Watters, a zero-tolerance advocate hand-picked by the Prime Minister and scorned as an anachronism by the influential drug liberalisation lobby.
And guess what? Heroin availability plummeted. Heroin use plummeted. Death from heroin overdoses plummeted – from 968 in 1999 to 306 in 2001.
And guess what else happened?…Even NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOSCAR) director Don Weatherburn acknowledges the heroin drought as the most likely reason.”
Also, it is clear that drug abuse is worse the lower down the SES scale one goes. So cracking down on drugs is actually “progressive”.
It is weird that Howard, so often characterised as ignorant and regressive, is more more up to speed with rational social science and moral social policy than his Wet critics.
Hard Drugs are harmful. If one wants to minimise harm one should curtail their usage. Duh!
* A libertarian would generally be of the opinion that the State does not have the right to deprive a citizen (or a visitor in this case) of their life.
What about foreign visitors wearing green uniforms, carrying guns and yelling charge?
I don’t support Singapores hanging law for drug smugglers. So I hope I can still call myself a libertarian.
Howard is a man of steadfast ambition. Political survival is supreme amongst those. Nevertheless, he is rooted to some bedrock principles. He dislikes violent display, a personal animus that, I believe, fuelled his campaign against a wide range of firearms.
I believe that it is justifiable to assert that the grisly, grand guignol spectacle of a judicial hanging is offensive to Howard on a deeply personal level.
I wonder how he’d react were Singapore to adopt death by lethal injection.
Howard usually leaves himself room to retreat on any position that he may adopt. His dealings with the Singaporean government over Nguyen are no exception to this general rule, though he did maintain quite a credible slow burn over it, fully recognising that Nguyen was doomed.
“If the Australian government wants to hurt the Singaporean government where it really matters it should make an all out effort to lure Singaporean investors or immigrants to Australia.”
That’s a sterling idea – with the added benefit of reducing the rate at which we strip mine the third world for their best and brightest.
Terje,
There is also a right to self-defence. I would hardly call executing someone in cold blood in this way “self-defence”.
Our friend SATP would do well to remember that once upon a time alcohol was prohibited in the US. Would things have gone so far that it would have been made a capital offence? Who knows? Social norms can change very radically. Close to that same period, there was real coke in Coca Cola and currently illicit drugs were found in cough medicine, you could get a prescription of opium from your pharmacist, etc. So in an alternative universe our friend Steve at the pub might well be found at the gallows.
I’d bet that if you were to compare the lifespans of tobacco users and heroin users where both products are subject to the same regulatory environment (or the closest thing, a regulated substitute for heroin like methadone) that cigarettes kill substantially more people. So should tobacconists be treated like other criminals the way drug runners are?
Jason Soon Says: December 2nd, 2005 at 12:19 pm
“Our friend SATP would do well to remember that once upon a time alcohol was prohibited in the US.”
The Wet mythology on drugs is pervasive and perpetual. Prohibition was something of a success in the US, in so far as reducing health and social problems associated with alchhol abuse. But this bit of policy
“constructivism” went against the grain of the US’s European alcoholic traditions. So it failed and the US reverted to its social conservative type. Salvation Army Major Brian Watters told Devine:
“”It was the most lawful period in US history,” says Watters, but prohibition didn’t work because, unlike heroin, alcohol was an integral part of the social fabric.”
“The naysayers cite America’s prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s as the great failure which proves prohibition of drugs is doomed. But alcohol use did fall significantly in the US during prohibition, as did cirrhosis. Suicide rates dropped by 50 per cent, as did alcohol-related arrests, according to US drug policy resource, the Schaffer Library.”
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/08/1046826568540.html
“So should tobacconists be treated like other criminals the way drug runners are?”
I doubt whether any heroin traffickers have forked out so much money in fines, compensation and legal costs as have US tobacco companies.
“I doubt whether any heroin traffickers have forked out so much money in fines, compensation and legal costs as have US tobacco companies”
Guess what, Jack? That’s because they’re not really legal entities which you can sue. Why not? Prohibition. And also what happens when firms can’t use the State to enforce their contracts? They have to rely on other means hence gangland wars and the like.
“The Wet mythology on drugs is pervasive and perpetual. Prohibition was something of a success in the US, in so far as reducing health and social problems associated with alchhol abuse.”
1. Both Herbert Hoover and FDR opposed Prohibition during the 1932 presidential election. Were both of them wets?
2. Bulemia almost disappeared during the Irish Potato Famine. So I guess that the Famine was a boon “so far as reducing health and social problems associated with” a range of eating disorders.
3. Like the Irish Potato Famine, when people went very hungry, Prohibition had some unfortunate side effects that may merit some discussion. Americans gained personal experience of the foolishness and unenforcibility of unpopular laws. And Americans were happy to patronise hoodlums. Due to Americans’ patronage, and the tacit approval of the FBI, these hoodlums graduated from being neighbourhood bully boys to controlling enormous, international crime empires.
Ian Gould: Applause & tastless jokes abound not only a week ago, but continue right until today, and no doubt beyond. Jokes & applause happened not only last week. About 3 times each day I hear a new tastless hanging joke. A mild diversion from the usual racial, religious or sexist jokes, things will be back to normal soon.
Applause for the hanging, (when news updates pop up on TV) is nowhere near as loud as the applause accorded the backed winner of a horse race, which rather puts the hanging into perspective. For most people it is something which happened on TV (and if they bother to flip past the form guide, it happened in the newspaper also). But it is no more real than the death of Princess Di, or the war in Iraq.
Katz: I am glad I am not carrying a Japanese passport, they must really cop it over their “Yellow Japan” immigration policy. And those poor Malaysians, doubtless berated the world over for their racial discrimination laws, and ethnically geared immigration policy.
Black Zimbabweans working as nurses & home help in the UK would be really copping it over the murderous racist policies of their government?
Some overseas have tried to give me curry over supposed “racism” in Australia, or in Australian politics. 120% of the time they have no idea what they are talking about.
“Some overseas have tried to give me curry over supposed “racismâ€? in Australia, or in Australian politics. 120% of the time they have no idea what they are talking about.”
I’m happy to acknowledge that you may know much more about the race policies of Australia, SATP. You have provided further evidence of your status as an exemplar of popular mass education in this great nation of ours.
However, perhaps I grew up and travelled abroad in less enlightened times than you. So, after a interval of denial I did a little extracurricular reading and discovered that those damned foreigners were actually correct about the White Australia Policy.
From your other comments I take you to mean that if the Japanese and Malaysians are racists, then it must by OK for us.
On the same basis, why shouldn’t Australians have at least as much sex with sheep as New Zealanders?
Waves red flag.
I do find it interesting how differeing viewpoints and rationalizations on morality can lead seemingly paradoxical stances.
Right wing on spreading freedom and democracy while they bomb and torture, killing people for carrying one harmful drug while allowing people to kill themselves or under the influence kill others while under a popular liquid drug and those that are going on about the value of human life against the death penalty when they are quite comfortable about killing pre-natal humans, with punching holes in their head or sawing them up.
Isn’t just amazing what one can do with socialisation and rationalizations?
No no it’s the other side that are the immoral barbaric ones I’ve got reasoned justifications on mine 😉
[Singapore is] ..”a fuck of a lot more boring. Unless of course yer into ruthlessly air-conditioned Statist central planning. Moved there recently have you SATB? And if not, why not?”
Nabakov, it’s not up to SATB to justify why he didn’t do a thrill seeking Nguyen and embark on an exciting money seeking trip to Singapore. Perhaps SATB prefers the quieter life in Oz and indeed Singapore occasionally, rather than playing russian roulette in the latter for money. Unfortunately for Nguyen he ran out of empty chambers when it was his turn. I guess he didn’t really consider how those around him, when his turn came with a full chamber, would have preferred he had chosen a more boring game. Clearly the Singapore authorities supervising the thrilling game he wanted to play, were more thoughtful in sparing the sensitivities of those quieter temperaments. High flying Nguyen could enjoy the ultimate thrill of the drop without them. Not exactly my cup of tea, although I have had my moments. It would appear most Australians, even of his age and general predisposition, are somewhat more boring types like most Singaporeans. I think it was only Barlow and Chambers about 30 yrs ago, who were the last such thrill seekers in Singapore? I have a hunch it will be that long again before a similar character from Oz steps up to thrill seek again. Still, you never know, there could be a run of them. Wonder how the cricket scores are going?
Steve at the pub: “Applause & tastless jokes abound not only a week ago, but continue right until today, and no doubt beyond. Jokes & applause happened not only last week. ”
I was referrign to your own comments on this blog.
Katz, one of the valuable results of a healthy contempt for foreigners’ opinions is that your own self-image doesn’t get undercut. This has nothing to do with the merits of any particular case, but it does appear that you were largely swayed in your view of the White Australia Policy by what other people thought and not just by looking into the matter for yourself.
Of course, I am not contradicting myself by telling you all this. This comment isn’t an argument from authority but rather drawing attention to something you may have overlooked, which you will then have the opportunity to think through for yourself.
I must say, simply knocking Singaporean values for not matching ours rather gives the lie to multiculturalism. Freedom, but only so long as you use it wisely.
*There is also a right to self-defence. I would hardly call executing someone in cold blood in this way “self-defence�.
A fair point.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Van Nguyen is now dead.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/vigils-held-in-the-final-hours/2005/12/02/1133422072619.html
Life is short enough. To have it deliberately snuffed out by a violent and needless act is tragic.
what a load of bollocks, PML. Multiculturalism is simply about leaving people alone to practice their own traditions so long as the acts involved are consensual and violate no laws. This is a far cry from not knocking the legal system of another country. Are Singaporeans ‘free’ to choose whether they want to live under their current infantilising government? Well maybe those with enough money to migrate elsewhere are?
And Ian Gould makes a good point about Spore being the model that China’s leaders are looking up to. Funny all these right wingers and Cold Warriors like Thatcher and Sir Joh (both professed admirers of ‘Harry Lee’) and SATP swooning over the coming Sino-fascist threat to western liberalism, but I suppose it’s that nice combination of ‘safe’ capitalism, the thin veneer of Western culture (Prada bags and Armani suits) to keep the populace bamboozled and not dissenting, and the ridiculous nanny state paternalism that extends everywhere from chewing gum to oral sex to drugs.