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Comment by kylemaxwell | Hacker News Reader

There are other considerations regarding Singapore, like what many of us consider civil rights so basic that they should be human rights (freedom of speech and expression, for example), not to mention caning and hanging.

Low tax rates and business regulation should not be our only concerns in building the future.

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Caning and hanging in Singapore is really nothing to worry about unless you cannot live without pot or vandalising cars. Criticising the government OTOH, can get you in loads of trouble.

Google "Chia Thye Poh" to find more about one of the longest held political prisoner in the world, without trial by the way. Or "Alan Shadrake" for Singapore's treatment of foreigners who dared to criticise the government.

Singapore in general has little respect for human decency, and the population is long conditioned to keep our mouths shut and focus on chasing money. You will not find Singaporeans protesting for rights or against injustice, because we dont dare and we cannot afford to.

If this contempt for human rights bother you, Singapore can be rather uncomfortable.

It's not obvious that the freedom to criticize the government in public is more important than being able to walk anywhere, anytime, day or night, without fear of being robbed. You have the former freedom in San Francisco, but not the latter; in Singapore, it's the reverse. It would be nice, of course, to have both, but when governance is of consistently high quality, the right to criticize the government isn't as important by definition. I can't think of any time it's not important not to be mugged.

As far as caning and hanging go, I'm pretty sure they do their best only to do those things to convicted criminals. Keep your nose clean and you'll be fine.

For what it's worth, I still think SF is a better place to be an entrepreneur than Singapore. Among other things, Singaporeans are loath to take risks on small unproven startups, whereas SF/SV is startup Mecca. The 'ease of doing business' metric suggested by the article isn't the same as 'best place to be an entrepreneur'.

In the USA, your domain can be seized by the government at any time without any trial, and without any recourse. If you report abuse you received from a police officer, you risk being killed by that officer and it being made to look like you were in the commission of a crime at the time. I can't think of a single basic human right that is universally respected in the USA, and this goes from the right of self defense to the right of self determination or the freedom of association.

I'll take being caned over being killed any day.

There are always tradeoffs.

I certainly wasn't holding up the US as a great example of human rights, and I didn't mention it at all in my post. :)

I didn't mean to rebut you so directly, but was using your mention of these things that were widely reported in the US media as an opportunity to compare.

Awesome, HN is becoming reddit where every post that isn't bashing America has to be "BUT AMERICA"

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