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Comment by murbard2 | Hacker News Reader

Singapore is good for business but bad free speech. Fortunately, anonymous speech is much more easily done than anonymous business :)

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By doing business in Singapore you're funding this very evil regime.

You might not like Singapore's govrnment, but calling it "evil" is a bit of a stretch. I don't think Singapore has ever had legal slavery, massacred its indigenous population, or used weapons of mass destruction on foreign cities. But hey, we can talk about it, right?

Did North Korea ever had legal slavery, massacred it's indigenous population or used weapons of mass destruction on foreign cities?

Yes. Kim Jong-il had personal slaves. Plus thousands of North Koreans work to death in concentration camps.

And comparing Singapore to North Korea is just absurd. You might as well just reference the Nazi's and be done with Godwin's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law)

straight_talk isn't comparing Singapore to North Korea; they're arguing that Tloewald's definition of evil is too strict because it wouldn't include North Korea.

I'm not providing a definition of evil, i'm pointing out that Singapore's achievements on the Evil Checklist don't measure up to the United States'. I don't think the US is evil either, it sets a high bar for other contenders though.

Take a look at the Roman Empire which, despite everything, made the lot of ordinary people better.

North Korea probably meets my definition of evil, but I really don't know enough. Nazi Germany, Stalin and his apparatus. Pol Pot.

Edit: among millions worldwide, I marched in protest against the massacre at Tien an men square. My mother, who has far better cred in this area than I do (having been imprisoned and tortured as a political prisoner) argued in favor of the Chinese government — she said China wasn't ready for democracy and far more people would suffer in a chaotic transition than if the government were allowed to reform at its own pace. It's imponderabe — we can only try to do what we think is right.

Except it does include North Korea. As I stated in my previous post.

Plus Tloewald's post was satire, pointing out that many countries that are not considered evil (namely USA - in his example) have committed far worse atrocities under their government than Singapore ever has has. Thus it's a bit of a stretch to call Singapore's government evil over this news item. Tloewald's point wasn't meant to be taken as a literal checklist for what constitutes as an "evil government".

No but they had 2 out of 3 of those things down to them in the last century. Still, it's probably they're own fault they're as screwed up as they are right?

Did North Korea massacre its indigenous population? Has it nuked or firebombed any foreign cities?

None of those things mean that rigging elections, removing even the most peaceful statement of opposition to the government, ensuring that remotely popular articles get their publishers fined are somehow not evil.

"Evil" is a loaded term. The government does things it considers right. I don't like the government of Singapore but I don't think it's "evil".

In the US we have election rigging (almost all states are gerrymandered, both sides try to encourage their supporters to vote and prevent the other side's supporters from voting, and both support an antiquated electoral system that prevents third parties from being viable), peaceful (well, non-violent) organizations have been put on lists of terrorist organizations, we're running a prison in conquered territory in Cuba specifically to avoid legal jurisdiction, we've got a government surveillance system that issues requests to service providers which they cannot report (the digital equivalent of being allowed to breaking in to people's hoses without showing them the warrant). Is this "evil"? I'm sure everyone thinks they were doing the right thing.

Edit: and this from another post I just saw...

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/15-7

The Singapore government an evil regime? Wow.

Yeap. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Singapore elite already has enormous, ever increasing power. Everything is done to destroy all opposition. You must be very naive to think that once a small group achieves a complete control over a country, they will use it for everybody's good.

An absolutely corrupt elite that made their tiny city state one of the most prosperous and stable countries in south-east Asia. Lee Kuan Yew is probably one of my favourite political figures - studying Asian leaders like him, or China's Deng Xiaoping, can be perception-shattering.

I still think democracy is important, but the order of priorities for a country should go something like stability -> rule of law -> economic prosperity -> democracy. If you mix up the order, you're gonna have a bad time.

As for this case in particular, it sounds more like lobbying by the newspaper industry than any campaign to suppress free speech.

That order can sometimes work, but there are a lot of examples of it failing. That was the goal of Portugal's authoritarian "Estado Novo", for example: a strong government that would guarantee stability and the rule of law, and on that basis carefully lead a corporatist economy, together with industry partners, towards a controlled but prosperous society. But in practice it didn't work that well economically, and Portugal's economy benefited from the 1974 overthrow of the regime, i.e. democracy -> economic prosperity.

Ah, interesting! Thanks for the counter-example.

>You must be very naive to think that once a small group achieves a complete control over a country, they will use it for everybody's good.

Yeah you're right. Singapore's dictator totally didn't bring the country from third world to first world, currently ranking top 5 in the world for academic grades, lowest child mortality and GDP per capita PPP, without the help of foreign aid or natural oil resources, in less than 40 years.

Indeed, the trains run on time!

Also, you may not know this but I think you've been hellbanned (your nick is in green)

Green means new user

thanks for the info, I saw someone else with a green nick who apparently was hellbanned in another thread, so I assumed that was the signifier

cheers

Do you have the 'showdead' option on? If not, you shouldn't see posts from hellbanned users.

I apparently do now that I check. But I like seeing posts from the hellbanned

Green means the account is fairly new. However, despite the age of the account I'm not seeing it as green.

Still, don't hell-banned account posts show as [dead] to all but the owner (and even then only to those with "show dead" on)?

Come visit sometime. Those who live here do not seem to think anything is being "destroyed" or even corrupted, and that includes people from America and many other places. We have experienced the alternatives, and Singapore is not worse.

Throw your chewing gum on the ground.

It seems to me that Singapore is great for big business, not business in general.

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