[Ngck]

I think your two sentence sound much simpler actually.... no matter how I look at it.

 

Yes it is, to ppl who take things at face value only.

 

 

 

[Lightbringer]

Yes it is, to ppl who take things at face value only.

 

Also applicable for people who do not understand what geologists and meteorologists do

[Ender]

Also applicable for people who do not understand what geologists and meteorologists do

 

[Manmaster]

Your argument of them being wrong by not going on strike after getting a pay raise is simply put idiotic, stupid, nonsensical and lacks basic human logic. Please stop embarrassing yourself further with such half baked posts.

 

If no wrong was done, why would there be an apology from the jailed china driver? I don't see the need for any apology when u've been jailed unless an apology can waive the jail term. U should not embarrassed yourself too by not using your brain....opps...do u've one in the first place?

[Manmaster]

No need to argue anymore......can we trust vincent's character after what he did? Why apologize? I can see his clique is here but I will NEVER trust SDP.

[PSP415]

This thread can soon be a mini "reference book" on who have brains, small brains, half-baked brains, no brains, missing brains, lost + found brains etc.

 

A proper and good discussion usually takes place when brains are present, that's a basic requirement. So, when brains matters start to be splashed all over each other with insults, all parties involved actually lost their credibility to participate because brains took a long break.

 

Agree to disagree.....if some stuff really gets your high blood pressure ups, off the computer and relax. Nothing much will change in the real world because most if not all of us, usually are not the ones effecting policy changes. Discuss not to win, discuss to share. If no one bought the discussion or your points, it's fine.....you are still in the comfort of your wherever....

 

I generally avoid politics on car forums.....because it's not simple to the brainful or brainless or half-brained....it's never meant for everyone because it brings headaches and migraines. The hidden agendas or guessing of hidden motives are always in shades of grey, seldom white or black.

 

Please, agree to disagree....we are different in many ways but yet, we are the same simply because we are all not perfect and very human. So, no need to trade insults.....it corrupts the brain and causes it to spew more meaningless childish chatter.....usually known as "noise".

 

 

Safe ride

Cheers

[CH_CO]

And again another short-sighted fellow loses sight of the plot and miss the target by a long shot.

 

Not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?

 

Hilarious to see people totally fail to grasp what Vincent was actually articulating, and yet get so worked up over it.

 

Was it Darryn who said that many simple-minded people here can only perceive issues as either white or black, and do not have the intellectual capacity to look at the various shades of grey in between? Such an apt description for this Aventador fellow.

 

Like I said, the education system has failed us. Because it has churned out massive quantities of such people who can only see the straight and narrow. I'm just glad there are still intelligent, vocal and articulate people out there - and in this thread too, it hasn't disappointed after a long day - who are able to see beyond the lines drawn in the sand by the powers-that-be. Some people are so easily manipulated.

 

 

I beg to differ my dear fellow forumer , so how much have you done for the country? Short sighted? So what lines do u see beyond? Since you can see beyond the lines what have you done? Hide in a forum and talk as you are some genius when all you do is talk?

 

Be a do-er not a keyboard warrior. Manipulated? To me if something isn't wrong entirely , i wont bother to change the regime but if they are lax about how they handle those who put them in power then i would speak up as i have when i go for the meet the pap sessions. As for you what have you done? So how have lead by example? Far sighted? Tell me your plans for singapore? 5 year 10 year and 20 years plan , NON? Then don't talk so much.

[CH_CO]

Uncle Cerano, this is a rather leading question. It is a slippery slope assumption that professionals value $$$ above all and will just walk away if they are not happy. Maybe we can survey the docs here if they will just walk out in the middle of treating patients over some industrial dispute.

 

I know of one group of talents who will apparently walk out if they are paid too little but other than them, I think a country and its citizens really need to be more mature.

 

 

Comeon , walking out on a job and putting on a strike is essentially two different things. If a ER doctor is unhappy with his pay and stops treating his patient and goes on strike with no ample notice , if there isn't another "doctor" to replace him in time , the patient dies. Similarly if i choose to speak in that way , it is also subjective, it takes both hands to clap.

 

With more maturity or not , doesn't matter , it is unpractical to "strike" , if they aren't happy with their job , they can always quit also look for another unless they are admitting that they aren't able to find one. Then that's highlights the clear difference , those which are willing to work and those that aren't. A strike isn't economically practical in a state which has built stability via a tight law society.

 

It has kept us clear of plenty of dangers other countries faced , for those which have being to those places , you will find rampant corruption , racism , anti-religion and zero meritocracy. These are the stuff i see lacking in some countries where Singapore is still slightly better , not the best but bearable. In some countries where they have over thrown the regime what is left is more violence and rampant crimes , so do you want your home to there? Since if rule of law doesn't appeal to some here , why should others bother ?

 

Do be reminded that some of these countries are "matured" , so unless you tell me you have being to those places and agree to their way of life and maybe live there, then your statement would be fair. i believe having a common agreement on how things are done and if law is being uphold as such , unless you are able to hold office and change it or else , it isn't fair to disagree on things which many has agreed on.

 

For those which complain here without taking actions to remedy it? Isn't another way of proving to others that what most of us here are , selfish by nature , pushing others to die while i hide behind the keyboard hoping things would happen? It is always the few selfish ones here which think themselves before other which spoils everything. By the way , regime changes typically start with quiet protests before they turn violent

Edited December 8, 2012 by CH_CO

[Aventador]

After letting the dust settle and the comrades expouse their cheemunism ideals

 

Here is my own summary for everyone.

 

1) The PRC foreign workers broke the law in Singapore. There is no excuse for this, and they should and have been punished.

 

If any Singaporeans were in the land of the free - USA, and we broke a law there as a tourist/student/worker, I am sure we would be thrown in jail too - even if we did not agree with their law.

 

The PRC guys can say in China strikes is accepted. But when in Singapore, you obey the local law.

 

2) For the Singaporeans who support the strikes , and think it is ok to have some 'peaceful' unrest in Singapore, as there is no harm. I think you are entitled to your opinion.

 

My own opinion is that I treasure Singapore because it has ZERO tolerance for social unrest. A peaceful strike/protest can turn ugly in minutes if some radicals use it to spark off a riot.

 

I have children, so I want them to grow up safe. If the price to pay for my children's safety is a loss of some freedom, then I accept it.

 

3) Again to those Singaporeans who feel we should allow strikes if there is justification , please understand a little bit of how Singapore works.

 

At the moment, strikes are against the law in Singapore. This law was passed by the government of the day, which was the PAP. The PAP did not become the government by a coup, or by being appointed by Jesus.

 

The PAP became the government because the majority of your grandparents and parents voted them into power.

 

Perhaps your grandparents/parents saw that social unrest was bad for Singapore in the past, so during elections they voted the PAP because they believed in their policies. By electing them, they gave them the authority to make these laws, which outlawed strikes.

 

So if you now believe that this law is stupid, represses your freedom, destroys our humanity, destroys the ozone layer. What you should now do is to stand for election/vote for a political party that will promise to abolish this law when they form the government.

 

You should not encourage or support others, especially foreigners to break the law. Change the law instead.

 

4) I used to think 'just vote for anyone but the PAP' to show my displeasure at their policies.

 

But now i realise there ARE really worse options than the PAP like the eminent and brilliant Chee Soon Juan and his supporters.

 

I realized through this thread that SDP supporters are nuts and are extremely rabid and radical.

 

Give me tin pei ling over CSJ, at least she won't be able to mess up Singapore.

Edited December 8, 2012 by Aventador

[Wind30]

But now i realise there ARE really worse options than the PAP like the eminent and brilliant Chee Soon Juan and his supporters.

 

I realized through this thread that SDP supporters are nuts and are extremely rabid and radical.

 

Give me tin pei ling over CSJ, at least she won't be able to mess up Singapore.

 

I always feel one should "attack" the arguments rather than the person.

 

No matter what I think about the person's intellect, I almost never comment on the person himself. That is what I feel is necessary if we want to get anywhere....

 

Also if you can not put forth evidence/arguments to support your points and rely on one liners, it is also kind of pointless. You don't have to write a thesis, but one liners with no meaning except you think the other guy is stupid??

 

[Fastfive1]

After letting the dust settle and the comrades expouse their cheemunism ideals

 

Here is my own summary for everyone.

 

1) The PRC foreign workers broke the law in Singapore. There is no excuse for this, and they should and have been punished.

 

If any Singaporeans were in the land of the free - USA, and we broke a law there as a tourist/student/worker, I am sure we would be thrown in jail too - even if we did not agree with their law.

 

The PRC guys can say in China strikes is accepted. But when in Singapore, you obey the local law.

 

2) For the Singaporeans who support the strikes , and think it is ok to have some 'peaceful' unrest in Singapore, as there is no harm. I think you are entitled to your opinion.

 

My own opinion is that I treasure Singapore because it has ZERO tolerance for social unrest. A peaceful strike/protest can turn ugly in minutes if some radicals use it to spark off a riot.

 

I have children, so I want them to grow up safe. If the price to pay for my children's safety is a loss of some freedom, then I accept it.

 

3) Again to those Singaporeans who feel we should allow strikes if there is justification , please understand a little bit of how Singapore works.

 

At the moment, strikes are against the law in Singapore. This law was passed by the government of the day, which was the PAP. The PAP did not become the government by a coup, or by being appointed by Jesus.

 

The PAP became the government because the majority of your grandparents and parents voted them into power.

 

Perhaps your grandparents/parents saw that social unrest was bad for Singapore in the past, so during elections they voted the PAP because they believed in their policies. By electing them, they gave them the authority to make these laws, which outlawed strikes.

 

So if you now believe that this law is stupid, represses your freedom, destroys our humanity, destroys the ozone layer. What you should now do is to stand for election/vote for a political party that will promise to abolish this law when they form the government.

 

You should not encourage or support others, especially foreigners to break the law. Change the law instead.

 

4) I used to think 'just vote for anyone but the PAP' to show my displeasure at their policies.

 

But now i realise there ARE really worse options than the PAP like the eminent and brilliant Chee Soon Juan and his supporters.

 

I realized through this thread that SDP supporters are nuts and are extremely rabid and radical.

 

Give me tin pei ling over CSJ, at least she won't be able to mess up Singapore.

 

This isn't a summary. Rather it's more of your opinion towards the post.

I agree with your view.

As mentioned earlier, this facebook article by vincent is no doubt well written in terms of using persuasive language and structure to conjure up emotions of the people. However, there are flaws in the arguments that he has put forth which you have addressed.

[Porker]

If no wrong was done, why would there be an apology from the jailed china driver? I don't see the need for any apology when u've been jailed unless an apology can waive the jail term. U should not embarrassed yourself too by not using your brain....opps...do u've one in the first place?

 

I was talking about going on strike after getting a pay raise and you flipped around and talked about the jailed bus driver apologizing.

Seriously you're one stupid idiotic individual. I think you should change your nick to ManIdiot

[Royho1979]

err.... hong kong is hardly similar to singapore. Hong Kong has the entire china behind them. Singapore has what?? Malaysia :) Hongkong by the virtue of its unique relationship with china has competitive adv that Singapore does not have.

 

It is simplistic to say Hong Kong has the whole of China behind it without considering that it is also in competition with other states such as Beijing and Shanghai. Do you know the politicians running each state in China are competing with one another to showcase their abilities so they rise in the Chinese Communist Party. Also,HK have been a "difficult child"for China and China has been trying hard to develop other states to reduce reliance on HK. In short, HK serves as a outlet for China and Singapore for SEA, while China is bigger than SEA, where is the equivalent of Shanghai and Beijing that competes with Singapore? It is unwise to look at issues only at one angle and declare HK starts with an advantage.

 

Are the bus drivers "exploited pseudo slaves" ?? common, they are free to leave and resign. Unless you have evidence that the new contract terms are forced upon them and they do not have a choice to resign WITHOUT penalty, I don't see what is wrong. To me, people should be given a choice. If you are unhappy with your jobs, you RESIGN. you don't go on strike, especially if you are in the essential service.

 

If my company wants to cut my pay, I have to take it or just resign. I mean I won't go on strike. Will you?

 

Do you understand how foreign workers get to come here and work? Most have to pay a middleman $ to come here to work and are in debt on day one. It is only near the end of their 1st contract that they start to make nett +ive cash flow. Do they really have a choice? You are talking people who cannot speak and read English here and they hardly know their right or the full range of choices they can choose from. Do try to put yourself in their shoes.

 

I agree with essential service being important, and I wonder why we get to a stage where a bunch of clearly incompetent management is running it as a private company. They had caused disruption of services and were fined a few hundred dollars but we are looking at potential jail terms for people striking. Make no mistake, when a law is broken, it must be enforced, and the strikers should be punished. What I am doing here is questioning the intent behind the law.

 

I think our country lacks the right incentive to attract foreign investment if we do not have a stable pool of skilled/cheap labour.

 

If not YOU TELL ME. What is the incentive that attracts all the FDI to singapore?

 

We don't have Market. We are not the cheapest. Neither are we the most skilled. We actually is one of the most STABLE countries in the region, no matter how you look at it. Stable politics, PAP is in power for the last xx years. Stable workforce, strikes were unheard off. Stable location, no floods, no typoons, no earthquakes. Stable and clear laws.

 

This is what attracts FDI to singapore.

 

I absolutely agree with your point on stability. What I disagree on how we can the country so controlled that ALL strikes are almost effectively impossible. What you have then is a facade of stability with brewing labour unhappiness. I rather have small peaceful strikes (like those we see in Korea and Japan) than one big one when everything boils over. Real stability is achieved when you build your foundations slowing and painfully not via cosmetics.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Royho1979

[Royho1979]

"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither" - Benjamin Franklin

Edited December 9, 2012 by Royho1979

[Galantspeedz]

1) HK and Beijing and Shanghai are competitors while SG has none in SEA as you said. doesn't that says something about SG, especially since other countries has commodities advantages against us?

 

2) foreign workers need to pay middleman money, since the drivers are PRC, let's focus on them. who are the middleman exploiting them? It is their fellow PRCs. And I haven't even talk about the money they way to get a passport... and we are suppose to pity them? that's how their country works....

[Wind30]

It is simplistic to say Hong Kong has the whole of China behind it without considering that it is also in competition with other states such as Beijing and Shanghai. Do you know the politicians running each state in China are competing with one another to showcase their abilities so they rise in the Chinese Communist Party. Also,HK have been a "difficult child"for China and China has been trying hard to develop other states to reduce reliance on HK. In short, HK serves as a outlet for China and Singapore for SEA, while China is bigger than SEA, where is the equivalent of Shanghai and Beijing that competes with Singapore? It is unwise to look at issues only at one angle and declare HK starts with an advantage.

 

HK has it own problems which is VERY different from Singapore. That is exactly my point that you cannot say that TAiwan/HK/Korea has strikes and are doing well, so it is ok for Sinagapore to have strikes. Conversely, I think it is also quite meaningless to quote a country thousands of miles away like Greece and sat strikes is terrible for Singapore.

 

As I said, we must sit down and analyse what our current economy is based on, what attracts Foreign companies to our shores. With a little more anarchy, will companies still stay? Or do we have other competitive adv that attacts MNCs? I really don't see SDP analysing ANY of the above questions. To just shoot off such comments without considering the above is irresponsible at best, suicidal at worst.

 

Do you understand how foreign workers get to come here and work? Most have to pay a middleman $ to come here to work and are in debt on day one. It is only near the end of their 1st contract that they start to make nett +ive cash flow. Do they really have a choice? You are talking people who cannot speak and read English here and they hardly know their right or the full range of choices they can choose from. Do try to put yourself in their shoes.

 

It may sound cold hearted but life is not fair. Frankly, I think the SMRT bus drivers had it easier than other groups of foreign workers. Are they paid really low? I see thousands of construction workers working under even worse conditions. Some of them did not even get their pay on time. If you justify SMRT drivers going on strike based on their predicament, be prepared to have a lot more of them...

 

I agree with essential service being important, and I wonder why we get to a stage where a bunch of clearly incompetent management is running it as a private company. They had caused disruption of services and were fined a few hundred dollars but we are looking at potential jail terms for people striking. Make no mistake, when a law is broken, it must be enforced, and the strikers should be punished. What I am doing here is questioning the intent behind the law.

 

I absolutely agree with your point on stability. What I disagree on how we can the country so controlled that ALL strikes are almost effectively impossible. What you have then is a facade of stability with brewing labour unhappiness. I rather have small peaceful strikes (like those we see in Korea and Japan) than one big one when everything boils over. Real stability is achieved when you build your foundations slowing and painfully not via cosmetics.

 

I think we basically agree that the SMRT management has more blame in today's scenario but going on strike is still wrong. And so is supporting such an illegal strike IMHO.

 

I think everyone agrees that we must do something about labour unhappiness but how to do it is the question? Perhaps the strike action did go more harm than good by getting people thinking about this problem early. At the end of the day, whatever we do to fix the unhappiness problem behind the scenes, people who break the law must be punished.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Wind30

[Tjkbeluga]

I absolutely agree with your point on stability. What I disagree on how we can the country so controlled that ALL strikes are almost effectively impossible. What you have then is a facade of stability with brewing labour unhappiness. I rather have small peaceful strikes (like those we see in Korea and Japan) than one big one when everything boils over. Real stability is achieved when you build your foundations slowing and painfully not via cosmetics.

To those who still think this strike should not be suppressed, I find it strange that they can't seem to differentiate between a strike that affects the public vs those that does not. Had this been a strike by some supermarket, yes I would think the police involvement is too heavy handed. Bus strike may seem trivial and to I too think so but we cannotallow a precedent to such thing. If they allow this then what next? This is just like the vandalism of public property, youmay say mygrandfathers sign is cute and artistic butif youcondone, then where din you draw the line?

[Wind30]

deleted

Edited December 9, 2012 by Wind30