Is this not the typical PAP's "Classic Slippery Slope"
kind of speech that VB has been known to be making since entering
politics ?
"These are not good and safe areas for children. And so I
have insisted that (to) anyone with children. The children must be
put in a proper home; they must continue to go to school. They must
continue to get access to good food, good hygiene.
"And if any family has difficulty providing these things to the
children, then MCYS will step in, and we will step in assertively
if need be, in order to protect children."
It is odd that VB will want to portray the
PAP government in an altruistic way, when this
government is known for its callous stand towards
offering help directly and on the scale of involvement that VB has
stated that tantamount to a State sponsored welfare.
Is there something more significant to this speech made by VB
?
Choo Zheng
Xi, Main
Stories - Written on
Wednesday, May 9, 2007 14:05
By Choo Zheng
Xi
What do Yoda, Vivian
Balakrishnan, Yvonne Lee, and ex-CJ Yong have in common?
No, this isn’t the opening
line of a dirty joke. All of the abovementioned characters are
guilty of having used a form of logical deduction known as the
‘slippery slope’ argument. It’s a line of reasoning that works as
such: if we allow A to happen, we will be taking the first step
down the slippery slope of allowing B, C and D to happen
too.
Remember Yoda’s warning:
‘Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to
suffering’? Classic slippery slope.
Vivian Balakrishnan, who
was a debator in his college days, took a page out of Yoda’s book
to deploy this rhetorical tactic in Parliament. Commenting on
bartop dancing, he noted:
“If you want
to dance, some of us will fall off that bar-top. Some people will
die as a result of liberalising bar-top dancing, not just because
they have fallen off the bar-top. Because usually a young girl,
with a short skirt, dancing on a bar-top, may attract some insults
from some other men, and the boyfriend starts fighting. Some people
will die. Blood will be shed for liberalising this policy. While I
support the liberalisation of the policy, I also want all of us to
be aware that there is a price to be paid for
liberty.”
Thankfully, little blood
has yet been shed for the government’s bold steps in deregulating
bartop dancing. Perhaps Dr Vivian was being too pessimistic in his
somber projections?
Here’s yet another
slippery slope argument, this time by PAP MP Denise Phua during the
elections last year – as reported by channelnewsasia:
“In this movie starring
Singaporeans, called ‘The Days After’, based on what will happen if
you put more and more opposition members into Parliament, this is
what the scene will look like. ‘The Days After’ — the analysts will
rate our political risk very high, it’ll be negative; the stock
market will tumble; potential investors will hold back their
investments; current business will seriously think about moving
business out of Singapore.”
In
the recent ministerial pay hike debate, MM Lee offered the public a
particularly steep slippery slope to contemplate: a failure to
raise ministerial pay might lead to shoddy characters being elected
into Parliament, which would lead to economic collapse, and
eventually, our womenfolk being exported as foreign domestic
labour. One wonders why this doomsday scenario didn’t occur in the
days before ministers were paid as well.
The Slippery Slope And The
Law
Perhaps we can permit our
politicians a dose of occasional scaremongering. But you might be
slightly worried to realize that our legal scholars and judges
occasionally indulge in it too. You might be especially concerned
if it is relevant to our basic rights guaranteed under the
constitution.
Section 14 (1) of our
Constitution guarantees that
(a) every citizen
of Singapore
has the right
to freedom of speech and expression;
(b) all citizens of
Singapore
have the right
to assemble peaceably and without arms; and (c) all citizens
of Singapore
have the right
to form associations.
However, Section 14 (2)
allows these rights to be circumscribed:
Parliament may by law
impose —
<!--[if
!supportLists]-->(a)
<!--[endif]-->on the rights conferred by
clause (1)(a), such restrictions as it considers necessary or
expedient in the interest of the security of Singapore or any part
thereof, friendly relations with other countries, public order or
morality and restrictions designed to protect the privileges of
Parliament or to provide against contempt of court, defamation or
incitement to any offence.
Now this in itself is not
remarkable: even the freest of democracies realise that no rights
are absolute, and legislatures have the power to pass laws
circumscribing these rights.
Sadly, good ol’ Slippery
Slope is trotted out as a justification for circumscribing many of
our rights, and really, sometimes these arguments are downright
weak.
In
his judgment on Dr Chee Soon Juan’s abortive 2002 Labour Day
protest, our then Chief Justice Yong Pung How offered the following
slippery slope justification for circumscribing Dr Chee’s
rights:<!--[if
!supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]-->
“The opening of the Istana
grounds on Labour Day was a highly visible event with strong public
participation. Indeed, there were close to 5,300 people in the
grounds on the day of the offence. It did not take a great stretch
of imagination to conclude that a political rally in the grounds
that day could have resulted in a threat to public order and
safety”.
With all due respect to
the then Chief Justice, in the context of our famed Singaporean
orderliness and respect for the law, it really does take quite a
stretch of imagination to see a political rally on the Istana
grounds of a sort that would result in a threat to ‘public order
and safety’. Kudos to his creativity.
Perhaps the silliest
slippery slope argument to date is the bunch of comical assertions
recently put forward by Assistant Professor Yvonne Lee from
NUS Law School (writing in her personal
capacity)<!--[if
!supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]-->.
Singaporean society, she
says, is generally conservative and has always been respectful of
religious sensitivities. Therefore we should not abolish 377a. To
do so would open the door to legalizing paedophilia and bestiality,
lead to reverse persecution of religious leaders, and generally
undermine family values. Sadly for her, her first premise exposes
the fallacy of her slippery slope argument: it is precisely because
our society is a conservative one respectful of religious
sensitivities that her doomsday scenario is that much
quackery.
Context: The Achilles Heel
of The Slippery Slope
Deductive logic, if
honestly utilized, is a powerful intellectual tool. However, the
problem is that many of these lines of reasoning happily discard
the context within which they operate. As shown in the course of
this article, any idea, taken to its most negative logical extreme,
can be construed as potentially apocalyptic. Public figures owe us
at least intellectual integrity of honest and realistic projections
in decision making.
So
here’s a simple rule of thumb to help you pull apart badly
constructed slippery slope arguments and strengthen your own:
it all boils down to context.
Keep this in mind the next
time a politician, academic with an impressive sounding title, or
even jedi master offers you a slippery slope argument that projects
disaster.
About the
author: Choo Zheng Xi
is currently a Law Student at NUS. He is seeking help to publish
this article in full or in part in a newspaper. Any assistance
would be much appreciated
