After dissecting your views and thinking about them for a while,
it hit me that our views are rather mutually exclusive.
To sum it up, I feel that the ability of NGOs is determined to a
small extent, or even not determined, by the government in place.
You feel that, however, the government is the limiting factor with
regards to the effectiveness of NGOs.
It is a viewpoint which, despite my best efforts, I can't seem
to find any middle path to reconcile both. It is either I am wrong
or you are. There's no room for compromise. A regrettable point
since you seem to be one of the rare person here who is able to
construct a coherent argument and I thank you for that.
With regards to our views, I believe time will prove either of
our viewpoints right. I won't deterministically say that which one
will prevail but I tend to look at mine more favourably. Ditto for
you.
As for the paternalism which our government displays so often, I
am hoping, and foreseeing, that it will change over time as the
citizenry gets more educated and more skeptical (provided that most
of them won't leave by their adulthood).
With regards to the problem faced by the uncle, I sincerely hope
that it's a hole in the social safety net and he will be rendered
better assistance in the future. However, whether that will occur
is for the bureaucracy to determine and for us to find out.
I had a good time penning down my arguments here and similarly
had a equally enriching time reading through well-articulated views
even though I may not agree with them. After all, open-mindedness
is something which Singapore sorely lacks now and that is hopefully
something both of us can agree on.
It's not so much mutual exclusivity as it is about applying
something out of context and this has got absolutely nothing to do
with centrist, left or right-wing politics. In short, I just
don't see your idea working out at all - at least, not in terms of
addressing the issue of that chap surviving on $150/month and
countless others in his predicament. Hammering a square peg into a
round hole just doesn't quite cut it, does it?
It's not that hard to actually understand the ire that has
arisen from the earlier portion of this thread with two
differing views. Someone started off blasting the chap for being a
"bum" who never bothered making plans for his future in his youth,
thereby landing in his present predicament. That sparked a storm of
response from others who suggested people who have never been
under-privileged would never know what it feels like to be in that
state. Looking at it from a completely objective perspective, both
camps have their merits.
This brings me to the classical conundrum which Tony Blair tried
addressing during his premiership (and I witnessed the effects of
some of his policies first-hand while living in the UK then) on his
take on social welfare which went along the lines of "some
believe [social welfare] to be the solution to the
problem [in helping the under-privileged], while others believe
that to be the source of the problem [in encouraging freeloaders]".
Clearly, it hardly comes as a surprise as to why he pursued a
centrist policy which came nowhere close to either extreme,
alienating many in the process - and that's coming from someone who
had been on both wings (on various issues) and finished being
a centre-left in a political career that spanned 25 years including
having been at the helm during Britain's longest
economic growth since WWII. Fact of the matter is, as you have
rightly pointed out, you can't please everyone (just as you
wouldn't be able to reconcile folks sitting on opposing sides of
solving the bloke's issue).
However, the seemingly irreconcilable difference should not, on
its own, serve as a catalyst to justify de-politicizing every issue
out there. The whole notion that the state has played no part and
can do no more than NGOs and others is simple a self-serving
prophecy which is in essence senseless. At the end of the day, the
very fact of the matter in this whole debacle is political in
nature.
Let's consider an example on minimum wage. If you had
a liberal democracy, instead of a self-serving fascist dictatorship
that utilises the parliament as a theatre, it would not be too hard
to enact minimum wage legislations, would it?
Very clearly, the policies adopted by the regime are
self-serving in nature (by easing immigration requirements on
unskilled labour and having no minimum wage, you hardly need a
rocket scientist to figure the outcome would actually be an influx
of cheap foreign labour that actually helps to artificially induce
an exponential increase in labour supply thereby reducing the
efficiency wage, would you?) and serve to exacerbate the problem
instead of actually redressing it. If you need any further insights
on the desperate measures this regime is resorting to
pursue artificially-induced expansionist economic policies,
check out http://www.singapore-window.org/sw01/011101bo.htm
(someone posted this link on another thread which clearly makes for
an interesting read).
More pertinently, with a reasonable minimum wage model in place,
how is it reasonable anyone could actually be offered a $300/month
job which, in essence, is below subsistence level in the context of
any developed country? Perhaps, applying a minimum wage in the
context of this thread, it would actually go some way towards
reconciling the differences between the two camps on the state of
affairs concerning this chap as a reasonable level of income that
commensurates with the living standards of the developed world
would clearly result in fewer "bums" around (this is basic labour
economics).
In that regard, it is clearly foolhardy to suggest the onus on
helping the marginalized should fall primarily on the shoulders of
philantrophists, individuals and NGOs when clearly, a sensible
policy adopted by a responsible government would go a much longer
way towards tackling the problem.
Evidently, with due respect, the most abhorrent and ludicrous
part of your argument would be to dismiss the role and efficiency
of an agent (in this context, this fascist regime) that could be
far more effective in solving this problem than anyone else. To
compound matters further, the severity of the issue at hand is
actually compounded by the mindless and self-serving policies
enacted in the exclusive interests of a dictatorship.
After all, how sensible would it be to suggest you can't
actually rely on a regime to solve a problem
effectively engineered by them? Lest you live life expecting others
to clean up your mess.
In short, the severity of this episode is, as far as I'm
concerned, exacerbated and engineered by the regime and clearly, I
stand by my earlier stance that toppling this regime (or, in your
words, politicizing the issue) offers far better prospects of
tackling (while not expecting a complete eradication) the issue in
the long-term.
