While I appreciate your acknowledging my command of English, I
think that's less important than the substance of what I've been
trying to highlight.
As a matter of fact, I have lived in Singapore and still shuttle to
and from Singapore ever so often. If you should be in doubt, I too
have attended school here. It would be nice if you'd judge the
quality of my comments for what it is without making inferences and
assumptions as to my background for ultimately, that's what truly
matters.
That said, my education and work too have taken me to places as
diverse as the US, Scandinavia, UK, Switzerland, Germany, Hong Kong
and China to name a few. My vacations have also taken me from
places that span the globe from Latin America to North Korea.
As to your points, let's put it this way : have you really seen
what some other countries offer their citizens? Look at the Nordic
countries and the UK - developed first-world countries with a
population not substantially bigger (well, at least for the Nordic
countries) than Singapore's. Are you aware education and healthcare
are virtually free in these countries? Surely, given the fact that
the life expectancies of these countries would match Singapore's at
a canter and that their economies would easily put Singapore's to
shame, you wouldn't doubt these countries too have quality teachers
and an advanced healthcare system which is actually more
comprehensive than Singapore's? Or are you telling me you're
actually getting a better deal having a staggered income tax system
that's capped at 21% (for the highest tier) without actually having
any tangible benefits available to you? Mind, the Nordic countries
are no more dangerous than Singapore.
That said, and as I have already mentioned in some other thread, if
security is of utmost concern to you, why not consider North Korea
as the model to follow? After all, along with Switzerland and the
Nordic countries, it's just about as safe as I have experienced.
So how much of your civil liberties and personal freedom
are you prepared to trade for your so-called security? More
importantly, are civil liberties and security as mutually exclusive
as this regime would have you believe? The bottomline is,
contrary to the propaganda this regime has a knack of churning out,
not everyone is obssessed with security at the expense of
individual rights and freedoms - to many, civil liberties, labour
rights and personal freedoms are no less important.
After all, I'm not sure if many would actually prefer living
somewhere with a low crime-rate but needing to worry about
collecting cans and cardboards in their twilight
years just to make ends meet (and that might not even be
sufficient) for day-to-day survival without the slightest social
safety net to fall back on.
