6/03/2013

Bloggers popping champagne


Many bloggers must be popping champagne and celebrating over the weekend. For one whole week, many were living in fear that they have to put money out front, $50k to be exact, for a performance bond just to have the right to blog. Not only that, applying for a licence can still be rejected. Otherwise they may still blog as long as they post only one article on news related to Singapore. They can’t even post anything on the saucy affairs being read out in courts.

And when the MDA clarified by saying that bloggers will be spared from this new regime to regulate social media, to raise the quality and standard of these part time or voluntary bloggers writing ‘news’, which often are their monologue of what they see or hear, there was a kind of deja vu. Whew, can wipe the sweat off the forehead, bloggers are safe now. Bloggers have been given the freedom to write their stuff in cyberspace. What a great mercy. Thank you MDA. Thank you minister Yaacob. You people are just so kind, gentle and merciful. With leaders like that, what more do you want?

Wait a minute, let’s not be too happy too early. If one is to interpret this new regulation, many bloggers would technically and legally fall into it if the authority so decides to wield the axe. There is no escape as the regulation said so. Unless and until it is written into the regulation that bloggers are exempted, the verbal clarification is just a verbal clarification that may not be recognised in the courts of law. By then nobody will remember who said bloggers are exempted and in what capacity or authority. And how can anyone simply say bloggers are exempted when bloggers met the criteria spelt out in the regulation?

I am ‘recocking’ my bottle and put it back into the wine cooler. Shit, had let off some gas in the process but hopefully it will still taste the same the next time it is ‘uncocked’. I hope no one is going to introduce another regulation that breathing fresh air also needs a performance bond. And the people will not jump in joyous celebration when there is another piece of good news that free air will still be free though the regulation said other wise.

How to make a nation of stupid people? Possible?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's there to celebrate when PAP is the best available to be govt and WP remain the best opposition?

Unless you make a $$$ pile buying low and selling high your properties lah, and still own one to live in.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

The people are not the enemy of the govt or the state. It is the people's right to disagree with the govt's policies and it is the people's right to change the govt through the ballot when the govt is not performing the way they want it to.

The people elect the govt to serve them and not elect a govt to bully them.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

>> The people elect the govt to serve them and not elect a govt to bully them.


I don't think the intent is to "bully". It is centralised control.

I think the government gnuinely think that Singaporeans will cock up the show if they were in-charge, so the reasoning is Confucian: you need an "elite" to lead, to establish "order" so the cuntree can survive. It is out and out PATERNALISM.

Anyway, no cause for celebration. Under the compact of Confucian Paternalism, the law can change ANYTIME, and we all know it can.

Unless the DOGMA of governance (i.e. Confucian Paternalism) is completely committed to the dustbin of history, it is unlikely that things will change. The philosophy by which governance is administered in Singapore is already embedded in the culture, so deeply that it manifests itself in unconscious behaviour (i.e. you behave automatically -- unaware of what you're doing or WHY) of both the government and The Sheeple.

The results from the Stanley Milgrim experiments demonstrate VERY CLEARLY that most people turn off their rational minds and become OBEDIENT TO AUTHORITY. Obedience to authority is DEFAULT condition. If you add "obedience drivers" to the mix -- in Singapore this would be CPF-HDB Tax-Ponzi-Bribe-Mass_Manipulation_Mechanism, plus the often repeated myth that if you vote out PAP Singapore will collapse, then you take oer the media and control freedom of expression by The Sheeple, then you have the almost perfect recipe to remain in power for a very long time.

Anonymous said...

You can see the pattern. They used to let word out about certain issues and let the people talk about it to gather feedback for answering in Parliament. There was still an inkling of the existence of voters in red dot.

Nowadays, they do not even have to let MPs know, not to talk about the miserable existence of voters. In other words, people no longer figure in their actions. They just do what they want. They are telling us, you can vote for opposition, it does not bother us. And it just could be that they are really thinking we have elected the government we deserve, so they do what they want.

Do you think the PAP has changed? Oh, yes definitely! But change in what way? Change for the worse of course! So do something come GE 2016.