Death Note :: Is it right to take things on your own hand?

If you hadn't known what Death Note is, allow me to briefly explain it to you. Death Note originated from a comic, which then became a movie. The story is about a man named Light (Kira, his other identity) who received a death note book. When the name of someone he had seen before is recorded in the book, the person will die from heart seizure within minutes. The public is splitted into 2 groups - 1 supporting Kira as he kills the bad crooks, while the other argued that he is actually committing a crime with his act and that killing the bad guys did nothing to remove this fact.

So now, the question now -- Is it right to take things on your own hand? In this case, Justice?

When US President George Bush decided to go ahead on Operation Iraqi Freedom, he was just like Kira, using the power that he got to achieve a certain aim. Throughout the world, there was support and there was protests.

Operation Iraqi Freedom is just a recent example. In the history of mankind, we have seen numerous powerful figures that utilise their power to make changes through violent means, wars. Even at the personal level, we see people abusing power and commit themselves in activities that violate the law for good clause.

Laws are made by man. There are bound to have loopholes present in the judiciary system. And the law can never be just to everyone. Can it then be justified that people take it in their own hands to improve society by going against the law.

In my personal opinion, the world will be peaceful only if everyone acts according to a perfectly drafted law. However, law can never be perfectly drafted. And not everyone will act according to law. It is inevitable that certain heroes need to create a positive change such as good revolutions.

I do not agree to Kira's acts. Taking away lives can never be correctly justified.

And in case you are wondering what happened to Kira, he eventually died and the crime rate increased back to the original level.

Engaging Foreign Talents

A graying population will generally adopt policies in attracting foreign talents. Despite protests from various communities or groups of people, countries will still have to accept a fact. Either attract foreign talents to join you, or compete with these foreign talents being drawn to other states.

While it is easy to use incentives and tax reliefs for foreign migration into the country, it is not as easy to retain them and keep them within the country for long term. Immigrants might take advantage of the citizenship of the host country as a stepping stone to migrate to other countries.

To retain the talents that step into the country, there needs to be a long term engagement of these new citizens. This can take place in the form of community involvement, providing a forum for these minorities, assimilating their culture into that of the country.

New citizens might face rejection by the community initially. Grassroots leaders and volunteers should arrange more interaction programmes and activities to reduce this to a minimum.

Taxing the masses to aid the lower-income

Singapore Prime Minister has announced that the goods and services tax (GST) will be increased to 7% from 5%. This increase, he says, is needed to support the lower-income group. I am rather skeptical on this move. Defence minister defended the move as saying that the wage increase over the years offsets the GST increase. I have other opinions.

First of all, the GST will affect the whole population, impacting the lower-income group the most. Even though the tax increase is dedicated for the group, it is never able to provide total coverage to every low-income person. The uneducated, older folks, or people that do not keep in time with government policies may not notice that there are packages for them. They will miss the packages, and at the same time get hit by the GST spike. Hence, it can't be said that the entire group can be aided by a GST increase.

The rise in tax will create a burden to the middle-class, especially the bottom end of it. Wage increase over the years should not be an indication that a GST increase should be okay for this group. Rising transport costs, high living costs, etc have cancelled off the wage increase over the years.

The middle-class in Singapore is a significant group. This tax hike will certainly be used as a political tool by the opposition to prove that the ruling party has yet again chose to increase taxes after election, accompanied by election goodies.

The fund needed should be generated from other source than the tax of the whole population. My personal view is that such a fund should arise from a pool of cash coming in from different sources. For example (really just example), 10% can come from COEs, 20% from cigarettes tax, etc. Just a personal view.

Does sanction still help?

The United States of America used sanctions to pressure DPRK into giving up its nukes, after the latter fired a nuclear warhead trial. The sanction was passed as a resolution of UN. Within weeks, DPRK announced that it is returning to the round table for talks. Did the sanction on DPRK resulted in peaceful talks?

There is a debate about whether sanctions should be used to pressure DPRK or more trade with DPRK to force it to come out of isolation and then in the hope that democracy will be brought in.

I believe that sanctions are not useful against countries which are poor. DPRK cannot even afford to feed its own people, and most of the aids given to it is channelled to the military. If sanctions are imposed on it, more people will suffer from starvation and the act of sanction would be deemed inhumane. Forcing more people to die for someone to give up nukes.

On the other hand, sanctions are more useful for Iran, a more developed nation which is also meddling with nukes. A united UN resolution on Iran will definitely have a much better effect as the upper class and middle class will pressure the government. And sanctions against Iran will not be labelled "inhumane".

By infusing DPRK with lots of aids, recognising it as a nation, develop bilateral ties and trade ties, allowing it to gradually enter the WTO, should be the direction for the US to go. Just like what the DPRK said, "Sanctions mean war", sanctions for an impoverished state literally means cutting the lifeline of it.

The US needs to also muster key players in participating in a sanction act prior to enforcing it because solitary action makes one look arrogant and lonely. Iran still trades with China, making the US look played out as China steps in and benefit from one competitor less.

Sanctions hardly help.

Politicians need to be careful of traps in Forums

Recently, some of Workers' Party Singapore (WPS) members' netiquette got into the limelight. This quickly puts into question whether it is suitable for politicians to be forumers and the absence of safeguards in forums.

Forums (or the Net at wide) allow anonymous characters to post messages. Any Netizen may also post messages on the account of other people, hidden behind anonymity. Hence, any chap can proclaim himself to be a politician and post nasty remarks, leaving a bad impression, if not name, of the real politican.

Forums are useful channels by which politicans can relate to his supporters or channels for them to spread their ideology and garner more support. Opposition politicians can even debate against policies drafted out by the ruling party in the government with netizens. The debates in the forums make the argument clearer and more people will be able to understand the whole picture.

However, in a forum, every individual member is equal in the sense that each can post, view, vote, argue and debate on every topic like any other members. Hence, members can ardently argue against a politician outright and question him. An experienced politician may be able to bring across his point effectively, while a less experienced politician may not. By giving answers and suggestions that contradict one's ideology, one will quickly be vulnerable to more attacks and in the end, lose support among other forum members.

I believe that only experienced politician or politicians that are political savvy and have deep sense of their own ideology should attempt to participate in forums, and will benefit from their exposure. However, every word and every response is crucial to the politician's overall image. Self-constraint must be observed.

The Liberisation of Postal Services in Singapore

Singapore Post has a heritage dating back to 1819, when Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore. It is more than a brand as it is the one and only postage service provider in Singapore for all these years. However, come next year, Singapore Post will no longer hold on to this luxurious monopoly.

Even though SingPost has profitted much from its monopoly, it has not yet achieved high standards globally. With the liberisation of postal services in Singapore, it will inevitably face tough competitors such as SwissPost which ranks top five globally.

A great advantage that SingPost has is that it already has a large infrastructure ready and a system that is working in Singapore. Other competitors would have to start from scratch, thus giving SingPost a time advantage to strategise. As a national brand, it commands a high level of trust and reliability among fellow citizens.

Global competitors have logistical and financial support from their global companies. They can afford to sustain some losses intially, if there are any, and then compete with the dominant service provider to climb up the top spot. They have also the manpower, people with experience, knowledge and skills. Nationalism in Singapore is not that deep enough to resist foreign penetration of postal services.

Will a competition in postal service lead to an eventual loss for all parties and bring it back into a state of monopoly, as for the case of MediaCorp and SPH? Will we lose a national heritage? Liberisation of postal service will eventually bring benefits to the people in terms of competitive pricing and quality of service, if SingPost fails. As far as I am concerned, retaining a national heritage is paramount to all other concerns.

Purpose

Blogs are so multi-purposeful. I find them a product of innovation.

I intend to use this blog as a means of publishing my political ideas and thoughts from time to time, on various issues. Through this blog, I hope to gain more from self-reflection of my articles and hone my political thinking.

Enjoy and Argue.