Boycott Singapore

Punishing the disenfranchised of Singapore for the actions of the government seems harsh to me. There is no 'they' to punish. Nations have the right to their own criminal justice. Would you like the UN to dictate to the US how to try people and whether or not the death penalty was legal? Because that is what many nations wish to do to the US.

Regardless how one believes, a drug smuggler in the Singapore knew the law before they risked getting caught.

That doesn't mean I agree or disagree, only that I recognize a reality that a smuggler knew as well.

A nation has to be pretty far outside the norm to get economic sanctions- Saddam was gassing people and defying arms inspections they'd already agreed to after loosing a war in which they were the aggressor. That is a different shade of value than Singapore executing a criminal.

edit- I'm afraid I have Singapore and the Phillipines rolling around my brain together....

munk
 
The authors say Singapore is by no means the worst offender in the region, but they argue that this tightly controlled city state could improve conditions very easily, giving many thousands of vulnerable women greater control over their lives.
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This sounds to me like they are piling on Singapore since it's an easy target. Just make the government feel guilty or vulnerable (to almighty world public opinion) and that government will force the change on its people.

Democracy? Or elitist, aristocratic arrogance?

Mistreating domestic help is an ancient sport worldwide, not just in that region. It's wrong, it was always wrong, it's even mentioned in the Bible as being wrong.

But rubbing people's noses in their faults will not gain you the sympathy this problem deserves. Publicize instead how well-off maids are in Singapore generally, making money unavailable at home, and hope their gracious hosts will see fit to oversee an improvement in conditions for those with abusive employers.

But no, waggle the index finger in their faces instead, and then feel virtuous when they take offense and throw you out.
 
I did not see a very big outcry over our hanging of that drug smuggler.

The impression I got was that Howard and his like were just giving lip service to the liberal sections of his voting public. If Howard was serious about it, he would have tried some economic sanctions on SG, but more likely they would have hurt his own country's trade.

Given the serious drug problem in OZ, I think Howard was quite OK with the situation. In fact, some australians wrote to our press praising our govt for its tough stand on drugs.

I saw a picture of a vigil held for Mr.Heroin in Sydney? There was no one at it at all.

Look at the outcry over the americans in Iraq......my measure is, if there is a liberal outcry like that, it probably means one is doing the right thing.

Now, I don't agree with my society and govt on everything, but on its tough judicial stance, I agree with it totally. Last time we had a horrible problem with triads intimidating business and robbing people all over. By hanging, caning and imprisoning them without trial indefinately, the problem was solved, the triads were wiped out. You can walk around in almost every part of Singapore late at night and feel safe.

If you want us not to apply the death penalty, I suggest you put your wallet where your mouth is and:

1)pay us to keep him in prison for the rest of his life,
2)pay for all his medical bills and also
3)be responsible for all legal problems and pay compensation if he injures anyone in prison, or if he escapes and harms someone.

US$1mill ought to cover it, for the moment.

It's easy to whine on, if you are not the one who has pay money to deal with the criminal or protect society from his actions.

Oh the Pope? Let him cough up the money, then we talk.

Money talks, whining walks.

Now, some days after the event, not a word in the media.

But on a more serious note, I am saddened at the young man's death, but he brought it upon himself. Also, the heroin he carried would have helped hurt many other people and families. I suspect those who are angry with the situation are those who support the use of hard drugs, or those who have had some bad experience with Singapore law enforcement in the past.
 
The outcry over maids is interesting, because as is noted, maids are treated much worse in the other SEAsian countries. Yet, these unfortunate women still leave their horrible conditions at home to earn money in other countries.

One of my family maids is in such a plight.....if she returns back, she will be married by force to one of her father's friends, who is three times her age. Naturally she does not want to return home.

It's a sad story, that liberal organisations are doing their best to take advantage of. It's always easy to put yourself up as a champion of human rights when you do not have to personally pay for those rights. It's always easy to ask someone else to pay his workers more.

Such is the way of whining liberals.

Recently Singapore has become a target in the media because of its stance on iraq and but mainly because it has clamped down on gay and lesbian organisations trying to obtain power in our society. Gay organisations stated that they wanted to make singapore into sing-gay-pore, the gay capital of SEAsia, and they had a good try.

However, the sudden spike in HIV cases after massive gay beach festival parties caused enough concern to ensure their banning(with contact-tracing proving the link), along with a tougher stance on media promoting the gay lifestyle.

This caused truly massive screaming hatred and outrage amongst the liberal and gay organisations working to increase power in singapore and has also resulted in intense criticism of everything singapore does, from supporting GWB in iraq to hanging drug smugglers transiting thro our ports.
 
if the accused's last name ( this 21 yr old) had been Jagger, McCartney, Trump, Rockefeller, Branson etc. how do you think all of this would have gone down? if smuggling anything into a country involves facing death, doesnt that drive the price through the roof? I'm sure all the self made millionaires in Singapore love to party and the ceo's, vice presidents, asst vice presidents, high gov't officials all love the excitement of the taboo at their high soirees. girls, drugs the exchange of precious antiquities. you've all seen the movies read the books. who dies? "JSPS" Just Some Poor Schmuck. you see where I'm going. you get the best justice money can buy in most places as far as I've seen

Gary
 
Sure I see where you're going. You believe it, so you accuse them of it. Do you have any evidence of this corrupt lifestyle?

Change your name to Rockefeller and smuggle drugs into Singapore, and let's see if they care.

Every society has its own problems and its own solutions. Singapore is willing to apply extreme solutions to avoid certain kinds of problems. Those solutions may not be as appropriate elswhere. But that's no reason to think the Singaporeans should adopt other societies' failed solutions.
 
do i have evidence of corrupt lifestyles in Singapore specifically? nope. changing my name to Rockefeller doesn't make me one of the "Rockefellers" as I know you know. I never heard of a failed solution so i guess my time is up here. I'm new here but a long toothed law abiding citizen. I don't want to seem arrogant. this is your forum and I'm just a guest.
 
SYK

You have put the argument for adherence to the law as only a Singaporean could.

Well done!

I`m sure your post has clarified the Singaporean mentality for all of those people who have not been able to experience at first hand the wonderfully inflexible adherence of Singaporeans and their government to the doctrine of dingfa espoused so long ago by Shang Yang.
 
SYK said:
. . .

I suspect those who are angry with the situation are those who support the use of hard drugs, or those who have had some bad experience with Singapore law enforcement in the past.
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Up to the point when you posted these words, you were presenting one side of the debate. This sentence is a gratuitous insult to those who oppose capital punishment on the basis of conscience or religious belief -- or the opinion that it is counter-productive. Bad form, sir. Extremely bad form. :thumbdn:

I, by the way, support capital punishment in some cases.
 
I agree with Thomas Linton.

The debate over each case of capital punishment is always conflated by the debate over capital punishment in principle. This should not be a problem, since everyone involved is aware of the overlap.

Tookie williams and Van are both ideal instances of people who brought their troubles on themselves. In both cases, their supporters could point to some reason for alternate punishment, but the law is the law.

The debate over capital punishment in principle, however, has nothing to do with the individuals themselves, on death row or manning the picket lines. People who oppose it are hardly all criminally inclined or weak-minded.

Remember, too, that this is the Cantina, where we generally manage a stricter level of respect for each other than in some other subforums. I've had to choke back an easy rejoinder several times here, realizing in time that I was arguing with friends.
 
I am against anti-drug laws in general. I am generally for the death penalty, when deserved.
 
john piper said:
... the doctrine of dingfa espoused so long ago by Shang Yang.
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For those interested, the doctrine is explained at http://www.hku.hk/philodep/ch/Lord%20Shang.htm . His ideas are a part of Chinese culture, but rigid adherence to standards has come, and gone, over and over in Chinese history. It was almost entirely absent during the Cultural Revolution.

There is a substantial overlap between the "doctrine of standards" and John Adams' ideal of "a government of laws and not of men. "
 
DannyinJapan said:
isnt singapore the same place that beat a white kid with a shinai because he spraypainted some cars a few years back?
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Yes, and IMO the little hellion deserved every stroke! :mad: Spoiled rotten destructive jerk whose daddy was some King-$%^t US mission type over there. I would have volunteered to whack the twerp a few times. Personally, I think that after the beating he should have shoveled cow dung for .50 cents an hour until every car had been paid to be completely repainted. At 40 hours a week it would only have taken him a few years per car. (OK, OK! Pay him minimum wage then. Seriously!)

As for the Singapore drug laws, I don't know. Heroin cannot be considered to be a beneficial drug for anyone; there is no argument there, and a couple of doses is intensely addictive. From the States perspective they are acting in self-defense.

I have gone on record stating that I think our medical marijuana laws are a travesty, as is punishment for casual non-addictive drug use, but substances which rob society of her people's lives and resources should be more tightly regulated.

This City/State has taken the task upon itself to severely punish major drug use, with the consequence that they have less drug use.

When you are in their country you play by their rules, and I also don't think Singapore made any secret of their drug punishment policies.

I don't know if executing him was the answer though. There has to be a middle ground between absolute prohibition of _all_ substances which is a proven impossibility, and detrimental to aspects of personal freedom, and letting people distribute other substances which will destroy their customers.

Norm
 
Actually, a good friend of mine used to work in a drug treatment facility. He described the difference between initial care for a heavy heroin user and a heavy drinker.

In his opinion, based on years as a nurse and also in working specifically with people who needed this type of care, alcohol is far more damaging than almost any other recreational drug.

I think claims about addiction are really a red herring. The person is always responsible for his/her actions, not some figurative monkey on their back. It makes no sense to restrict other recreational drugs until after the US restricts sugar and fat, which demonstrably kill many times as many people yearly. (Once again- obesity is now the LEADING cause of death in the US.)

John
 
OK, fair enough John, and you and I have been in agreement about this in the past, but what about something like crack cocaine? I'm just playing Devil's advocate here. I hear that stuff owns you after just one pipe. Is that true do you think? Should we attempt to regulate that one? I've heard of people selling their kids to get another crack rock.

I'm sincerely asking, not trying to be a smart a$$.

I think our marijuana lawas are asinine, and consider myself to be a devout Libertarian, but this one stumps me. People who are addicted on that stuff are responsible for a huge amount of violent crime, personal mayhem, destruction, theft, and just all around damage to society. I would think that some restriction or discouragement of those identified substances should be encouraged.

That doesn't mean kicking in the door of sick people trying to keep their dinner down after chemo, but it means something.

I'm just not sure what! :confused:

Thanks John.

Norm
 
Norm,

I don't know that it's the drugs that are the problem. People have choice, but even aside from choosing not to abuse drugs (I don't consider a couple of drinks a week to be abuse, so I logically can't think that a similar dose of whatever drug is abuse either, unless the user acts in an immoral way during or because of drug use), the reason drug addicts commit crimes to gain drugs is the artificially inflated prices the government controls have generated.

No, crack doesn't own you after a pipe, nor does crystal meth/ice. I've talked to people who've done both, though I have no ambition to use these drugs.

**Don't get me wrong. There are very real consequences from abusing (or even using SOME) drugs. I just think the consequences of "controlling" them in our society are much worse than the availability of these things.***

I believe a better solution would be to decriminalize all recreational drugs. Legalize marijuana, and tax it. Even after tax, pot will be so much cheaper (and regulated!) when bought at the corner grocery in cigarette packs, that kids will be loath to pay the (currently very cheap in comparison) price for Ecstasy or meth, which are much more damaging.

Simple possession of any drug would no longer be a crime, unless the user was under 18. Selling drugs would not be a crime, unless the buyer was under 18. Driving under the influence of anything would still be a crime.

If we did this, there would be far fewer people in jail for nothing other than having or using drugs. Space would be freed for genuine predators. Crime would decline. Drug users would no longer be responsible for as many crimes, as their products of choice would have declined drastically in cost. Sellers of tainted drugs could now be prosecuted, without the victims fearing prosecution themselves. The criminal element would be taken out of the drug trade.

Lots of benefits...and a hell of a lot more FREEDOM. I like it.

John
 
In order to understand the view of drugs in Singapore, it is necessary to understand some of the history.

There is a substantial Chinese population in Singapore. The Opium War, in which a foreign power fought for and won the right to addict the Chinese population for profit, is still remembered.

from http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTM

The Opium War, also called the Anglo-Chinese War, was the most humiliating defeat China ever suffered. In European history, it is perhaps the most sordid, base, and vicious event in European history, possibly, just possibly, overshadowed by the excesses of the Third Reich in the twentieth century.

By the 1830's, the English had become the major drug-trafficking criminal organization in the world; very few drug cartels of the twentieth century can even touch the England of the early nineteenth century in sheer size of criminality. Growing opium in India, the East India Company shipped tons of opium into Canton which it traded for Chinese manufactured goods and for tea. This trade had produced, quite literally, a country filled with drug addicts, as opium parlors proliferated all throughout China in the early part of the nineteenth century. This trafficing, it should be stressed, was a criminal activity after 1836 ...
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The rest of the text is available at the link provided.
 
Thanks for all your replies.

Thomas Linton, cool down, if people can shout "boycott singapore", it's only fair if I gently imply that they may be biased from a brush with singapore law in the past or support drug use:D . Have some humour, man, don't be like us singaporeans.

One would think some of the people here are scheduled for their own executions.

Once again, I see people's preference as a very emotional thing. I don't really agree with his hanging, but I really can't be bothered enough to protest. There are more worthwhile things to get outraged about rather some moron trying to bring heroin into some country.

And I am not willing to burden our system with the cost of maintaining him for life. He knew the risk and took it.

I don't believe he was forced into it, he had a choice. His samurai-wannabe brother sounds more like a triad gangster rather than a victim indebtee gambler hounded by triads. I don't believe his excuse that he was "doing it for his brother".

I find it so amusing that millions of people can get killed and hurt in africa and the mid-east by crazed jihadists and dictators and still some people can only find outrage over some moron getting hung by us singaporeans. Looks like some people have an authority-figure problem, and that's a gentle joke too.
 
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