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Singapore Bloggers Charged Under Sedition Act
ChannelNewsAsia is reporting that for the first time in at least 10 years Singapore has invoked the sedition act and charged two local bloggers for posting racist comments on an online forum. From the article: 'Said Singaporean blogger Benjamin Lee (Mr Miyagi):" A lot of them will be looking at their blogs and wondering if they made any legally seditious remarks. I think because of the way this will be played up, it's negative publicity for the Singapore blogging community."'
And does racist speech = hate speech?
This is an honest question. As much as I hate racism and hate speech, I have to admit that Dave Chapelle, whose comedy many times has to do with race, is one of the best/original comedians out there today.
Of course his is meant for comedy rather than hate, but where does one draw the line?
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am not surprised in the slightest. Having been to Singapore many times, it is a VERY "tight" country. If you break the rules, the punishment is quite severe.
Drug dealers = death penalty. Vandalism = caning (remember that?). No selling gum. No chewing gum (at least in public). No joke.
While I don't think the totalitarianism is required, I will say that Singapore is VERY clear about the rules. Everybody knows them and everybody knows that if you break them, you do so at your own risk. They don't seem to have as many ambiguous laws as here in the US so it seems to work pretty well. The fact that some bloggers would post "maybe it will get me in trouble" stuff, is very ballsy.
If a few Chinese moonbats ranting about the Malays' alleged racial inferiority is enough to spark a conflict, the people of Singapore should just go ahead and prepare for war because clearly their neighbors are itching for a fight. Besides, the only way to get an honest dialog going is to let people speak their minds. If people are forced to censor themselves so as to not offend the people they already consider inferior then guess what you've done? You've just made them even more convicted in their racism!
Yes, that's right. If you take a group of people who already view themselves as racially, not culturally, superior to another and force them to limit their liberties so as to not offend the group they condescend to, their natural reaction will be to condescend even more because "clearly, those people are so weak that they can't even handle a bad attitude."
Conflicts like this usually have very, very deep roots and it never ceases to amaze me how American left-liberals can never fail to suggest to change a group's natural reaction instead of accepting it. Hate to break it to you people, but the reality is that the strong do not typically respect those that are weaker than they are. That is life. You do not expect a lion to respect a terrier, so why expect a group that is very economically and militarily powerful in their region to respect a group that is by comparison very weak? Are we not animals as well, and do not both religion and science agree that the strong does not respect the weak?
Yes, let's encourage them to reevaluate their attitudes and seek to become better people by accepting others' weakness. Do as the Bible idealizes, and encourage the lion to have the strength of will and character to lay down with the sheep. But do not think that it is natural, and do not think that a weekly class on "tolerance" is going to make them like those they tend to look down on. Besides, technically they already show tolerance toward them because tolerance simply means live-and-let live. It doesn't imply you like them or want anything to do with them. It means you tolerate them, which is basically what most people do to small children who behave like brats or yappy little dogs. What they need is brotherly/sisterly reconciliation between their groups, not some half-assed bullshit called tolerance.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
This means that you cannot combat racism by limiting information or expression. The only effective way you can combat racism is by countering it with good information-- demonstrating the racists wrong, rather than silencing them.
I hope you will help by contributing to Wikipedia's page on Race and Intelligence.
It's a bit one-sided at the moment.