Dear Ms. kuang,
Just choose which articles you like out of the three. Thanks.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Article (government)
http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lohkaidi/cat_lim_10may2005.htm
It relates to the political issue of political openness, the ability to have free expression to the government and political apathy among the young today. This article is worthy of discussion because it is still relevant in our times today.
Firstly, it seems that the government is limiting us the right to speak freely, to critique them as we want to. For example, do you see any mass protest against the government in Singapore? Do we dare to? It seems that the government is limiting our right to free speech even though it set up the “meet-the-people- session” which actually serves not much purpose. The “meet-the-people” session is a laughable attempt for the government to engage the people as no one would dare to tell their MP what they think of the government. Even if the people dared to do so, if the problem the people address cannot be solved by the government, the MP would just accept what the people had to say, wait and hope the problem would get resolved by itself.
With this limited right to critique the government, it comes as no surprise that the younger generation begin to care less about the government, perhaps to the extent that they just ignore the government. For example, if you were to ask me who our Health MP is, I would be unable to answer as I am more focused on my studies than to care about who my MPs are. This will lead to political apathy in Singaporeans and this is a serious problem as Singapore is a democracy and it uses elections to get the government into office. If we do not know who we are voting for, how do we know if the government we are voting for is a strong one? Even if we try to justify that we will always vote for the PAP, how do we know that perhaps one day, the PAP would be corrupted and if we still vote for the PAP, wouldn’t we allowing a corrupt PAP to power?
The sensible solution for this would be to allow the people to speak, to critique the government, get their suggestions on the bills they want and balance it against its necessity. However I doubt that the government would allow us to have mass protest as they are afraid that this would just hinder the efficient running of the government. In short, the government is as if stating “You do your job, I do mine”.
Singaporeans must also learn to be more politically aware of the government for us to debate against the government. However, I doubt it would happen as we are more focused on our economical benefits than to bother about the government.
Thus, if we were to create a politically-aware Singapore, the government must play its part to allow the people to speak and the people must be more active in debating with the government.
I apologize if I am too critical of the government as I have my prejudices.
It relates to the political issue of political openness, the ability to have free expression to the government and political apathy among the young today. This article is worthy of discussion because it is still relevant in our times today.
Firstly, it seems that the government is limiting us the right to speak freely, to critique them as we want to. For example, do you see any mass protest against the government in Singapore? Do we dare to? It seems that the government is limiting our right to free speech even though it set up the “meet-the-people- session” which actually serves not much purpose. The “meet-the-people” session is a laughable attempt for the government to engage the people as no one would dare to tell their MP what they think of the government. Even if the people dared to do so, if the problem the people address cannot be solved by the government, the MP would just accept what the people had to say, wait and hope the problem would get resolved by itself.
With this limited right to critique the government, it comes as no surprise that the younger generation begin to care less about the government, perhaps to the extent that they just ignore the government. For example, if you were to ask me who our Health MP is, I would be unable to answer as I am more focused on my studies than to care about who my MPs are. This will lead to political apathy in Singaporeans and this is a serious problem as Singapore is a democracy and it uses elections to get the government into office. If we do not know who we are voting for, how do we know if the government we are voting for is a strong one? Even if we try to justify that we will always vote for the PAP, how do we know that perhaps one day, the PAP would be corrupted and if we still vote for the PAP, wouldn’t we allowing a corrupt PAP to power?
The sensible solution for this would be to allow the people to speak, to critique the government, get their suggestions on the bills they want and balance it against its necessity. However I doubt that the government would allow us to have mass protest as they are afraid that this would just hinder the efficient running of the government. In short, the government is as if stating “You do your job, I do mine”.
Singaporeans must also learn to be more politically aware of the government for us to debate against the government. However, I doubt it would happen as we are more focused on our economical benefits than to bother about the government.
Thus, if we were to create a politically-aware Singapore, the government must play its part to allow the people to speak and the people must be more active in debating with the government.
I apologize if I am too critical of the government as I have my prejudices.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Article (Family)
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,129914-1178834340,00.html?
The article I am discussing today is related to a social issue-family. Based on this article, the Tan family accused each other of withdrawing from a bank account without permission after the government paid them $1.2 million to demolish their shop houses. Soon, their quarrel has to be settled by the law, and everyone knows about their family quarrel. This article is worthy for discussion as it discusses family and how easily it seems that family can be forsaken through greed and money.
It seems an irony that as Asians, the value of family has been deeply-rooted in us since young, but now we seems to have forgotten this value and the case related above seems to have confirmed that we have forgotten the value of family. The factors for this could be the materialistic world we are living in, the erosion of our Asian values by Western values, and the placement of family behind work and money.
Firstly, it is true that we are living in a world filled with materialistic people. If you have no money, you cannot survive, if you do not have this branded handbag, you will be laughed at, if you cannot buy this branded shirt, you will die. Thus, it seems natural for us to sue our family members over money since we are living in a materialistic world.
Secondly, it is true again that our Asian values are being eroded by western values, in a sense we are becoming more liberal. Asian values empathize a lot more on family than the Western values, such as respecting your elder, never talking back to them etc. However, as time progresses, we seem to believe that Western values are superior to Asian values and began to adopt the Western values. This could be seen in that we can accept women dancing nude in bars during these days but a few decades back, I doubt our forefathers would accept it.
Thirdly, it appears that we had placed work and money over family. It can be seen in that both parents prefer working to support the family than staying at home to take care of the children.
Thus, if I were to put myself into the person who is suing his family members over money, I can empathize with him as this is a materialistic world and we are in-bred to place importance on money.
The solution for this could be to educate our young the value of family, to place more importance on family. I cannot find any solutions other than that as basically placing importance on family is a matter of free-will; we cannot place a law declaring that we cannot sue them over money.
Lastly, we must learn to emphasize with those who sued their family over money as we are in a materialistic world and I apologize for not providing better solutions as I am only 15 and I cannot see why we should sue our own family over money.
The article I am discussing today is related to a social issue-family. Based on this article, the Tan family accused each other of withdrawing from a bank account without permission after the government paid them $1.2 million to demolish their shop houses. Soon, their quarrel has to be settled by the law, and everyone knows about their family quarrel. This article is worthy for discussion as it discusses family and how easily it seems that family can be forsaken through greed and money.
It seems an irony that as Asians, the value of family has been deeply-rooted in us since young, but now we seems to have forgotten this value and the case related above seems to have confirmed that we have forgotten the value of family. The factors for this could be the materialistic world we are living in, the erosion of our Asian values by Western values, and the placement of family behind work and money.
Firstly, it is true that we are living in a world filled with materialistic people. If you have no money, you cannot survive, if you do not have this branded handbag, you will be laughed at, if you cannot buy this branded shirt, you will die. Thus, it seems natural for us to sue our family members over money since we are living in a materialistic world.
Secondly, it is true again that our Asian values are being eroded by western values, in a sense we are becoming more liberal. Asian values empathize a lot more on family than the Western values, such as respecting your elder, never talking back to them etc. However, as time progresses, we seem to believe that Western values are superior to Asian values and began to adopt the Western values. This could be seen in that we can accept women dancing nude in bars during these days but a few decades back, I doubt our forefathers would accept it.
Thirdly, it appears that we had placed work and money over family. It can be seen in that both parents prefer working to support the family than staying at home to take care of the children.
Thus, if I were to put myself into the person who is suing his family members over money, I can empathize with him as this is a materialistic world and we are in-bred to place importance on money.
The solution for this could be to educate our young the value of family, to place more importance on family. I cannot find any solutions other than that as basically placing importance on family is a matter of free-will; we cannot place a law declaring that we cannot sue them over money.
Lastly, we must learn to emphasize with those who sued their family over money as we are in a materialistic world and I apologize for not providing better solutions as I am only 15 and I cannot see why we should sue our own family over money.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Article (If you drive, don't drink)
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,129823-1178747940,00.html?
The article which I am discussing today is related to a social problem prevalent in our society- drink-driving. Drink-driving is a social problem that should be easily solved as if you want to drink alcohol, do not drive, if you want to drive, do not drink alcohol. However, even though the police had been campaigning to prevent drink-driving from occurring, deaths from drink-driving rose up from last year, and compared to other countries such as the U.S., Japan and Australia, Singapore had the highest amount of deaths in 10,000 vehicles caused by drink-driving. Thus, we must try to analyze this problem and provide suitable solutions to it.
The main factor behind drink-driving would be the drivers themselves, as if they did not drink and drive, the problem would not occur. Thus, my solution would be targeted at the driver and perhaps at the pedestrian crossing the road as it is also his responsibility to watch out for incoming cars.
However, why would drivers drive alcohol and then drive off in their cars? I believe it is because alcohol promotes self-confidence in the driver, he feels that he has the ability to drive in his car even though he is drunk. This over-confidence may kill him as alcohol also causes blurry eyesight, and slowed reflexes, thus he may not be able to see the pedestrian crossing the road before it is too late. Thus, if I were to put myself into the driver’s shoes, I can empathize with him that he may feel alcohol is the main cause of this problem.
After knowing the problem, I can come out with two solutions. Firstly, ban alcohol so that no one can drink them, and there would be no drink-driving occurrences. Secondly, ban cars so no one can drive in them, and thus there would not be such accidents anymore. However, since these two solutions are too extremist and would not be popular with Singaporeans, we could try more subtle ways to solve this problem. For example, we could try to encourage drives to bring a friend along when he goes drinking and makes sure that his friend is sober, so that his friend can drive him home. Another solution could be calling a taxi to bring you back home and take back your car the next day.
The pedestrian could also help out in solving this problem if they could avoid crossing roads in the middle of the night or looking cautiously left and right before crossing as “the road is as dangerous as a tiger”.
Lastly, I feel that even if a driver drinks alcohol drives off after that and gets into an accident, we must still sympathize him as he is a human, he may make mistakes sometimes, allowing his desires of alcohol get the better of him and still feeling confident enough to go driving.
I apologize if my solutions seemed immature as I am not eighteen years old yet, so I cannot drink and drive.
The article which I am discussing today is related to a social problem prevalent in our society- drink-driving. Drink-driving is a social problem that should be easily solved as if you want to drink alcohol, do not drive, if you want to drive, do not drink alcohol. However, even though the police had been campaigning to prevent drink-driving from occurring, deaths from drink-driving rose up from last year, and compared to other countries such as the U.S., Japan and Australia, Singapore had the highest amount of deaths in 10,000 vehicles caused by drink-driving. Thus, we must try to analyze this problem and provide suitable solutions to it.
The main factor behind drink-driving would be the drivers themselves, as if they did not drink and drive, the problem would not occur. Thus, my solution would be targeted at the driver and perhaps at the pedestrian crossing the road as it is also his responsibility to watch out for incoming cars.
However, why would drivers drive alcohol and then drive off in their cars? I believe it is because alcohol promotes self-confidence in the driver, he feels that he has the ability to drive in his car even though he is drunk. This over-confidence may kill him as alcohol also causes blurry eyesight, and slowed reflexes, thus he may not be able to see the pedestrian crossing the road before it is too late. Thus, if I were to put myself into the driver’s shoes, I can empathize with him that he may feel alcohol is the main cause of this problem.
After knowing the problem, I can come out with two solutions. Firstly, ban alcohol so that no one can drink them, and there would be no drink-driving occurrences. Secondly, ban cars so no one can drive in them, and thus there would not be such accidents anymore. However, since these two solutions are too extremist and would not be popular with Singaporeans, we could try more subtle ways to solve this problem. For example, we could try to encourage drives to bring a friend along when he goes drinking and makes sure that his friend is sober, so that his friend can drive him home. Another solution could be calling a taxi to bring you back home and take back your car the next day.
The pedestrian could also help out in solving this problem if they could avoid crossing roads in the middle of the night or looking cautiously left and right before crossing as “the road is as dangerous as a tiger”.
Lastly, I feel that even if a driver drinks alcohol drives off after that and gets into an accident, we must still sympathize him as he is a human, he may make mistakes sometimes, allowing his desires of alcohol get the better of him and still feeling confident enough to go driving.
I apologize if my solutions seemed immature as I am not eighteen years old yet, so I cannot drink and drive.
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