Freedom of Speech
I spent an entire bus journey reading that book on political science. Taken up quite an interest in PS recently, and its amazing to discover how much I don't know about the workings of the world.
One part of the book really caught my attention. It was on "freedom of speech" and "freedom of press." In that part, it quoted Justice Hugo Black on the Pentagon Papers case in 1971.
"Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the Government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell... [T]he newspapers nobly did precisely that which the founders hoped and trusted they would do."
The Pentagon Papers case was an example of how the Supreme court rejected the Government's effort to block publication of one of their Vietnam war studies based on security grounds. I compared the American press to our local press and quickly realized the difference. We've never seen a single publication of a scandal in our government. Or at least, I haven't seen one in my life time. PS: NKF not considered government.
Then there was the part on Freedom of Speech and Sedition. The book, a rather introductory book to political science, raised a few basic questions. Freedom of speech is a hallmark to any democratic nation, and no government has can pass laws to abridge it. The people are allowed to publicly and peacefully assemble and petition the government, to redress grievances.
But of course, this is not without limits. And I fully agree that Sedition laws should apply to those who abuse freedom of speech (even in Singapore, though somewhat limited) to spread hatred, incite violence, and malicious falsehoods. In recognizing clear and present danger, the government may and should impose restrictions to freedom of speech and expression.
Sadly, Singaporeans do not practice their freedom of speech in fear of questionable freedom after speech. And after a while, Singaporeans will become apathetic towards the government's policies even when it affects them negatively. We are already seeing signs of this today, where Singaporeans hardly speak out against the CPF scheme that would greatly reduce their access to their money. In the long run, we would find ourselves in shortage of leaders who can make good and sustainable policies from a pool of citizens who can't be bothered.
I think there are a few good reasons why we are in such a sad state where few people speak up.
1. While the government does not oppress the people from exercising their freedom of speech in criticism to the government, there have been several cases of civil lawsuits filed against some of the more vocal opposition politicians who have spoken up. Of course, these are NEGATIVE examples of how to voice out, and perhaps deserved the trouble they got into. Still, I suspect most Singaporeans have become intimidated by the examples, and prefer to remain silent instead of being bankrupted.
2. Perhaps causal to the above mentioned negative examples, would be the education system of the past, failing to educate proper exercise of freedom of speech. Failing to teach people how to make claims, to make criticism in a civil manners and be prepared to back claims up with evidence. Coming from a slightly better off government/neighborhood school, we were hardly taught on how to think, analyze and structure arguments. Exceptions were some of us who liked to participate in school debates. The rest were just taught to study, and to do well academically.
In any case, these are just some thoughts I had after I did some reading into something new and exciting. Just meant to record it down somewhere so I can refer to it again in the future.
listening to the rain...
7:31 PM
