No, it's not just you. I'm genuinely curious to see how HN's pro-Singapore members will respond to this — particularly, as you observe, the ones who are otherwise ostensibly very libertarian.
It seems like "libertarian" in the last six months is being used more and more often as a contentless slur on HN. Not even with the standard stereotypes from those who disagree (selfish, greedy, etc.), I mean just flat-out content-free, no apparent understanding that it is a word with some meaning (even if ultimately as fuzzy as any other major political label).
"What about Singapore?" seems like a decent challenge to a libertarian. (I'm just using that observation that that is a fair, nontrivial question to further my main point. It's not a request for 150 messages providing a libertarian critique of Singapore; I've got one, thanks.)
I always get giddy when a libertarian on reddit points Singapore out as the kind of country they want to live in: low taxes, high economic freedom! But that's only because they don't realize its an actual police state! (whereas we could argue that the USA is only partially a police state)
They then move onto talking about Hong Kong...
Mostly these accusations are made by people who have never even been to Singapore and never experienced a police state.
A lot of US criticism sounds awfully ironic, too, when you consider that the things being strongly criticized - lack of certain freedoms, for example - are often worse (or not much better) in America.
Also, it seems like you find "not as bad as America" to be more comforting than I do.
Nope, not in the slightest. This is your bias talking. It has nothing to do with me. I hate this law as much as anybody.
I think I might actually be the only person in this thread not from America.
If your motivation for pointing out that America has some extremely poor properties, even when held in comparison to Singapore, was to somehow reassure me about anything concerning Singapore, then your attempt fell flat.
Saying that the food your diner serves is better than burnt toast does not comfort me. Similarly, saying that you are better than America does not comfort me.
If I say "Your eggs are burnt", don't tell me "well the diner across the street sells burnt toast" and expect me to think better of you.
If your intent was not to comfort me in some way with this comparison, then I don't know what the point of the comparison was. I am confused as to why you are making comparisons to other countries, not why you are making a comparison to America in particular.
My motivation was not to reassure you about anything.
My point was to dismiss one of the more popular misconceptions about this country (that it is a police state/dictatorship) by comparing it with one that most people on this website are largely familiar with, and largely agree is not a dictatorship or a police state.
>I am confused as to why you are making comparisons to other countries, not why you are making a comparison to America in particular.
I am making comparison to countries that most readers of this site will be familiar with because most will not be familiar with Singapore.
I am confused as to why you are confused. This all seems painfully obvious to me.
You picked a poor country to compare it to then.
Congratulations, America is burnt toast and Singapore prides itself for being "better than burnt toast". Quite the sales pitch.
Your comparison does nothing of the sort though; America is a police state.
Just look at how many people we imprison (particularly in for-profit prisons), our absurd war on drugs with absolutely obscene punishments and classifications of drugs that defy scientific literature, the number of people executed in America every single year, America's ludicrous notion of civil forfeit that involves the government suing inanimate objects that are incapable of defending themselves, a country where the public prosecutor is a political position used as a stepping stone to greater politics (provided the politician in question can achieve high conviction rates at all costs...) police departments that are increasingly using "seized" property with no legitimate notion of due process to buy themselves "riot gear" and drones...
What is the point of looking at that list and saying "well we aren't that bad"? You are just telling me that your toast is better than burnt.
I am telling you that your toast may not be burnt, but your diner sure as shit still smells of smoke.
If you like burnt food, then knock yourself out, but don't pretend for an instant that it isn't burnt.
I thought this might be what you are getting at.
I suspect that, if you find somebody who has lived under the Stasi, or Ceaucescu in Romania, or in North Korea or Burma, or various other examples of actual police states, they'll fall all over themselves telling you how good you've got it.
>What is the point of looking at that list and saying "well we aren't that bad"?
Haha, people might be less inclined to visit me if they thought that the secret police might jail them for thought crime?
I dunno what to say other than "it's good to keep some sort of perspective". I certainly don't deny your criticisms are valid. I just think both societies have a whole lot more to go before they qualify as stasi-esque police states.
I hate the proposal, of course. Plain and simple.
It still doesn't make PAP a fascist dictatorship or a police state, though. Plus, while censorship and control over the American media is a lot more subtly done, I think it's almost as pervasive as it is here.
You might find http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/neocame... interesting. (Moldbug is crazy, but sometimes interesting.)
In many respects, Singapore has a small government which is efficient on the narrow set of things almost everyone agrees governments must do. That makes it worth learning from, in those respects.
In particular and with regard to your point about highly-paid officials, I'd prefer the US government be much smaller, but I'd happily pay US officials far more if they did fewer things very well with businesslike efficiency.
The things Singapore does well don't excuse their censorship... but every extant government is a mix of good and bad, legitimacy and abuse. We don't learn by rapidly sorting things into Manichean all-good or all-bad categories – even though activists of all creeds try to demand this sort of simplistic 'with us or against us' thinking. We learn by delaying judgement, studying the details, and being open to new information.