Oh, and the “chewing gum crisis” reference was a joke. SOHF?

The elections , for all their pettiness towards opposition candidates, are free and regular -if the people had deigned to do so, they could have had a very different sort of government and society. I say this sadly as someone who has been involved with what civic society there exists here. Singaporeans are, by and large, willing to pay the price in terms of civic and political freedoms for their own disneyland with the death penalty. Of course inheriting a crappy parliamentary election system from the Brits helped as did the repressive Internal Security Act the Brits initially set up to fight the communists.

A note: the Americans have actually operated under the radar here in the past, aiding the cause of several opposition figures, notably Francis Seow, now a fugitive in the US. This is more than any other western power has done. Rice’s articulation of the new US foreign policy to support the ‘democratic aspirations’ of people everywhere(once they are done with the middleeast, of course, ha!) is not necessarily a cynical lie.

Do enough Singaporeans have such aspirations? If they do, they will not need the help of the Americans or any other of you patronising western liberals- we will manage it under our own steam, thank you.

The SALE, not consumption, of chewing gum may still be banned in genuinely democratic and free Singapore. Please note that one always knows that one is dealing with patronising western claptrap when chewing gum is overblown into a ‘crisis’ and invariably brought up in relation to Singapore. It is really a non-issue here but then again, none of you pundits really cares about Singapore nor Iran for that matter, do you?
It is all about the US and ultimately, you.

Welcome to the Carnival of Revolutions! In this time, in our time, we’re witnessing history unfolding every day, a spontaneous explosion of political activity breaking out around the world. We’ve seen it in Ukraine. We’ve seen it in Lebanon. But…

I think it was d-squared who said it originally, but the Heritage people’s idea of freedom consists of going down to the local harbour and doing a quick yacht count. The rest is frippery.

‘Mr Blair, who has spent five days trying to impress on Asia the new thinking in Labour, told reporters that Mr Lee’s success in building a society encompassing all its citizens “very much reflects my own political philosophy.”‘

Offically he was harpering on about his now largely forgotten Stake-holder welfare policy – but with ID cards and the succession of anti-terror laws, one wonders what else Blair meant by that statement.

On the main point… yes, but… My guess would be that the Administration sees bigger fish to fry – even within the region, they’d sooner see Indonesia achieve lasting political order, and Malaysia clean up more, than upset an otherwise stable applecart in Singapore. Sad but true. There’s also another side to this – Singapore has lots of goodwill in Washington because Lee Kuan Yew was reliable during the Cold War. Again perhaps, sad but true.

Anyway, the US obviously doesn’t see freedom solely in terms of freedom to buy and sell – ask the window cleaner…