TR EMERITUS – Untold Hard Truths From Around The World – 淡马锡评论 – formerly Temasek Review

Malicious attempt to smear Tan Kin Lian

There are posts going around showing maliciously angled photo of Mr Tan Kin Lian holding onto a little girl on Normination Day, and was commented and captioned with tons of nasty and disgusting comments. That little girl is his granddaughter and my daughter. She was supporting her grandfather on the field and was excited to see him when he came over to the rail for photos. She ran over in excitement calling out 'Yeh Yeh'. My father, Mr Tan Kin Lian then reached out to hug his grand daughter over the railing. This is a loving moment between a grandfather and his grand daughter but the photo was maliciously angled and captioned. For those of you haters who took such a loving moment and smeared him, shame on you. Look at yourself in the mirror and hope one day someone does not judge you for holding your own daughter or grand daughter. * Facebook post by Tan Boon Keng, son of Tan Kin Lian. Read More →

Who Should You Vote For?

I'm reading ancient Greek literature and history as our Presidential election campaign enters its last weeks. I now have some doubts about how we choose candidates. The Greeks had a clearer vision than we have. For instance, they observe that failure does not imply ineptitude. Think about Oedipus. He serves as the prototype for the Athenian statesman, nevertheless, Oedipus dies a horrible death, banished and blind. Why? not due to his lack of competence. He is incredibly intelligent, tenacious, and brave. He is, nevertheless, a victim of fate. For the dramatist, the gods' will or their foreknowledge of what must occur—determine fate. But I also prefer chance to fate, but we don't use either one nearly enough to describe why things go wrong for politicians. We frequently overlook the possibility that even the most well-thought-out and executed decisions might fail for factors beyond of a leader's control. The personal flaws of their leaders didn't bother the Greeks as much as they did us. However, any 'indication of weakness', especially in the closing stages of our presidential elections, may work strongly against a candidate. The main source of our distorted perspective is an incorrect comparison between politics and competitive sports. Even when their opponent was plainly stronger and only lost due to horrible luck, or lack of self-preparation and training. All three decisions—hiring a worker, selecting a spouse, and picking a president — seem to fit neatly into the sports model. In actuality, there is a clear distinction between politics and sports. The only purpose of a game's rules is to decide who will win. What the winner does following the game is irrelevant in terms of the regulations. The "rules" governing real-life decisions, however, must be reliable indicators of what the victor will do once the decision has been made. In an election we need reasons for thinking that the winner will go on to be a good president. There’s no reason to think that someone who has been successful just out of luck will continue to be successful; and there’s every reason to think that anyone is likely to act wrongly sometimes in the future. Because of this, it is incorrect to equate competence with success or to view sporadic slip-ups as disqualifying. Elections are made amusing by looking for crucial mistakes in the final few weeks, which also provides lazy or disinterested voters with a quick decision-making option. However, it has little to do with selecting a presidential candidate wisely. The more serious error, though, is to think that a presidential election should typically revolve around the candidates' qualifications and moral character. Character flaws and ineptitude that would disqualify someone are improbable under the current system. Anyone who has managed to secure a national party's nomination is likely to possess a sufficient level of competence for leading. And given the level of scrutiny candidates receive, any severe character faults would have been already uncovered. Therefore, how should we elect our president? Typically, I suggest voting for the party that the individual represents. PAP, Opposition and Non-partizan. All that we can realistically anticipate is that the nation will likely move in the ideological direction of the party of the victorious candidate. Naturally, a large portion of voters have a strong party loyalty. Others will think we should lean in a certain partisan way at least for the next six years. The best course of action is to vote for the party you support because there is no reliable way to forecast who will prove to be the "better man"; that is largely a matter of luck. Sjorne Shen Read More →