> All I can do is look at Singapore from the outside and be in awe (look at their neigbhours.. then look at Poland's or USA's neighbours and compare the amount of fear).
I look at Singapore on the Press Freedom Index (rank 155 out of 180) and am not in awe at all. It scares me that people who grew up in liberal democracies find something to admire about its model.
Perhaps it's just that our life experiences are different.
I grew up in the shadow of the Iron Curtain. My mother's family fled East Germany shortly after WW2. My father's home was within a couple of miles of the inner German border. I got to visit East Berlin before the Wall came down. My memories of explicitly government-regulated speech are negative, through and through.
All I can say is that I never want a government to have that much control over speech. The hypothetical use of that power for good does not offset the damage it can cause in the wrong hands, and in an authoritarian country, there is no way to peacefully remove the government from power if it chooses to abuse that power.
> Freedom of speech has really come to mean outright lies, slander, fear mongering, FUD, bullshit, conspiracies and so on. What value does speech have if the only defense is "it's not illegal" and not "it's right".
There are a number of fallacies here.
* One is the assumption that in order to restrict harmful speech, it has to be ordered from above. (Seriously, Hobbes's idea that you need an authoritarian ruler to protect liberties is a bit dated.)
* Another is that having an authoritarian government would fix this. The worst offenders when it comes to speech aimed at undermining liberties are people already in power. An authoritarian government would exacerbate that issue. Whatever side "won" would also get the power to suppress any speech they don't like.
* We don't protect potentially harmful speech because we like it, but because of the dangers if we open up speech to government censorship. While one can argue that maybe Brandenburg v. Ohio went a bit too far, the underlying idea – to keep the government at a safe distance from regulating individual expression, even expression that you strongly dislike – is sound ("freedom is always the freedom of dissenters"). If there's a role for government, it would be to ensure that valid opinions aren't squeezed out (Fairness Doctrine and such), not to ban harmful speech.
> The problem with Singapore is that PAP is actually competent and far from Orban/Putin level.
The underlying problem is that with an authoritarian government you have no recourse if it changes its attitude. Prussia was run competently, too, until Wilhelm II inherited the throne. Authoritarian rule is always a gamble.
There's a reason why Popper argued that "who should rule" is the wrong question [1]:
> Karl Popper identified this attitude as the "Who should rule?"
> approach to politics. He pointed out that it is a bad question
> which seeks an authoritarian answer. Actually, rulers are only
> a means to an end. What we need are good policies, whether
> that comes from one ruler, or many rulers in succession, or no
> rulers.
> What we should focus on instead of who gets to rule is
> creating a system in which errors are corrected. That means
> that bad policies can be changed and bad rulers removed from
> power. And both of those should be possible without violence.
> All people can do is say they have low press freedom index but what can you do?
I think you're misunderstanding. Freedom of the press is just one example. Civil liberties in Singapore are seriously curtailed, and it's not just freedom of speech. Ask HRW and Amnesty what they think of Singapore; ask LGBT people in Singapore in particular what they think about the "competent" PAP's attitude towards them. Well, except that you can't really, because they may get punished for speaking their minds.
> Gays do not eat feces and do not drink piss and anal blood but Church handed out leaflets with 'research' that says they do (and that's why being gay will make you sick) to young children and there were no consequences.
And yet, being gay in Poland is legal, while in Singapore same-sex activity can be a criminal offense.
> Calls online and otherwise for killing Donald Tusk for being a traitor, congratulating ISIS for killing gays on facebook (that's illegal in Poland already and people were doing it under their own real names), saying elections were rigged if you lost and providing no proof, claiming there are huge conspiracies financed by the JEW Soros, etc. Why exactly is this allowed? What value does that 'speech' bring? Why is the Polish law not enforced?
Because the party in power doesn't care. It may surprise you, but there's no First Amendment in Poland. There are significantly more restrictions on freedom of speech than you think, but, oddly, they do not have the effect you wish for.
I look at Singapore on the Press Freedom Index (rank 155 out of 180) and am not in awe at all. It scares me that people who grew up in liberal democracies find something to admire about its model.
Perhaps it's just that our life experiences are different.
I grew up in the shadow of the Iron Curtain. My mother's family fled East Germany shortly after WW2. My father's home was within a couple of miles of the inner German border. I got to visit East Berlin before the Wall came down. My memories of explicitly government-regulated speech are negative, through and through.
All I can say is that I never want a government to have that much control over speech. The hypothetical use of that power for good does not offset the damage it can cause in the wrong hands, and in an authoritarian country, there is no way to peacefully remove the government from power if it chooses to abuse that power.
> Freedom of speech has really come to mean outright lies, slander, fear mongering, FUD, bullshit, conspiracies and so on. What value does speech have if the only defense is "it's not illegal" and not "it's right".
There are a number of fallacies here.
* One is the assumption that in order to restrict harmful speech, it has to be ordered from above. (Seriously, Hobbes's idea that you need an authoritarian ruler to protect liberties is a bit dated.)
* Another is that having an authoritarian government would fix this. The worst offenders when it comes to speech aimed at undermining liberties are people already in power. An authoritarian government would exacerbate that issue. Whatever side "won" would also get the power to suppress any speech they don't like.
* We don't protect potentially harmful speech because we like it, but because of the dangers if we open up speech to government censorship. While one can argue that maybe Brandenburg v. Ohio went a bit too far, the underlying idea – to keep the government at a safe distance from regulating individual expression, even expression that you strongly dislike – is sound ("freedom is always the freedom of dissenters"). If there's a role for government, it would be to ensure that valid opinions aren't squeezed out (Fairness Doctrine and such), not to ban harmful speech.